The Secret Splendour

Vespertide*

They ask me: Was she not your life's joy-breath?

Will not pained love a War of music wage,

Beholding ruthless destiny uncage

 On her winged vision the monstrous claw of death?...

My grief is hushed by calm cloud-flower age!

The hour hangs, wondering on its nameless age—

 For it is both sky-evening and earth-night!

 Strange waters glimmer, flecked with wandering white,

Like some enormous missal's cloistered page!

Amid such hues of solemn ecstasy

I loved her form ensouled with mauve dream-mist:

O I was ever twilight's rhapsodist,

Seeing in her but spirit of wave and sky!

Her mystic smile—lo there its mood unspent

In the cloud's heart of shine and shadow blent!

Deathless to me the deep earth-heaven trance

 Of her far-calling sorrow-splendoured glance—

A dim wave-world of floating firmament!

12.4.33

* A poem of 1926 re-composed.

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