| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
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| 278. The Turning Dervish |
| By Arthur Symons (b. 1865) |
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| STARS in the heavens turn, | |
| I worship like a star, | |
| And in its footsteps learn | |
| Where peace and wisdom are. | |
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| Man crawls as a worm crawls; | 5 |
| Till dust with dust he lies, | |
| A crooked line he scrawls | |
| Between the earth and skies. | |
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| Yet God, having ordained | |
| The course of star and sun, | 10 |
| No creature hath constrained | |
| A meaner course to run. | |
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| I, by his lesson taught, | |
| Imaging his design, | |
| Have diligently wrought | 15 |
| Motion to be divine. | |
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| I turn until my sense, | |
| Dizzied with waves of air, | |
| Spins to a point intense, | |
| And spires and centres there. | 20 |
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| There, motionless in speed, | |
| I drink that flaming peace, | |
| Which in the heavens doth feed | |
| The stars with bright increase. | |
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| Some spirit in me doth move | 25 |
| Through ways of light untrod, | |
| Till, with excessive love, | |
| I drown, and am in God. | |
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