Anima Mundi

Immortal long the Soul of the World
Has lasted in a pale, translucent form.
She, who assigns the purposes of life
Throughout the many mirrors, seas and skies
That make her body, swift imprisoned is
When poets speak of her as one sole thing.

And yet, the still, shall we go forth and say
She is the spirit of a single country
That, shrinking through our vessels’ steeled hulls
And striding in our churches’ sacred halls,
Determines to be married with our State
Until eternal youth is withered old.

Such boisterous sounds, meant but to prophesy
Extinct old themes can be extant for pride.
And yet if the Worldly Soul and the Nation State
Were conscious spirits, girl and gentleman,
That pair of titans in the thralls of love
Would breed a people, noble and severe

As children gathered playing in the grass
That overgrows the dead and lost of war.
And then, may one who claims we have no cause
To judge our parents like the infinite
Turn in the rushes of his hilly chair
And learn that he knows not his country’s past.

For as the father State and the mother Soul
Are not but cogitations from the bones
Of sacrifices drained by oaken roots,
And thence up-reared by dexterous climbing sprouts
What might we say of him that idle-profits,
Riding on their graves and mocking us

Who only care to teach that Britain’s heart
Comprises of a goddess and a crown?
Might not we say, come linger in the field
Between the paternal cities and the wind,
That buzzes from the maternal realm without,
And join a sceptic with our lauding choir?

Might not we bow into ourselves and cry
Our wishes for such confidence of mind
And, noting his again, profess him heir
To the ancient giants leaning by the ground?
For has he doubts as cognizant as storms
And fingers pliant as the leaves themselves,

For is there stateliness and subtlety
Of man and woman in his brain and breast,
For knows each scienced part inside himself
He is an altogether different life
Than parts suppose, might not he bear within
His cynic being one that loves his home?

If so, the king and country split apart
And kneels the poet in his lair of books
And closes the tunnel joining each with all
Because a Son of God was not repelled
From love of brethren, want for settlement,
But rather moved to accept his natural self:

Conquered and conqueror of the national
And friend and enemy of the passed and gone;
Lastly, the speaker and the listener
Of olden tales revived in the modern age
By miracle of wit, though died they had
Along the obscurity of foreign trails.

Aye, Sons of Gods are there, if more than one
Can reconcile his nation with his name
And reason then the dizzying Soul of the World
And fathering State have raised a merry child,
Who is comprised of all our youthful selves
And shall we call Great Britain till he dies.

Edward McLaren is a first year reading English at Keble College