Vera III

Beyond our power of vision, poets say,There is another world of forms unseen,Yet visible to purer eyes than ours.And if the crystal of our sight were clear,We should behold the mountain-slopes of cloud,The moving meadows of the untilled sea,The groves of twilight and the dales of dawn,And every wide and lonely field of air,More populous than cities, crowded closeWith living creatures of all shapes and hues.But if that sight were ours, the things that nowEngage our eyes would seem but dull and dimBeside the wonders of our new-found world,And we should be amazed and overwhelmedNot knowing how to use the plenitudeOf vision.So in Vera's soul, at first,The opening of the second gate of soundLet in confusion like a whirling flood.The murmur of a myriad-throated mob;The trampling of an army through a placeWhere echoes hide; the sudden, whistling flightOf an innumerable flock of birdsAlong the highway of the midnight sky;The many-whispered rustling of the reedsBeneath the passing feet of all the winds;The long-drawn, inarticulate, wailing cryOf million-pebbled beaches when the lashOf stormy waves is drawn across their back,--All these were less bewildering than to hearWhat now she heard at once: the tangled soundOf all that moves within the minds of men.For now there was no measured flow of wordsTo mark the time; nor any intervalOf silence to repose the listening ear.But through the dead of night, and through the calmOf weary noon-tide, through the solemn hushThat fills the temple in the pause of praise,And through the breathless awe in rooms of death,She heard the ceaseless motion and the stirOf never-silent hearts, that fill the worldWith interwoven thoughts of good and ill,With mingled music of delight and grief,With songs of love, and bitter cries of hate,With hymns of faith, and dirges of despair,And murmurs deeper and more vague than all,--Thoughts that are born and die without a name,Or rather, never die, but haunt the soul,With sad persistence, till a name is given.These Vera heard, at first with mind perplexedAnd half-benumbed by the disordered sound.But soon a clearer sense began to pierceThe cloudy turmoil with discerning power.She learned to know the tones of human thoughtAs plainly as she knew the tones of speech.She could divide the evil from the good,Interpreting the language of the mind,And tracing every feeling like a threadWithin the mystic web the passions weaveFrom heart to heart around the living world.

But when at last the Master's second giftWas perfected within her, and she heardAnd understood the secret thoughts of men,A sadness fell upon her, and the loadOf insupportable knowledge pressed her downWith weary wishes to know more, or less.For all she knew was like a broken wordInscribed upon the fragment of a ring;And all she heard was like a broken strainPreluding music that is never played.

Then she remembered in her sad unrestThe Master's parting word,--"a path to peace,"--And turned again to seek him with her grief.She found him in a hollow of the hills,Beside a little spring that issued forthBeneath the rocks and filled a mossy cupWith never-failing water. There he sat,With waiting looks that welcomed her afar."I know that thou hast heard, my child," he said,"For all the wonder of the world of soundIs written in thy face. But hast thou heard,Among the many voices, one of peace?And is thy heart that hears the secret thoughts,The hidden wishes and desires of men,Content with hearing? Art thou satisfied?""Nay, Master," she replied, "thou knowest wellThat I am not at rest, nor have I heardThe voice of perfect peace; but what I hearBrings me disquiet and a troubled mind.The evil voices in the souls of men,Voices of rage and cruelty and fearHave not dismayed me; for I have believedThe voices of the good, the kind, the true,Are more in number and excel in strength.There is more love than hate, more hope than fear,In the deep throbbing of the human heart.But while I listen to the troubled sound,One thing torments me, and destroys my restAnd presses me with dull, unceasing pain.For out of all the minds of all mankind,There rises evermore a questioning voiceThat asks the meaning of this mighty worldAnd finds no answer,--asks, and asks again,With patient pleading or with wild complaint,But wakens no response, except the soundOf other questions, wandering to and fro,From other souls in doubt. And so this voicePersists above all others that I hear,And binds them up together into one,Until the mingled murmur of the worldSounds through the inner temple of my heartLike an eternal question, vainly askedBy every human soul that thinks and feels.This is the heaviness that weighs me down,And this the pain that will not let me rest.Therefore, dear Master, shut the gates again,And let me live in silence as before!Or else,--and if there is indeed a gateUnopened yet, through which I might receiveAn answer in the voice of perfect peace--"

She ceased; and in her upward faltering toneThe question echoed.Then the Master said:"There is another gate, not yet unclosed.For through the outer portal of the earOnly the outer voice of things may pass;And through the middle doorway of the mindOnly the half-formed voice of human thoughts,Uncertain and perplexed with endless doubt;But through the inmost gate the spirit hearsThe voice of that great Spirit who is Life.Beneath the tones of living things He breathesA deeper tone than ever ear hath heard;And underneath the troubled thoughts of menHe thinks forever, and His thought is peace.Behold, I touch thee once again, my child:The third and last of those three hidden gatesThat closed around thy soul and shut thee in,Is open now, and thou shalt truly hear."

Then Vera heard. The spiritual gateWas opened softly as a full-blown flowerUnfolds its heart to welcome in the dawn,And on her listening face there shone a lightOf still amazement and completed joyIn the full gift of hearing.What she heardI cannot tell; nor could she ever tellIn words; because all human words are vain.There is no speech nor language, to expressThe secret messages of God, that makePerpetual music in the hearing heart.Below the voice of waters, and aboveThe wandering voice of winds, and underneathThe song of birds, and all the varying tonesOf living things that fill the world with sound,God spoke to her, and what she heard was peace.

So when the Master questioned, "Dost thou hear?"She answered, "Yea, at last I hear." And thenHe asked her once again, "What hearest thou?What means the voice of Life?" She answered, "Love!For love is life, and they who do not loveAre not alive. But every soul that loves,Lives in the heart of God and hears Him speak."