The Secret Splendour

Heart-hollow

Through my abysmal solitude vainly pass

Pageants of budded bough and rapturous wing;

The omnipresent sparkle of green grass

Is now a drear phantasmal flickering.

Tumults of water leap precipitous glooms

And long importunate billows beachward press,

 But all their voices float like opiate fumes

Making yet more profound my voicelessness.

Is it Your secret boon, O Lord, this strain

Of life and love and longing drawn apart

Into a tenebrous hollow of dull pain?

Have You prepared the breathless swooning heart

For Your immutable bliss—a vacancy

To treasure unalloyed eternity?

4.3.34

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