The Secret Splendour

Coil after coil, now large, now small,

Roams in me ever that deep unrest,

The red snake lured by a shining call

Heard by the blindness in my breast.

Through silent eye and clamorous lip

The living labyrinth seeks light,

Craves of the sun and moon a sip

But falls back hungry. O throbbing home

Of the ageless million twisted heat,

Hurl—free of all misguiding gloom

That rises from the earth-plunged feet—

Long love to the skull that shuts off sky,

The old ache out of lip and eye

Turn a rapt reverie of height,

A serpent swallowing up each sense,

Time's endless travel grown one new

Swift superhuman leaping through

The crown of the head to be lost in a blue

Infinite circling omniscience!

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