Читать книгу Poems - John L. Stoddard - Страница 6

Table of Contents

I know not how, I know not where,

But from my own heart's mystic lore

I feel that I have breathed this air,

And walked this earth before;

And that in this, its latest form

My old-time spirit once more strives,

As it has fought through many a storm

In past, forgotten lives.

Not inexperienced did my soul

This incarnation's threshold tread;

Not recordless has proved the scroll

It brought back from the dead.

To certain, special lines of thought

My mind intuitively tends,

And old affinities have brought

Not new, but ancient friends.

What thrilled me in a previous state

Rekindles here its ancient flame;

What I by instinct love and hate

I knew before I came;

And lands, of which in youth I dreamed

And read, heart-moved, and longed to see,

When really visited, have seemed

Not strange but known to me.

When Mozart, still a child, untaught,

Ran joyous to the silent keys,

And with inspired fingers wrought

Majestic harmonies,

There fell upon his psychic ear

Faint echoes of a music known

Before his natal advent here,

In former lives outgrown.

In many a dumb brute's wistful eyes

A dawning human soul aspires,

For thus from lower forms we rise—

Ourselves our spirits' sires.

Full many a thought that thrills my breast

Is fruit resulting from a seed

Sown elsewhere—on my soul impressed

By many an arduous deed;

Full many a fetter which hath lamed

My struggling spirit's upward flight

Was once by that same spirit framed,

When further from the Light;

With justice, therefore, comes the pain

That o'er the tortured world extends;

And hopeful is the lessening stain,

As each life-cycle ends.

No changeless, endless states await

The good and evil souls set free;

Each grave is a successive gate

In immortality.

Too long this mighty truth hath slept

Among the darkened souls of men—

"Ye cannot see God's face, except

Ye shall be born again."

The God-like Christs and Buddhas yearn,

However high their spirits' stage,

For man's salvation to return,

As Saviour or as Sage.

On our benighted, groping minds

Their noble precepts, star-like, shine;

Each soul, that wisely seeks them, finds

The truths that are divine.

Misunderstood and vilified,

Their aims and motives scarcely known,

How many of these Saints have died,

Rejected by their own!

Yet, though their followers miss the way,

In spite of precept and of prayer,

And lead unnumbered souls astray,

Committed to their care,

Upon the lofty spirit-plane,

Where all lies open to their sight,

The Masters know that not in vain

They left the Hills of Light.