The Adventure of the Apocalypse

The tone of the true

A myriad voices

Quiver and leap

Out of our being's

Myriad deep.

How shall we gather

The tone of the true

From such a chaos

Of the heart's hue?

Mind cannot gauge

Vermilion,

Carmine or scarlet,

Damask or dun,

Shades of desire

Self-uttering—

Strange heavens and hells

That suddenly fling

Reasonless reveries

Longing to make

Our body their crater

Of fierce flame-break.

One colour of colours

That cry from the dark

Is the song all time

Has waited to hark;

But sly are the powers

Burning within

And well can they wear

The angel's mien

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To drive the pilgrim

Along rock-ways

Where the feet seeking

The Perfect Face

Forgotten by earth

Are bled to a halt

And lost for ever

Is the lure of the Vault!

Only when mind

Puts reasoning by

And with an abrupt

Shutting of eye

Draws back from the brain

To a Self that is mute,

We hear in the distance

The call of a flute,

A pang of roses,

An attar-flow,

A liquid dawn

Whose trembling glow

Lifts from a deathless

Alchemy

Hiding its sun

In mortality!

This tune of rapture

Can never be found

Until we give it

That calm background.

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Alone its ardour

Can breathe in the peace

While all other passions

Flicker and cease

At touch of the vast

Virginity

Behind the thinker's

Small ache to see

What pleasures are locked

In clay-born things.

Alone the hunger

Which Truth outsings

From the human heart

Quivers more bright

Its fiery tongue

On tasting such white.

For only this love

Is pure in its cry,

Reddening to clasp

Though none reply.

Torn by no jealous

Self-concern,

Steadily throbbing

Its beauties burn.

And, always a craving

Winsomely wild,

It shoots up a mingle

Of lover and child.

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And into their fervence

A wisdom is wrought,

The red heat verging

On the white-hot!

Warm and wise

And innocent

The cherub flies

To the firmament,

Offering its all,

Quenchlessly keen—

Age after age—

For the Face unseen.

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