<h2><SPAN name="chap66"></SPAN>MAGIC</h2>
<h5>TO W.S.B.</h5>
<p class="poem">
I ran into the sunset light<br/>
As hard as I could run:<br/>
The treetops bowed in sheer delight<br/>
As if they loved the sun:<br/>
And all the songs of little birds<br/>
Who laughed and cried in silver words<br/>
Were joined as they were one.<br/>
<br/>
And down the streaming golden sky<br/>
A lark came circling with a cry<br/>
Of wonder-weaving joy:<br/>
And all the arch of heaven rang<br/>
Where meadowlands of dreaming hang<br/>
As when I was a boy.<br/>
<br/>
And through the ringing solitude<br/>
In pulsing lovely amplitude<br/>
A mist hung in a shroud,<br/>
As though the light of loneliness<br/>
Turned pure delight to holiness,<br/>
And bathed it in a cloud.<br/>
<br/>
I stripped my laughing body bare<br/>
And plunged into that holy air<br/>
That washed me like a sea,<br/>
And raced against its silver tide<br/>
That stroked my eager glancing side<br/>
And made my spirit free.<br/>
<br/>
Across the limits of the land<br/>
The wind and I swept hand and hand<br/>
Beyond the golden glow.<br/>
We danced across the ocean plain<br/>
Like thrushes singing in the rain<br/>
A song of long ago.<br/>
<br/>
And on into the silver night<br/>
We strove to win the race with light<br/>
And bring the vision home,<br/>
And bring the wonder home again<br/>
Unto the sleeping eyes of men<br/>
Across the singing foam.<br/>
<br/>
And down the river of the world<br/>
Our glowing, limbs in glory swirled<br/>
As spring within a flower,<br/>
And stars in music of delight<br/>
Streamed gayly down our shoulders white<br/>
Like petals in a shower.<br/>
<br/>
And tears of awful wonder ran<br/>
Adown my cheeks to hear the clan<br/>
Of beauty chaunting white<br/>
The prayer too deep for living word,<br/>
Or sight of man or winging bird,<br/>
Or music over forest heard<br/>
At falling of the night.<br/>
<br/>
And dropping slowly as the dew<br/>
On grasses that the winds renew<br/>
In urge of flooding fire,<br/>
And softly as the hushing boughs<br/>
The gentle airs of dawn arouse<br/>
To cradle morning’s quire.<br/>
<br/>
The murmur of the singing leaves<br/>
Around the secret Flame,<br/>
Like mating swallows ’neath the eaves<br/>
In rustling silence came,<br/>
And flowing through the silent air<br/>
Creation fluttered in a prayer<br/>
Descending on a spiral stair,<br/>
And calling me by name.<br/>
<br/>
It nestled in my dreaming eyes<br/>
Like heaven in a lake,<br/>
And softened hope into surprise<br/>
For very beauty’s sake,<br/>
And silence blossomed into morn,<br/>
Whose fragrant rosy-breasted dawn<br/>
Could scarcely bear to break.<br/>
<br/>
I sang into the morning light<br/>
As loud as I could sing,<br/>
The treetops bowed in sheer delight<br/>
Before the slanting wing.<br/>
And all the songs of little birds<br/>
Who laughed and cried in silver words<br/>
Adored the Risen Spring.</p>
<p class="left">
EDWARD J. O’BRIEN</p>
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