The Secret Splendour

To the All-Beautiful

So very poor the life I brought You, Sweet!

But my whole poverty enclasped Your feet.

Though such dim treasure none would precious call,

A miser 1 had been, hoarding it all

For You alone, to keep or cast away—

Since never even with this common clay

Could I serve lesser beauty.  My earth-cup

You have transfigured now, brimming it up

With sudden nectar of eternity.

Miraculous, O Love, Your alchemy

Of quiet heaven-creative luminous

Eyes that evoke the hidden god in us

Through drossiest self-offering on our part!

Out of the candle-flicker of each heart

You build a calm inviolable Sun

Rayed with enormous time-oblivion!

For we but grow an image of the light

Whose dream has quickened our clay-captive night,

The rapture that has lured our blind distress.

O Splendour, You have made my raggedness

Reveal through every shameful tatter and hole

A luminous immortality of soul!

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