The Secret Splendour

Your benediction is to me

The sweetest thing

My mournful heart can ever know,

But never so divine as when I see

Upon your pale feet glow

The hidden bruises of your wayfaring

 From peaks of paradise down to our woe.

Your smile is the most luminous thing

I ever saw take birth,

But never so celestial a spring

 Of honey to my dearth

As when your secret sacrifice

I watch within your quiet eyes'

 Mauve universe—

Glimmer and gloom of earth-transmuting tears.

3.8.33

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