by Steve King
© 2011
All rights reserved
The dream washed over me,
a murmur to breach
my sleep-stopped ears,
as from a familiar;
I felt afar its call,
as the settled sea
might feel a lifting wave:
‘Do not fear me,’ it said.
‘I speak to you only as I must.
‘Giving sense both to your days
and to your small moments,
I will sing of what you most love,
will show you all these things,
if there is yet a doubt.
I will find for you the words
that wait, so separate now
from your reluctant tongue.
From pellucid airs
will spring the stuff
to make whole worlds,
and bring to hand
unmargined firmaments.
‘Do not fear.
You must believe;
surrender,
and I will grant you
that which has eluded;
things that shall outlive
the transient pleasures
in these petty wants.
‘I speak as to a stranger
because you are;
I suffuse you and am within you,
though you do not yet see,
though you have never felt
the truest of my powers.
‘Do not fear me.
No more false witness!
I am the echo
to your heart’s solemn beat;
I will bring the song,
your joyous ode,
the flourish that does flatter.
I will sound at last
the note that sustains.
Yes, I shall be to you
the shout that declares,
the roar that defines.’
