The Wild Voice

Oh, the wild voice, the wild one singing in the trees!
I heard it this morning, and since then my mortal ease
Has been sent scampering like a frightened child.
I long to hear it yet again, that voice of the wild.

I was in the garden when I heard it arising,
Itself as the voice of a mortal for a moment disguising.
And then it cast that aside like a tired old story,
And became the wild voice, the resplendent glory.

Resplendent beauty, it achieved note after note
That could never come forth from any human throat.
It was crystalline and silver, gold and sappharine,
Saffron and royal purple, this wild voice of mine.

In me it awoke an old longing I thought put to rest,
A dream I think I dreamed upon my mother's breast:
A dream of a land where the silver sea whispers,
Where the wind blows silver, and the Dream stirs.

There fleeting moments take their stretch of time;
There dragons fly the air, and unicorns chime
From glade to glade, speaking their ancient tongue
That is not spoken so much as horn-sung.

There sunsets are shades not seen on the earth;
There elves and faeries and others have birth.
There is the Dream; held in that Dream's hand
Are jewels of memory, jewels of Elfland.

For a moment, when the wild voice sang, the Green
Flooded round me, and, by some way unseen,
I was transported to that wild and free place.
I moved across the ground with light elven pace.

I found myself breathing air like summer wine,
Singing and speaking in a language truly mine,
Seeing with eyes that reflected the beauty,
Feeling with hands to which life was no duty.

Death and life, darkness and light, moved there,
More real and closer than in this world, more fair.
I could feel the deep sweetness it is to draw breath,
And yet lying soundless on my left hand was death.

Then the wild voice stopped singing, and I was
Back in my birth world, crying for no cause.
No, then I said; I will not let others' words or fears
Come between me and the cause of my tears.

I am crying because I want to go back again;
I am crying to go far from the land of men.
I am crying because I want the courts of the Dream
Around me again, that and the Green.

It is evening now, as it was morning when it sang,
The wild voice, and grief and love into me rang.
As the shadows lengthen like night in an old story,
I sit in the garden and wait for the glory.

Ah, there it is. Soft at first as the even shades,
Soon enough it lifts, and this world away fades.
Soon enough it recites to me its splendid poem;
Soon enough it calms me and carries me home.

I close my eyes, and then go into the gate
That has opened for me, by chance or by fate.
I close my eyes, and step into the Green;
I close my eyes, and step into the Dream.