The Secret Splendour

The Real You

Draw near, O Love, draw very very near,

For I would see Your visage full and clear:

 A distant adoration cannot ease

My heart's unbearable burning chastities.

 Am I grown pure that I may worship nought

Save an elusive sweetness in my thought?

The white soul-dream but beckons You to trace

Upon its solitary calm Your face—

 Your limbs of utter intimacy, Love!

And no mere flush of joy looming above.

The real You, imperishably fair,

Compared with whom our flesh is thin as air-

Body of light which makes all forms of clay

Dim replicas of its prefiguring play—

Let my unworlded eyes touch the true line

 Of that primordial passion. O divine

Lover, I am now stripped of all I see,

That You may lose invisibility!

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