THERE IS A SPIRIT VERY NEAR TO ME

I.

There is a spirit very near to mine;
A spirit clear and open to the proud
Wide influences manifold of cloud
And hill and tree and every living sign.
For interwoven in the life of things
Is she, who fills with music since her birth
The everlasting silence of the earth,
And with her sweet adored presence brings
The urgent life of deep rich summer skies
Before the marching clouds impose their fear
Upon the shadowed plains. O all things clear
And elemental haunt those pensive eyes
Which unexplored lands with me have sought
Down every silent lamplit path of thought.

II.

More than the clouds and seas and changeless hills
Serve Nature as a subtle instrument
To line the undiscovered soul that fills
The dim large pages of her argument,
So is my being to your purpose bent,
By you controlled, held, mastered, finely wrought;
And in your kiss is set the monument
Of each dear mingling of our separate thought.
For from the source of life, removed and deep,
And from the secret mind’s most secret part
Your dear love rising while I wake or sleep
Impregnates each deep rhythm of my heart:
And as a lake held in a mountain range
My heart is held in yours and cannot change.

Cyril O. Wakefield-Harrey, C.M.G. – Britain – (1894 – 1971)

Harrey. C.O. (2018) Collected Poems: New Translations: New Translations. The Foolish Poet Press, Wilmslow, England. THERE IS A SPIRIT VERY NEAR TO ME. Page Number 54.

Harrey, C.O. (1920) “Cambridge Poets 1914-1920 – An Anthology”. W. Heffer & Sons Ltd: Cambridge. (Page 103)

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