The Secret Splendour

Sages

Sages who scan the solitudes of thought

With passionless fervour for the Ineffable,

 Disdainful of the souls astir

With longings of transcendent woe

For intimate skies And stars that glow

 With human beauty —your austere emprise

 I envy not!

Can the cold climbing will

 Which lifts no poignant hands to pray

 Taste of the keen felicities that know

The eternal Glory is a wanderer

Hungry for lips of clay?

And what shall save the mind that seeks

Battle with voice less destiny

August beyond the cry of pain.

When on the sheer truth-luminous peaks

Its quivering eyes recall

 The abyss of desolate mortality,

And no sweet answering arms of Love restrain

The miserable binding fall?

18.10.31

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