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 Volume 1.5 This View’s Poetry March 11, 2002 


    Inspirations    
         
   

Sometimes, I know not why, nor how, nor whence,
  A change comes over me, and then the task
  Of common life slips from me. Would you ask
What power is this which bids the world go hence?
  Who knows? I only feel a faint perfume
  Steal through the rooms of life; a saddened sense
Of something lost; a music as of brooks
That babble to the sea; pathetic looks
  Of closing eyes that in a darkened room
  Once dwelt on mine: I feel the general doom
Creep nearer, and with God I stand alone.
  O mystic sense of sudden quickening!
Hope’s lark-song rings, or life’s deep undertone
  Wails through my heart — and then I needs must sing.

   
         
    William James Dawson (1854-1928)    
    Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse p. 391    

    Triad    
         
    From the Silence of Time, Time’s Silence borrow.
In the heart of To-day is the word of To-morrow.
The Builders of Joy are the Children of Sorrow.
   
         
    William Sharp (1856-1902)    
    Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse p. 400