ILGAR'S SONG

O love that dwells in the innermost heart of man

Secret and dark and still,

Like a bird in the core of a green mid-summer tree —

Height upon height and depth upon depth where never the eye can see

The brown bird, hidden and still.

O Love that is wild and eager, sun-lit and free

Like a seagull that turns in the sunlight above the sea;

Between the sea and the sky it flashes and turns,

And the sun on its wings is white,

While sharply and shrill by the headland the keen wind sings

Where the grass is salt and grey

With the beating winter spray,

And the seagull sweeps and soars on magnificent wings.

Love that is like a flame,

Held in the hollow hand,

So dear and precious a thing

As a light in a stranger land,

As a flickering candle to him who wanders by night.

Love that is wide as the dawn

To the eyes of night-bound men;

And the evil ghosts and the goblins it puts to flight,

And stealthy creatures of dark that rustle and creep,

And elfins and witches and all such devil's game

That cannot live in the light,

They squeak and gibber and cheep,

And vanish like shadows before the splendour of day.

Love that has wide, white wings like a flying swan

— Oh what a noble span,

From tip to tip they are more than the height of a man

And curved like the sails of a boat —

When over the evening river the wild swan flies

The curve of those wings is like the arch of the skies

Over the shielded earth.

Love is most like a bird,

For birds have least of the dust that gave them birth,

They soar and poise and float,

They wheel and swerve and skim,

And their wings are strong to the wind, and swift to the light,

And their voice is a promise of dawn while yet it is night,

And their song is a paean of hope before it is spring,

And the song of the bird to his mate is lyrical love.

Love is secret and holy, a spiritual thing,

Dark and silent and still

In the heart of man, as a treasure is hid in a shrine.

Love is splendid and fierce, as the summer sun

Drenches the sea and the sky with its blaze and shine,

Till every pebble is hot to the touch of the hand,

And the air is a-shimmer with heat o'er the hazy land —

Yet Love is not any of these things, Love is of one

With the strange, half-guessed at, vast, creative plan

We cannot see with our eyes nor understand —

Yet is Love pitiful too, for Love is of man.