40
THE STAR IN THE WEST
Thine
be the kingdom
! Thine the power !
The glory triply
thine !
Thine, through
Eternity's
swift
hour ,
Eternity , thy
shrine
Yea , by the holy lotus -flower ,
Even mine !
Further on in the same series of poems
a sudden
whirring sense of madness is produced
by introducing
the word
“ lunatic
” into an otherwise
regular
line :
Silence , deep silence .
Not a shudder
stirs
The vast demesne of unforgetful
space ,
No comet's lunatic
rush : no meteor whirs ,
No star dares breathe .
Again , in such lines as :
Secure
the sacred
fastness of the soul ,
Uniting self to the absolute , the whole ,3
our ears tell us at once that
the extra half- step
is in
tentionally
introduced
.
Whilst
in such
a line as :
And
loving
servant of my lady and lord ,
they do not .
The “ y " in lady might
by some be con
sidered
an admissible
elision
with the
" and . ”
But
I myself
should
not pass it, though
in the following
I should
:
Many
the spirits
broken
for one man ;
Many
the men that perish to create
One God the more ; many the weary
and wan5
In the last line of the succeeding
verse the metre
( I
should
say) is not unimpeachable
:
1 The Temple
of the Holy Ghost , vol . i, p. 205.
Ibid . vol . i, p. 209.
: Mysteries
: Lyrical and Dramatic
, vol . i, p. 107.
4 Ibid . vol . i, p. 98.
5 The Temple
of the Holy Ghost , vol . i, p. 210.