The Adventure of the Apocalypse

Name after name

Name after name I give to God:

Sublime or sweet are they—

More magical than birth of stars,

Mightier than death of day.

Like some great lion stretched below

The horizon of the west,

His gold magnificence I see,

Dazzling itself to rest.

Like some huge harmony of swans

Sprung from a sable sleep,

Hangs the far vigil of white love

His infinite mysteries keep.

He stands, a rapture-haunted hill

From which vast perfume blows—

A hill upon whose summit drops

A sky that is all rose.

He calls, a sea whose thunder is light,

A truth-revealing sound,

As though the abyss of a million dreams

Explored its own profound. . . .

Name after name!—when close to me

Come out of distances

The grandeur and the grace of Him

Through time's intensities.

But O the all-submerging shock

When He and I are the same

Eternity's changeless marvel!

Then How blind and bare each name.

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