Temple columns, close combining, Lift a holy mystery.
Heart of mine! what strange surprises Mount aloft on such a stair!
Some great vision upward rises, Curving, bending, floating fair.
Bands and sweeps, and hill and hollow Lead my fascinated eye;
Some apocalypse will follow, Some new world of deity.
Zoned unseen, and outward swelling, With new thoughts and wonders rife, Queenly majesty foretelling, See the expanding house of life!
Sudden heaving, unforbidden Sighs eternal, still the same--
Mounts of snow have summits hidden In the mists of uttered flame.
But the spirit, dawning nearly Finds no speech for earnest pain;
Finds a soundless sighing merely--
Builds its stairs, and mounts again.
Heart, the queen, with secret hoping, Sendeth out her waiting pair;
Hands, blind hands, half blindly groping, Half inclasping visions rare;
And the great arms, heartways bending;
Might of Beauty, drawing home There returning, and re-blending, Where from roots of love they roam.
Build thy slopes of radiance beamy Spirit, fair with womanhood!
Tower thy precipice, white-gleamy, Climb unto the hour of good.
Dumb space will be rent asunder, Now the shining column stands Ready to be crowned with wonder By the builder's joyous hands.
All the lines abroad are spreading, Like a fountain's falling race.
Lo, the chin, first feature, treading, Airy foot to rest the face!
Speech is nigh; oh, see the blushing, Sweet approach of lip and breath!
Round the mouth dim silence, hushing, Waits to die ecstatic death.
Span across in treble curving, Bow of promise, upper lip!
Set them free, with gracious swerving;
Let the wing-words float and dip.
DUMB ART THOU? O Love immortal, More than words thy speech must be;
Childless yet the tender portal Of the home of melody.
Now the nostrils open fearless, Proud in calm unconsciousness, Sure it must be something peerless That the great Pan would express!
Deepens, crowds some meaning tender, In the pure, dear lady-face.
Lo, a blinding burst of splendour!--
'Tis the free soul's issuing grace.
Two calm lakes of molten glory Circling round unfathomed deeps!
Lightning-flashes, transitory, Cross the gulfs where darkness sleeps.
This the gate, at last, of gladness, To the outward striving me:
In a rain of light and sadness, Out its loves and longings flee!
With a presence I am smitten Dumb, with a foreknown surprise;
Presence greater yet than written Even in the glorious eyes.
Through the gulfs, with inward gazes, I may look till I am lost;
Wandering deep in spirit-mazes, In a sea without a coast.
Windows open to the glorious!
Time and space, oh, far beyond!
Woman, ah! thou art victorious, And I perish, overfond.
Springs aloft the yet Unspoken In the forehead's endless grace, Full of silences unbroken;
Infinite, unfeatured face.
Domes above, the mount of wonder;
Height and hollow wrapt in night;
Hiding in its caverns under Woman-nations in their might.
Passing forms, the highest Human Faints away to the Divine Features none, of man or woman, Can unveil the holiest shine.
Sideways, grooved porches only Visible to passing eye, Stand the silent, doorless, lonely Entrance-gates of melody.
But all sounds fly in as boldly, Groan and song, and kiss and cry At their galleries, lifted coldly, Darkly, 'twixt the earth and sky.
Beauty, thou art spent, thou knowest So, in faint, half-glad despair, From the summit thou o'erflowest In a fall of torrent hair;
Hiding what thou hast created In a half-transparent shroud:
Thus, with glory soft-abated, Shines the moon through vapoury cloud.