AMBERGRIS 
61 
 
 
 
FROM ORACLES 
 
The Hermit’s Hymn to Solitude 
 
I. 
Mightiest Self !  Supreme in Self-Contentment ! 
Sole Spirit gyring in its own ellipse ; 
Palpable, formless, infinite presentment 
Of thine own light in thine own soul’s eclipse ! 
Let thy chast lips 
Sweep through the empty æthers guarding thee 
(As in a fortress girded by the sea 
The ranging winds and wings of air 
Lift the wild waves and bear 
Innavigable foam to seaward), bend thee down, 
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,