The Secret Splendour

Most heart-consuming, most intensely cold,

A statue of unbearable loveliness

Above all intimate warm divinity,

Stands the white figure of the Absolute Dream

Breaking us with a bliss no life can hold.

Each heaven falls back from this Ineffable.

That smiling mouth is sealed, those great eyes locked,

The beatific limbs stay gestureless;

But by their sovereign secrecy of stone

All splendour is shaken to exceed itself:

We are drawn to a depth of trance that has no end,

We are lured into eternal distances,

We yearn for ever on from light to light

Since no reply the marble mystery makes.

So beautiful that, moveless, it moves all,

So still that beauty grows a vast beyond.

This is the fathomless strength by which we gauge

The paradise after paradise that is God—

This is the omnipotent support of the whole

Boundless adventure of the apocalypse—

Implacable lord of truth's infinity!

27.7.48

Page 348