The Adventure of the Apocalypse

Artist almighty

How shall mortality's grey golden to God?. . .

Behind earth's law a luminous liberty laughs.

O it can break a lotus from blind stone,

A sun from voidnesses of midnight's black!

Our life is a divine desire's domain:

Over us lords a splendouring secrecy—

Eternal wizard of the absolute eye,

Artist almighty, colour's infinite Czar.

Within him all things grow one single self:

The universal harmony of his heart

Gives him the power to paint man's body anew:

He keeps the bright salvation of our clay.

But 'twixt his freedom and our fixities

A vast blank washing each time-hue away

Hangs its miraculous sleep for magic dreams

To bring unmarred their alchemies to our mind.

Deep in a trance of world-forgetfulness

Each mood must plunge: the despot of life's dye

Comes then to wake God's gold in mortal grey.

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