| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 371. The Slumberer |
| By Elsa Barker |
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| O THOU mysterious One, lying asleep | |
| Within the lonely chamber of my soul! | |
| Thou art my life’s true goal, | |
| Thine is the only altar that I keep. | |
| Rapt in the contemplation of thy repose, | 5 |
| I see in thy still face that Mystic Rose | |
| Whose perfume is my soul’s imaginings, | |
| And Beauty at whose awesomeness I weep | |
| With over-plenitude of ecstasy. | |
| Thy slumber is the great world-mystery— | 10 |
| The paradigm of all the latent things | |
| That in their destined hour Time magnifies: | |
| Its emblems are the intimate hush that lies | |
| Over the moonlit lake; | |
| The wonder and the ache | 15 |
| Of unborn love that trembles in its sleep; | |
| The hope that thrills the heavy earth | |
| With presage of becoming, and vast birth; | |
| The secret of the caverns of the deep. | |
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