Edwin Muir – The Value of Sparrows

Edwin Muir

POETRY: The Annunciation by Edwin Muir

August 3, 2016

The angel and the girl are met. Earth was the only meeting place. For the embodied never yet Traveled beyond the shore of space. The eternal spirits in freedom go. See, they have come together, see, While the destroying minutes flow, Each reflects the other’s face Till Heaven in hers and Earth in his Shine steady there. He’s come to her From far beyond the farthest star, Feathered through time. Immediacy Of strangest strangeness is the bliss That from their limbs all movement takes. Yet the increasing rapture brings So great a wonder that it makes Each feather tremble on his wings. Outside the window footsteps fall Into the ordinary day And with the sun along the wall Pursue their unreturning way That was ordained in eternity. [...]

POETRY: The Transfiguration by Edwin Muir

August 7, 2013

So from the ground we felt that virtue branch Through all our veins till we were whole, our wrists As fresh and pure as water from a well, Our hands made new to handle holy things, The source of all our seeing rinsed and cleansed Till earth and light and water entering there Gave back to us the clear unfallen world. We would have thrown our clothes away for lightness, But that even they, though sour and travel stained, Seemed, like our flesh, made of immortal substance, And the soiled flax and wool lay light upon us Like friendly wonders, flower and flock entwined As in a morning field. Was it a vision? Or did we see that day the unseeable One glory of the everlasting world Perpetually at work, though never seen Since Eden locked the gate [...]