The Secret Splendour

O When

O when shall I frame

The luminous word

To catch, without caging,

The bird

Whose glimmering wings

Are the two

Brave eyes which uplift

The soul of you?

'Twere a gaudy waste

To hold

With bar on tinkling bar

Of lifeless gold

The riches and rhythm

You flutter abroad

Whenever your dream

Is a dawn of God.

O wide must I be,

 A freedom of skies,

 For words to image

Those soaring eyes

And mar no quiver

Of shadow or shine

By which you journey

To a trance divine.

1935

Page 482