Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/267

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Branded for ever! Filled with magic and balm, with a touch of the brow reading the thoughts of brethren Kingly, lavishing! Lulling into celestial solace! Aetherized as light and unto the fruit of mystical trees Stretching forth with the whole universe into the endless!—

And our hands, enfolded amid a magical chain of countless hands, Sway in the current of brotherly strength, which laps upon them from afar, Ever more potent from pressure of ages. Unbroken waves Of sorrow, daring, madness, bliss, enchantment and love Suffuse our bodies. And in the beat of their tempest, with vanishing senses We feel how our chain, seized by the hands of higher beings, Enfolds itself in a new chain unto all starry spaces And encompasses worlds.—And then in answer to the grievous question, Concealed in dread by centuries, as a secret of birth Which first-born dying reveal to first-born, We heard the roundelay of waters, stars, and hearts and amid its strophes, At intervals melancholy cadences, dithyramb of worlds following one upon the other. "The Hands" (1901).