My Soul is Sick with Longing (Joseph Mary Plunkett) @ ELCore.Net

My Soul is Sick with Longing

My soul is sick with longing, shaken with loss,
Yea, shocked with love lost sudden in a dream,
Dream-love dream-taken, swept upon the stream
Of dreaming Truth, dreamt true, yet deemed as dross:
Dreamt Truth that is to waking Truth a gloss,
Dream-love that is to the life of loves that seem
To bear the rood of love’s eternal theme,
The strength that brings to Calvary their cross.

I dreamt that love had lit, a burning bird
On one green bough of Time, of that dread tree
Whereto my soul was crucified: that he
Sang with a seraphs voice some wondrous word
Blotting out pain, but swift the branch I heard
Break, withered, and the song ceased suddenly.

http://poetry.elcore.net/CatholicPoets/Plunkett/Plunkett45.html
Created March 19, 2001; not revised.