I. Dream The Drowned Hart
"A Current Under Sea Picked His Bones In Whispers."
And so the pierced hart doth stagger through the mountain glade,
Where the waters curl with misty ghosts ‘round roots of blackened elm,
So panteth my soul for Thee, O Lorde of the Unnamed Name.
In my throat— a parched psalm, unsung,
On my tongue— a thorned reed bent to the fire noon,
I drink of hollow windes, of spectral dust I eat.
Where art Thou hid, O Unfolded Fire?
Thee have I sought in the moonstung fountains,
In the shattered well, in the saltstone ruins
Where His words once did rise like perfumed smoke.
But now—my tears have been my bitter meat,
And those who pass in gloam do whisper:
"Where is thy God? Hath He fled?"
II. Deep Calleth Unto Deep
"Speak To Me. Why Do You Never Speak. Speak."
O my soul—why dost thou unravel?
What dark bird beats its wings within thy breast?
Hope yet in Him, who hath crowned the peaks with fire,
Who hath buried His Name in the silence of the hills.
Remember thee, O wanderer of the drowned valleys,
Where Harmon’s brow doth gleam with frost?
There His light sears the river’s sinews,
There He whispers in the stone's marrows.
Deep calleth unto deep.
The waters fall—
Not as a brook,
Nor as a stream.
They fall as an ocean undone.
All His waves and billowes have crushed me,
And I am a seed cast to the throate of the sea.
Yet in the shiv’ring dawn shall He not send forth His mercy?
Yea, at even-tide, shall His song not rise?
O my soul, dost thou hear it?
The rippling voice at the world's rusting hinge?
III. To The God Unfound
"Who Is The Third Who Walks Always Beside You?"
I called unto the Unfound Name:
"Why dost Thou vanish in the hush of the wind?
Why dost Thou unmake the road before me,
And cast my shadow where no sun is seen?"
As with a sword in mine owne bones have they pierced me,
They that mock, they that mutter in the shade:
"Where is thy God? Hath He fled?"
O my soul, what is this trembling?
Hope thou still in Him.
For He is the gold vein in the rock,
The thunder’s last echo,
The unseen light that burneth in the dust of the world.
Yea, I shall yet
Praise Him
In the breaking of shadow—
Praise Him
In the embers that fall from the drowning—
Praise Him
-- C. Sandbatch is an American writer.