The Secret Splendour

Dearest of girls, too little is the time

For our small hearts to beat a world-vast rhyme—

To feel in each heart-throb eternity.

O brief is that bodied miracle left for me!

Long years you'll have without one touch of lip

Infinite in hunger for your beauty's sip.

This dreaming face will soon be fast asleep.

Lose not a single day: no years can weep

Enough for love unvalued while it burned

Incense of gold to the goddess who has yearned

In unknown depths of you to flame and flower.

My love has looked through every transient hour

And kissed your future farness of full life

Like a near, intimate, heaven-haloed wife.

Wife of my soul, I pray you be as close

As earth permits in the passing present. Rose

Rooted in God's profound, your beauty's breath

Is all I need to laugh in the face of death.

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