The Starry Wind

She stood alone before the burning deep,
Where sun on sun, myriad, wheeled in flame,
And every star its dreadful watch did keep,
Too bright, too vast, too terrible to name.

Ten thousand thousand worlds of quenchless light
Did cling unto her, thick as breath on glass,
Glorious and grievous to her mortal sight,
A splendour that would lesser eyes surpass.

And yet — even as she trembled 'neath that fire,
Even as the numberless did blaze and burn —
Deep in herself she felt a thing far higher
Than all those wheeling worlds could ever earn.

For every sun that burns, and burns alone,
Knows not its own combustion, nor its name;
But she, the least, the frailest flesh and bone,
Beheld them all, and passed beyond their flame.

The Universe is great, and knoweth not;
The soul is small, and knows both depth and height;
Being but a breath, a vapour, and a thought,
She stood — and was herself the greater light.

But hark! a Voice — not from the height above,
Nor from the burning firmament of night,
Bade her not rise, as she had dreamed thereof,
But softly said, Go down, beyond all light.

Go down, descend into the last of dark,
Below the deepest deep thy fear hath known,
Where neither sun, nor moon, nor starry spark
Shall lend thee light to walk by, or to own.

And she began — for love, and not for dread —
To lay aside the greatness she had worn,
The glittering thought, the pride but lately fed,
The glory sought when first her soul was born.

She put away her restless, wandering thought,
The fame that perisheth as smoke in wind,
The wilful longing that her own will sought,
And every dream that bound her or confined.

She stripped away the ancient coats of skin —
The raiment donned when Eden's gate was barred —
And stood, as at the very first, within
The dark, unclothed, ungarmented, and bared.

Then down she went, as one who drowns and dies,
Into a strait so narrow and so dread
No breath was there, no room to breathe, no skies —
Only the dark, close-pressing overhead.

And there she lost the name that once was hers —
The name first given her, at hour of birth —
And, nameless, sank where nothing living stirs,
Past every root and reckoning of earth.

The singing spheres that once had filled the air
With glory, and with thunder of their light,
Fell still; and in that silence, everywhere
Was but the black, unbroken, breathless night.

And there her heart, once fain for feast and mirth,
Sang thus, unheard, below the reach of light:

        The heart that all its life for sorrow sought,
        Beyond death's verge, beyond despair's dark night,
        To black and fathomless deep waters brought,
        Now from the abyss looks forth with other sight.

        It hateth mirth, it hateth feast and wine,
        And in its weeping tastes a hidden worth;
        From speech grown sparing, into silence doth decline —
        No more it waits: established faith henceforth.

And nothing answered. Nothing stirred, nor spake.
The Universe, so vast, so bright before,
Was hushed into a sea no wind could wake,
One breathless ocean, still from shore to shore.

Down at the last, where nothing more could fall —
No deep past that, no dark beyond that deep —
She came unto the round and final wall
Of nothingness, where even silence sleeps.

There came no storm, to rend the rock apart,
No fire, to scorch the deep on either hand,
No earthquake shook the chambers of her heart —
Only a Breath she could not understand.

But out of nothing, soft as falling dew,
There breathed a Wind no earthly wind can be:
The Starry Wind — the Wind that all stars knew —
Passed through the strait, and touched, and set her free.

It bore her not aloft, as winds oft bear
The soul that longs to rise, and greatly boast;
It pierced her through — a cold and burning air —
And every passion, in that piercing, lost.

A cold, fine Flame, not scorching, but most pure,
Swept o'er the upper chambers of her heart,
And all the passions that she could not cure
Were burned away like chaff, and fell apart.

For God came not in whirlwind, nor in flame,
Nor in the trumpet-blast of any power;
He came in stillness, without sound or name,
A silence deeper than the deepest hour.

        O Thou that needest neither throne nor blast,
        Nor solar trumpet to proclaim Thy Name —
        How light Thy footfall on the deep, at last!
        How still the coming of Thy hidden flame!

Now was no more a distance, near or far,
Between her spirit and the Breath Divine;
He dwelt within her closer than a star
Doth dwell within its own unfading shine.

This was that Grace no mortal tongue can name,
That blindeth not, but maketh blind eyes see;
Not light reflected, but the Light and Flame
Whence every light that is, was first set free.

Yea, to the very pores of flesh it came,
The Wind that first had blown the stars alight,
Till skin and soul alike were but one flame,
One breathing dwelling-place of Uncreated Light.

So doth a drop of dew, at break of day,
Not hold the sun, and yet the sun contain —
Reflecting back, in its own transient way,
The very Prototype it cannot hope to explain.

So she, made small, and emptied of her own,
Became a glass to hold the Light unmade —
Herself unseen, herself no longer known,
Yet all transfigured, and no more afraid.

And for the name that in the dark was lost,
A Name was given, which no other knew —
Unspoken, and all unseen, yet engrossed
Her inmost being: secret, and made new.

And where the stars once burned, remote, immense,
Now burned a nearer and a gentler Flame:
Not the veiled Glory, throned beyond all sense,
But Breath, and Wind, and Fire without a name.

© Sergey Dobrenkov