| |
| HOW grandly glow the bays | |
| Purpureally enwound | |
| With those rich thorns, the brows | |
| How infinitely crown’d | |
| That now thro’ Death’s dark house | 5 |
| Have pass’d with royal gaze: | |
| Purpureally enwound | |
| How grandly glow the bays! | |
| |
| Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet, | |
| Pulsing with three-fold pain, | 10 |
| Where the lark fails of flight | |
| Soar’d the celestial strain; | |
| Beyond the sapphire height | |
| Flew the gold-wingèd feet | |
| Beautiful, pierced with pain, | 15 |
| Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet; | |
| |
| And where Is not and Is | |
| Are wed in one sweet name, | |
| And the world’s rootless vine | |
| With dew of stars aflame | 20 |
| Laughs, from those deep divine | |
| Impossibilities, | |
| Our reason all to shame— | |
| This cannot be, but is; | |
| |
| Into the Vast, the Deep | 25 |
| Beyond all mortal sight, | |
| The Nothingness that conceived | |
| The worlds of day and night, | |
| The Nothingness that heaved | |
| Pure sides in virgin sleep, | 30 |
| Brought out of darkness, light; | |
| And man from out the Deep. | |
| |
| Into that Mystery | |
| Let not thine hand be thrust: | |
| Nothingness is a world | 35 |
| Thy science well may trust … | |
| But lo, a leaf unfurl’d, | |
| Nay, a cry mocking thee | |
| From the first grain of dust— | |
| I am, yet cannot be! | 40 |
| |
| Adventuring unafraid | |
| Into that last deep shrine, | |
| Must not the child-heart see | |
| Its deepest symbol shine— | |
| The world’s Birth-mystery, | 45 |
| Whereto the suns are shade? | |
| Lo, the white breast divine— | |
| The Holy Mother-maid! | |
| |
| How miss that Sacrifice, | |
| That cross of Yea and Nay, | 50 |
| That paradox of heaven | |
| Whose palms point either way, | |
| Thro’ each a nail being driven | |
| That the arms outspan the skies | |
| And our earth-dust this day | 55 |
| Out-sweeten Paradise! | |
| |
| We part the seamless robe, | |
| Our wisdom would divide | |
| The raiment of the King, | |
| Our spear is in His side, | 60 |
| Even while the angels sing | |
| Around our perishing globe, | |
| And Death re-knits in pride | |
| The seamless purple robe … | |
| |
| And grandly glow the bays | 65 |
| Purpureally enwound | |
| With those rich thorns, the brows | |
| How infinitely crown’d | |
| That now thro’ Death’s dark house | |
| Have pass’d with royal gaze: | 70 |
| Purpureally crown’d | |
| How grandly glow the bays! | |
| |
