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The Singing Place
by Lily A. Long

Cold may lie the day,
And bare of grace;
At night I slip away
To the Singing Place.

A border of mist and doubt
Before the gate,

And the Dancing Stars grow still
As hushed I wait.
Then faint and far away
I catch the beat
In broken rhythm and rhyme
Of joyous feet,—
Lifting waves of sound
That will rise and swell
(If the prying eyes of thought
Break not the spell),
Rise and swell and retreat
And fall and flee,
As over the edge of sleep
They beckon me.
And I wait as the seaweed waits
For the lifting tide;

To ask would be to awake,—
To be denied.
I cloud my eyes in the mist
That veils the hem,—
And then with a rush I am past,-—
I am Theirs, and of Them!
And the pulsing chant swells up
To touch the sky,
And the song is joy, is life,
And the song am I!
The thunderous music peals
Around, o'erhead-
The dead would awake to hear
If there were dead;
But the life of the throbbing Sun
Is in the song,
And we weave the world anew,
And the Singing Throng
Fill every corner of space—-

Over the edge of sleep
I bring but a trace
Of the chants that pulse and sweep
In the Singing Place.