Vane's Story.

And filled and overfilled me soon

With light and music, with the swoon

Of too much rapture and amaze,

A murmurous hush, a luminous haze.

How long in this sweet swoon I lay,

What hours or years, I cannot say ;

Vast arcs of the celestial sphere

Subtend such little angles here.

But after the ineffable,

This first I can remember well :

A Rose of Heaven, so dewy- sweet

Its fragrance was a soul complete,

Came, touched my brow, caressed my lips.

And then my eyes in their eclipse ;

And still I stirred not, though there came

A wine of fire through all my frame,

An ecstasy of joy and love,

A vision of the throne above,

A myriad-voiced triumphant psalm

Upswelling through a splendour calm ;

Then suddenly, as if a door

Were shut, veiled silence as before.


JAMES THOMSON