The Secret Splendour

They gauge not the whole godhead of true love

Who leap into noon's fire and fall quick ash—

Stunned to a peace that holds no hue of heaven.

But those who near the giant glow with small

Delightings in a dawn of singing birds

Grown kisses, they can bear the noon's full flush

And catch with colour-conning hearts the deep

Within gold deep, the laugh on shadowless laugh

Breaking from that sun-throb of paradise.

No ecstasy that ends in a void sleep,

No brief consuming blindness, but a core

Of bliss with aureoles widening through all hours—

Such flame goes curving from supreme midday

To a dusk that echoes the soft smile of dawn.

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