Oracles

THE HERMIT’S HYMN TO SOLITUDE 75 Touch, draw me with thy kiss Into thine own deep bliss, Into thy sleep, thy life, thy imperishable crown ! Let that young godhead in thine eyes Pierce mine, fulfil me of their secrecies, Thy peace, thy purity, thy soul impenetrably wise. II All things which are complete are solitary ; The circling moon, the inconscient drift of stars, The central systems. Burn they, change they, vary ? Theirs is no motion beyond the eternal bars. Seasons and scars Stain not the planets, the unfathomed home, The spaceless, unformed faces in the dome Brighter and blacker than all things, Borne under the eternal wings No whither : solitary are the winter woods And caves not habited, And that supreme grey head Watching the groves : single the foaming amber floods, And O ! most lone The melancholy mountain shrine and throne, While far above all things God sits, the ultimate alone ! III I sate upon the mossy promontory Where the cascade cleft not his mother rock, But swept in whirlwind lightning foam and glory, Vast circling with unwearying luminous shock To lure and lock