The Voice of the Soul

In Youth, when through our veins runs fast     The bright red stream of life,     The Souls Voice is a trumpet-blast     That calls us to the strife.     The Spirit spurns its prison-bars,     And feels with force endued     To scale the ramparts of the stars     And storm Infinitude.     Youth passes; like a dungeon grows     The Spirits house of clay:     The voice that once in music rose     In murmurs dies away.     But in the day when sickness sore     Smites on the bodys walls,     The Souls Voice through the breach once more     Like to a trumpet calls.     Well shall it be with him who heeds     The mystic summons then!     His after-life with loving deeds     Shall blossom amongst men.     He shall have gifts, the gift that feels     The germ within the clod,     And hears the whirring of the wheels     That turn the mills of God!     The gift that sees with glance profound     The secret soul of things,     And in the silence hears the sound     Of vast and viewless wings!     The veil of Isis sevenfold     To him as gauze shall be,     Wherethrough, clear-eyed, he shall behold     The Ancient Mystery.     He shall do battle for the True,     Defend till death the Right,     With Shoes of Swiftness Wrong pursue,     With Sword of Sharpness smite.     And, dying, he shall haply hear,     Like golden trumpets blown     For joy, far voices sweet and clear,     Soul-voices like his own.     So welcomed may he join the Throng     Upon the Shining Shore,     As one who, after wandering long,     Returneth home once more!