The Poetry Corner

The Explorer

By John Le Gay Brereton

I Dearest, when I left your side, I stood a moment, hesitating, And plunged. The boiling tide Of darkness took me, and down I went Swift as a bird with folded wing, And upward sent The bubbles of my vital breath That shuddered from my secret deeps To freedom and light; Then, dimly, on my sight Opened the still abode of living death. Amid the mire, In which invisibly sightless horror creeps, Sat, each intent on his own woe, The host that burns with inward fire, Crowded like monuments of memorial stone Beneath a pitchy sky Where even the flash of tempest dare not show, Yet each of them alone; And each was I. II Breathless I struggled up, As if the gloom had arms to clutch at me And drag and hold, Until the daylights gold Shook faintly above my dizzy head And parted suddenly, that I might see The sky, a sheltering cup Of hopeful azure, and your eyes of blue, One promise and yet two Of harbouring bliss; And your lips parted and said, Shall not we twain Find joy upon joy on earth Together and see, In the kinship of all that has birth From the mutual reach of desire, A joy beyond this, A fire at the heart of the fire? And we clung till our spirit was free As the flame of a kiss. III So we soared and the earth fell away, and the region of night Was melted in limitless day of ineffable light Till the myriad souls of the dead were united as we, Themselves, and yet merged in the spread of an infinite sea The joy that is life, and around us, below and above, The One that all lovers have found, our eternity, Love.