Poems

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The Vision of the Maid of Orléans

Divinity hath oftentimes descended
Upon our slumbers, and the blessed troupes
Have, in the calme and quiet of the soule,
Conversed with us.

Shirley. The Grateful Servant

Sidenote: The following Vision was originally printed as the ninth book ofJoan of Arc. It is now adapted to the improved edition of that Poem.

The First Book

Orleans was hush’d in sleep. Stretch’d on her couch
The delegated Maiden lay: with toil
Exhausted and sore anguish, soon she closed
Her heavy eye-lids; not reposing then,
For busy Phantasy, in other scenes
Awakened. Whether that superior powers,
By wise permission, prompt the midnight dream,
Instructing so the passive faculty;^[1]
Or that the soul, escaped its fleshly clog,
Flies free, and soars amid the invisible world,
And all things are that seem.^[2]
    Along a moor,
Barren, and wide, and drear, and desolate,
She roam’d a wanderer thro’ the cheerless night.
Far thro’ the silence of the unbroken plain
The bittern’s boom was heard, hoarse, heavy, deep,
It made most fitting music to the scene.
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