And truly, you that have had dear maids, shall follow mine explainings;
but unto others, I know not whether they shall understand, until they
too have been possessed of One that shall set all their heart adrift,
even as this One that did be Mine Own.
And sudden, I to know that Naani did change from her low singing unto an
olden air that had surely not been heard in all that eternity. And in
verity, for a little while, I not to know why that it did so shake all
my heart; nor what it did be; nor whether that I had truly heard it
before, or only to think so.
And, surely, it did be as that the silence of the olden moonlit world
did steal all about me; and sudden, I to know that the Maid did sing an
olden love-song of the olden world, and to go halting a little as she
sang, because that the words did steal something odd-wise through the
far veils of her memory, even as a song doth come backward out of
dreams.
And I to feel all my blood to seem to tremble in my veins, and my throat
to be troubled, as with vague sobs that did be the ghosts of forgotten
tears. And the dim sorrow that had come so swift and strange upon me, to
be likewise steeped in golden mists of the love that I once did love;
and the glamour to be come all fresh upon me, and I to know in that
moment how much we do forget, even when that we do believe that we have
all memory and all sorrow within our hearts.
And I lookt unto the Maid, something dimly, because of the way that I
did be; and I perceived in a moment that Mine Own did weep as she
walked; but the less with pain than with the strange anguish of Memory,
that doth have in it Tenderness and Sorrow and Love and all that Hath
Been and all that Did Never Be, and all to make a Vale unto the Spirit,
where doth be both a dim greyness and a warm and everlasting light, and
an utter speechlessness, and the low and far music of forgotten songs,
that do come downward over the shadowy mountains that do be builded of
Years and Forgetfulness, and yet made to be seen with the light of that
our Memory, which doth cast so many husht shadows.
And surely, as I did say, the Maid did weep as she went; but not to be
cast down; but rather that she held her head upwise, as that she did
walk in a glory. And the song to come oft-broke, and oddly, and to set
her voice to little human quiverings, as her memory did shake her sweet
spirit unto tears afresh; and she to walk with her pretty head upheld
and as that she did go in a Triumph; and the tears to come down
strangely upon her face, and all her soul to be there, pure and
wondrous, and in the same time both troubled and glad.
And this thing to be very dear and amazing; and she to be as that she
not to know then that she sang; but as that she did be lost in her
thoughts, as we do say, and this to have come sudden upon her, out of
all her upliftedness of spirit, that had been like to make her very open
unto all subtile and subtle powers of thought and inward stirrings, as
you shall think.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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