The Secret Splendour

Men say: "What can't be open to the world

And publicly acknowledged, but lives curled

Within the silence of our selves, must be

Not right." But why should sweetest secrecy

Count as a crime? Each being dwells on two

Planes of life-throb. One level meets the view

Of all our fellows: fronting the broad sun,

It shares a wide-gazed joy. But: there is one

Part that goes inward to every self unique,

Shut off from the world's touch so it may seek

Dreams that have shapes fitting each lonely mind.

Pathways of purple peace through which we find

Mysteries whose lips are shut, eyes of far flame

Whose meaning we can't catch with any name.

Here are unsharable kindlings—here, alone.

Each heart has its truth-taste of the Unknown.

All dumbly, darkly held in that deep core—

The human merged with what it strains to adore—

The heaven hiding there is no less right

Than happiness thrown open to earth's light.

And when two souls have come forth face to face,

Suddenly moved by a gathering hand of grace—

When they have met as if in some profound

Where time forgets all common; cleaving sound—

O when they've caught together an inmost bliss,

Dug like a diamond out of God's abyss,

Why should they breathe to the world's ear their kiss?

Perfume of passion alien to gross thought—

How shall its sylph on crowded air be a-float?

Till some new ether shines around, this cry

Of star to star must throb in reverie's sky.

Enough if the Eternal Watcher knows—

Wizard who from world-ends brought faces close

To make two mouths a single rapture's rose.

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