The Secret Splendour

ALTAR AND FLAME

Not with new altar-plan but with new flame

Life lays on Godhead a king-coloured claim

The shadowless Liberty can never deny!

To cut the marble shape more beautiful

Is but to pleasure distantly the Eye

 Burning above the mind: it cannot pull

The great invisible Sun into earth's heart.

 Beyond ourselves, beyond the chisel's art

Offering cold beauty motionless below,

We must with visionary vehemence go,

Calling and calling through unmeasured space,

 Changing the small fire's smile to a maddened blaze

That laughs like a golden wilderness of whips

And slashes the skies of secrecy hung between

 Our groping sight and the miracled Unseen.

 Thus only we drag down the Apocalypse!

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