The Secret Splendour

Pierced by a shaf

Of golden ray

 From a sky that laughed

Through endless day,

The human heart

Has hung impaled

Midway the dart

Come from the Unveiled

To the hidden house

Below the earth,

Where angels drowse,

Padlocked from mirth.

Like some bright key

To that lost room,

The pole's reverie

Wakes the God-gloom.

The captived cry

Of heaven to heaven

Lifts from hell's eye

Where time has striven

Vainly to reach

The eternal noon.

The silvering speech

Climbs—a festoon—

The silent bar

Planted upright

Between the sun-star

And the floor of night.

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Struggling with earth

The seraphs can wind

Upward through birth

From muteness to mind,

Never save through

The rose-heart hung,

Mortal in hue

With the wound far-flung!

No gate to the free

Zenith above,

But through the plea

Of human love

Vigilling for God—

A lamp whose flame

 Is a spurt of blood

To the azure Name!

And till the heat

Of the Honey-Cruse

 Is won, the sweet

Mediator muse

Of the stricken, warm

Soul-core of man

Must ache to form

Night's door through the tan

Of twilight to the grot

 Of gold on the height

Whence timeward tell shut

The splendourous Sight!

O beautiful creature,

Child of God-past,

Fathering God-future,

How long shall last

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Thy mournful Now?

Perchance a balm

 Is set aflow

Out of high calm

To heal the old scar —

A serpent of grace

Slips down the bar

To bite out more space

For the prisoner powers

More throngingly

To press up their flowers

Through the mystery

Of mortal hours,

And, by the increase

 Of their leap to the Towers,

Bring swifter peace

To thy agelong watch...

Hast thou not seen

The summit-sun catch

A Mother's mien—

Merciful gaze,

Soft lips that assure,

Smile-curves which trace

That serpentine cure?

15.5.48

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