The Mystic

By Cale Young Rice

1872-1943

There is a quest that calls me,
         In nights when I am lone,
The need to ride where the ways divide
         The Known from the Unknown.
I mount what thought is near me
         And soon I reach the place,
The tenuous rim where the Seen grows dim
         And the Sightless hides its face.

         ~I have ridden the wind,
         I have ridden the sea,
         I have ridden the moon and stars.
         I have set my feet in the stirrup seat
         Of a comet coursing Mars.
         And everywhere
         Thro' the earth and air
         My thought speeds, lightning-shod,
         It comes to a place where checking pace
         It cries, "Beyond lies God!"~

It calls me out of the darkness,
         It calls me out of sleep,
"Ride! ride! for you must, to the end of Dust!"
         It bids -- and on I sweep
To the wide outposts of Being,
         Where there is Gulf alone --
And thro' a Vast that was never passed
         I listen for Life's tone.

         ~I have ridden the wind,
         I have ridden the night,
         I have ridden the ghosts that flee
         From the vaults of death like a chilling breath
         Over eternity.
         And everywhere
         Is the world laid bare --
         Ether and star and clod --
         Until I wind to its brink and find
         But the cry, "Beyond lies God!"~

It calls me and ever calls me!
         And vainly I reply,
"Fools only ride where the ways divide
         What Is from the Whence and Why"!
I'm lifted into the saddle
         Of thoughts too strong to tame
And down the deeps and over the steeps
         I find -- ever the same.

         ~I have ridden the wind,
         I have ridden the stars,
         I have ridden the force that flies
         With far intent thro' the firmament
         And each to each allies.
         And everywhere
         That a thought may dare
         To gallop, mine has trod --
         Only to stand at last on the strand
         Where just beyond lies God.~

I would I might forget that I am I

I would I might forget that I am I,
         And break the heavy chain that binds me fast,
         Whose links about myself my deeds have cast.
What in the body's tomb doth buried lie
Is boundless; 't is the spirit of the sky,
         Lord of the future, guardian of the past,
         And soon must forth, to know his own at last.
In his large life to live, I fain would die.

Happy the dumb beast, hungering for food,
         But calling not his suffering his own;
Blessed the angel, gazing on all good,
         But knowing not he sits upon a throne;
Wretched the mortal, pondering his mood,
         And doomed to know his aching heart alone.

DayPoems Poem No. 1257
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1257.html">The Mystic by Cale Young Rice</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

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