Once in Norway

The day was cowled, clandestine; sallow

With drouth. There was no wind to waken

The fjord, or the fjord path, a shallow

Brook of leaves untimely shaken

From birches prematurely yellow.

The green month jaundiced, burned to sorrel;

And I walked heavily, for no reason

But an old grudge at life, a quarrel

Ripening meanly in a season

When every other seed lay sterile.

Then it was it happened-only

For seven breaths: sky cracked, light poured

Shaftwise, not niggardly or wanly,

Straight to one farm across the fjord,

A starveling place, cloud-high, and lonely;

And for a little it burned clearly

With a pure fire: one farm of all

The pied fields that clamber sheerly

That brawny lift of mountain wall

'Where snow lies late, and comes early.

Rick and byre and roof were blooming

With light, miraculously lit

As the bush that flowered in unconsuming

Fire while a Voice spoke out of it.

I heard no Voice, but a farm was flaming.

I watched it burn, and wondered whether

I watched alone, or whether maid

Or man stood haloed in that weather,

Transfigured, consecrate, afraid,

Knowing the sign, and knowing whither

It led: some northern Joan, attended

By auspices of torch and sword?

Some peasant Saul? Some hickory-handed

Jacob wrestling with his Lord?

Some Mary with her Vision Splendid? '

I wondered then, and still I wonder.

Seven breaths, perhaps, no more,

And that apocalyptic splendor

Ceased; the sky closed like a door,

Latched with an iron clang of thunder.

And there was nothing: only the surly

Disconsolate day; the stricken leaves

Leoparding the wood too early;

And high along the mountain eaves

One farm-I could not mark it surely.