MYSTIC DISTANCE
O strength of ecstasies and dreams, all art from you
Glows with a fan of hues and in mystis tones resounds,
Beneath your spell, thoughts in a blaze stream through
As the light from the ether in vibrant threads rebounds.
Send down upon my soul, your glowing burning flow
O might victorious, where inspiration lies,
As on to the altar of stone, heavens poured fires below,
Whereon Elias of old offered his bloody sacrifice.
Within my soul dwell sadness and a bitter longing scent,
My thought is just a taper of feeble light that shone
Quiveringly in the human sconce, impure and bent
A taper upon the timeless altar of the Great Unknown.
My blood was not inflamed by a woman’s burning kiss,
Insanity of love ne’er in my visions gleamed,
My nerves were not illumined by the glowing light of bliss
And friendship’s fragrant winds through my life but rarely streamed.
Alone I sat and solved the problems of my strife,
Alone I toiled and bent over the flower-bed of my dreams
More in my thoughts I erred and sinned than in my life
Illusions I once loved, but kissed only yearning’s vaporous streams.
My Springtime was a lonely elegiac song
Played tremulously for me by the Life I knew,
The days of my joys were like a cluster of grass grown strong
As it crowds along the wall and glistens with fallen dew . . .
My memories now are colorless and arid,
Like a pressed-out cudweed, breathing its whitish mold,
In poverties soured atmosphere I early tarried,
And reaped the harvest of the humble, on my hold.
The grandiose light of the Universe that through my vision stole,
With its secret of eternal flames and timeless might,
Was reflected by the mirror of the Cosmos in my soul
And focused itself into a crimson burning nucleus of light.
The stench of dessicated blood I breathed from the tales of old
The terrors of the Unknown, the depths of my soul amassed,
I saw in life the phantom of happiness unfold
And break when refracted by the upper spheres it passed.
I do not long to quench my thirst at life’s water-ways
Nor as Gedeon’s army, drink at the source from out my palms,
I gathered in my soul the tenderness of mystic rays,
And in the Secret shrine I knelt with unknown qualms.
My soul is saddened now, and full of a longing scent,
My thought is just a taper of feeble light that shone
Quiveringly in the human sconce, impure and bent
A taper upon the timeless altar of the Great Unknown . . .
O strength of ecstasies and dreams, all art from you
Glows with a fan of hues and in its tones resounds
Beneath your spell, thoughts in a blaze stream through
As the light from ether in vibrant threads rebounds.
Send down upon my soul your glowing burning flow
O might victorious where inspiration lies,
As onto the altar of stone heavens poured fires below
Wheron Elias of old offered his bloody sacrifice . . .
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1929, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 94 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
|---|---|
| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) between 1929 and 1977 (inclusive) without a copyright notice. The longest-living author of this work died in 1987, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 36 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
