Those things you fear, they have already happened,
          Inside my contemplative soul,
Which left its bed, and came downstairs, to calm
          Something I thought I must console:
                              The loud abandoned
               Sounds of a woken Psalm.
But I was wrong: the cries of this song’s voice
               Are making a joyful noise.

Later a tall and white-haired neighbour knocked
          Upon the door to that last stanza
To ask about my use of the word soul.
          How could I know I’d have an answer
                         As I unlocked
          The door to him, the whole
Structure quaking as I dared to put
          On its threshold’s wood his foot.

Let the roaring sea, which is this world,
          Tumble, and all who sit inside
Its vast and half-transparent walls shall stand
          And sing of that withdrawing tide:
                       The things it hurled
          Behind it on the strand,
Archaic words that still deceive the eye
          With their reality.

Edward Clarke is a poet and author of two books of criticism: The Vagabond Spirit of Poetry, and The Later Affluence of W.B. Yeats and Wallace Stevens. He is an editor of the web-zine Cassandra Voices.

Purchase 18 Psalms by Edward Clarke.