Classic Poem

I

How grandly glow the bays
Purpureally enwound
With those rich thorns, the brows
How infinitely crowned
That now thro' Death's dark house
Have passed with royal gaze:
Purpureally enwound
How grandly glow the bays.


II

Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet,
Pulsing with three-fold pain,
Where the lark fails of flight
Soared the celestial strain;
Beyond the sapphire height
Flew the gold-wingèd feet,
Beautiful, pierced with pain,
Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet;


III

And where Is not and Is
Are wed in one sweet Name,
And the world's rootless vine
With dew of stars a-flame
Laughs, from those deep divine
Impossibilities,
Our reason all to shame--
This cannot be, but is;


IV

Into the Vast, the Deep
Beyond all mortal sight,
The Nothingness that conceived
The worlds of day and night,
The Nothingness that heaved
Pure sides in virgin sleep,
Brought out of Darkness, light;
And man from out the Deep.


V

Into that Mystery
Let not thine hand be thrust:
Nothingness is a world
Thy science well may trust ...
But lo, a leaf unfurled,
Nay, a cry mocking thee
From the first grain of dust--
I am, yet cannot be!


VI

Adventuring un-afraid
Into that last deep shrine,
Must not the child-heart see
Its deepest symbol shine,
The world's Birth-mystery,
Whereto the suns are shade?
Lo, the white breast divine--
The holy Mother-maid!


VII

How miss that Sacrifice,
That cross of Yea and Nay,
That paradox of heaven
Whose palms point either way,
Through each a nail being driven
That the arms out-span the skies
And our earth-dust this day
Out-sweeten Paradise.

VIII

We part the seamless robe,
Our wisdom would divide
The raiment of the King,
Our spear is in His side,
Even while the angels sing
Around our perishing globe,
And Death re-knits in pride
The seamless purple robe.

* * * *


IX

How grandly glow the bays
Purpureally enwound
With those rich thorns, the brows
How infinitely crowned
That now thro' Death's dark house
Have passed with royal gaze:
Purpureally enwound
How grandly glow the bays.