The Secret Splendour

I am one who seeks on hidden hills of trance

A wideness free from barbs of iron speech,

 A golden life safe from the ravener's reach,

 A beauty brooding in some blue expanse

 Beyond the long bows of the Tartar Khans.

Nothing they see, but hunger to draw nigh

And grasp in their red hands where the blood's fire

Leaps in ten flames that would devour the sky.

Far from the arrows screaming ever higher,

O for a Yonder to the abysmal eye!

Carrying within their hearts a sputtering hell.

Sleepless the gaunt black-bearded archers scan

Night for white wings that wish serene waft span

The distances that keep me mortal man.

May those rapt swans merge in the Ineffable!

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