The Secret Splendour

Descend, O Joy!—in sorest need of Thee

I lift my moan from the abyssal din

That robs me of the pinnacled Within

Where Thou and I are one Eternity.

Of what avail the glow of peaks sublime

If I can never draw their heavenly heat

Into the chasm of the clay's heart-beat

And make our loves a single-haloed Time?

Let all the passion of my mortal blood

 Labyrinth like a fiery ocean-flood

 Through the sad spaces of unlustred limbs—

Transfiguring life's discord into hymns

That voice athwart the body's cavern-night

Thy moon-arcane of rapture on the height.

6.3.34

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