THE best of life, what is it but white moments? <br />Those swift illuminations when we see <br />The flying shadows on the fragrant meadows <br />As God beholds them from eternity. <br />White moments, when the bliss of being worships, <br />And fear and shame are heretics that burn <br />In holy fire of exquisite desire <br />For love's surrender and for love's return. <br />White moments, when a Power above the artist <br />Catches his plodding chisel, sets it free, <br />And from each urgent stroke there springs emergent <br />The wayward grace that laughs at industry. <br />White moments, when the drowsing soul, sense-muffled, <br />Is stung awake by some keen arrow-flight <br />And rends the bestial, claiming its celestial <br />Succession in the lineage of light. <br />White moments, when the spirit, long confronted <br />By all the bitter formulæ of fate, <br />Inveterate romancer, finds its answer <br />In some mysterious faith inviolate. <br />White moments, when the silence steals on sorrow, <br />And in that hush the heart becomes aware <br />Of wings that brood it, visions that seclude it <br />Forevermore from folly, fear and care. <br />The best of life, what is it but white moments? <br />Freedoms that break the chain and fling the load, <br />Irradiations, ardors, consecrations, <br />— The starry shrines along our pilgrim road.<br /><br />Katharine Lee Bates<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/white-moments/
