God Wrapt Him Poem by Alexander Anderson

God wrapt him in a world of purer light
And clearer thought. His soul
Pulsed into being, gifted with far might.
The roll


Of inner melodies was his to sing,
And teach its power to men.
His words, like the full breath of virgin Spring,
Again


Shook drops of noble life upon the heart
Waiting for such, which beat,
At the high cunning of his rhythmic art,
In heat


Of music. Pealing to all ends of earth,
The God-given mighty sound
Rose up, and brought with it a purer birth,
Whose bound


Was from the earth to heaven. As he sang,
In high, rapt moods, he threw
Strange utterances that fell without a clang,
Like dew


On hearts of men, who, feeling their soul stirr'd
Far down within, from dim
Thoughts, question'd 'If the power was in the word,
Or him?'


They struck strange Memnons, getting vain replies,
And vainer sounds, but still
They ask'd the foolish and the seeming wise
What will


Bore him thus up to catch the inward tones
That light as cloudlets float
So far above in heaven's star-gemm'd zones
Remote.


At length they came upon one man who stood
Rapt in his thought, alone,
Around him all the deep, forecasting mood
Was thrown.


He said, 'The poet fathoms, as he sings,
With eye and heart, the high
Pure influences of supernal things,
Which fly


From earth to heaven. He, as on a chord
That some deft finger plays,
Touches the heart and lip with many a word,
That strays,


Making fair melody, as on it floats
In shapeless flight, till those
Who listen hear God's co-eternal thoughts
Disclose


Their meaning in its music, as a tone
Which one may hear, at first
Starting from low beginnings, rolling on
To burst


In far reverberations, echoing
In climaxes along,
Till, as with one broad, universal wing
The strong


Eternal harmony still rising up
To join with heaven, but seems
The veilèd Beautiful, with golden cup,
Whose streams


Forever flowing cool hot hearts and lips
Of eager men, until
They feel the half of God's apocalypse.
The skill


By which the poet, standing among men,
One of themselves, works this,
Is caught from God, but to go back again,
For His


Are all the melodies, from the far spheres
Down to the lowest winds
That open unseen lips when twilight nears.
Men's minds


Glow at such manifold tones, and rising higher
To purer heights they feel
The omnific splendours of the poet's fire
Reveal


The everlasting good framed out for men,
And all the cross and dim
Great world grows clearer, lifting up again
To Him


Who made it all its thousand hands of prayer,
By solemn night and day,
As if great angels with their harps were there
Alway.


Thus the high poet, feeling all his art,
In stirless calm, repeats
That breathing which, from God's own leaping heart,
Completes


All systems that have in eternal space
Their starr'd and blue abodes:
He grasps their music, standing with his face
To God's.