A Soliloquy at the Threshold
Peace—
Ring not the bell ere silence gives consent,
For sound hath memory and will not haste.
I stood where echoes bow before their birth,
Where keys wax warm with long expectancy.
Attend me well:
I speak not as one snatched from common sleep,
But as a soul weighed by the door and spared.
There stole a tide, unbidden by the moon,
That lapped the hems of settled cogitation
And breathed, Advance no more—yet still draw near.
The mirror bent to hearken as I passed,
Its argent brow unloosed from present time,
And showed me not my form, but my becoming.
O gentle ravishment!—my name grew thin,
My will unclasped like cloak in winter’s thaw,
Till choice itself stood doubting of its throne.
No hand constrained me; yet I could not bide.
For bells rang backward through my quickened blood,
Summoning remembrances elder than breath.
I bore the key—not seized it, mark ye this—
The key acknowledged me, and turned in dream.
Then hush bloomed loud enough for sense to hear,
And time lay couched, a hound before the fire.
What passed betwixt those sighs I dare not stamp.
Some verities are seas in single drops;
Some gates admit the soul but when made slight.
Enough: I strayed not lost, nor found entire—
But learned the pivot where the world is swung.
Anon the tide withdrew its silver steps,
The mirror healed, the bells reclaimed their rule,
And weight returned like grace unto my frame.
Yet somewhat stayed—
A wisdom lacking speech,
A stillness crowned, not mastered, by the will.
Name it not.
For names are nets, and this hath fangs of light.
Know only thus: I went, and I returned,
Bearing the sign of one who knows the seam—
And treads the shore with gentler sovereignty.
Now ring the bell.
Bar fast the key.
Let mirrors sleep.
I dwell among you still—
Yet have I heard the tide.
Written by Marguerite Grace
Copyright Protected
verse, possies, sonnets, and short stories 