Rim of the Bowl

Return to
Bachelor Ballads
Content Page

Last Poem

Next Poem

(HOME)

THE RIM OF THE BOWL

I SAT 'mid the flickering lights, when all the
guests had departed,
Alone at the head of the table, and dreamed
of the days that were gone;
Neither asleep nor waking, nor sad nor cheery-
hearted –
But passive as a leaf by the mild November
blown.
I thought – if thinking 'twere, when thought
were dimmer than shadows –
And toyed the while with the music I drew
from the rim of the bowl,
Passive, my fingers round, as if my will com-
pelled it
To answer my shapeless dreams, as soul
might answer soul.

Idle I was, and listless; but melody and fancy
Came out of that tremendous dulcimer, as
my hand around it strayed;
The rim was a magic circle, and mine was the
necromancy
That summoned its secrets forth, to take
the forms I bade.
Secrets! ay! buried secrets, forgotten for twenty
summers,
But living anew in the odors of the roses
at the board;
Secrets of Truth and Passion, and the days of
Life's unreason;
Perhaps not at all atoned for, in the judg-
ments of the Lord.

Secrets that still shall slumber, for I will not
bare my bosom
To the gaze of the heartless, prying, incon-
scionable crowd,
That would like to know, I doubt not, how
much I have sinned and suffered,
And drag me down to its level – because it
would humble the proud.
Beautiful spirits they were, that danced on the
rim at my bidding:
Spirits of Joy or Sadness, in their brief,
sweet summer day;
Spirits that aye possess me, and keep me if I
wander,
In the line of the straight, and the flower of
the fruitful way.

Spirits of women and children – spirits of friends
departed –
Spirits of dear companions that have gone
to the levelling tomb,
Hallowed forever and ever with the sanctity
of sorrow,
And the aureole of death that crowns them
in the gloom.
Spirits of Hope and Faith, and one supremely
lovely,
That sang to me years agone, when I was a
little child,
And sported at her footstool or lay upon her
bosom,
And gazed at the love that dazzled me,
from her eyes so soft and mild.

And that song from the rim of the bowl came
sounding and sounding ever –
As oft it had done before in the toil and
moil of life;
A song nor sad nor merry, but low and sweet
and plaintive;
A clarion blast in sorrow; an anodyne in
strife;
A song like a ray of moonlight that gleams
athwart a tempest.
Sound ever, O Song! sound sweetly,
whether I live or die,
My guardian, my adviser, my comforter, my
comrade,
A voice from the sinless regions – a message
from the sky!

– CHARLES MACKAY

Return to
Bachelor Ballads
Content Page

Last Poem

Next Poem

(HOME)