Earth's Roof

Earth's roof is heaven's floor—

The dome of mind

Must bear a trampling terror

Before we find

Through a sudden gap the mythic

Eternity alive!

It cannot reach our body

Ere hard heels drive

Deep into gilded dreams

Arching a false

Heaven for life's sad longing.

Secretly calls

The true infinitude—

Gong of God's day

Or bells of unknown bliss

Tintinning far away.

But who shall ever answer

The bourneless blue

Unless the proud dome break

Its stony hue

Under an unseen dancer's

Timeless foot—

Rapture whose rhythms are

A tearing of thought?

Some drunkenness on high

Demands the whole

Destruction of each fresco

Made of the soul

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On the ceiling intellect,

Where never a chink has drawn

Out of the sun of Truth

The dimmest dawn!

Not for a smooth confirming

Of coloured guess,

But for an all-surprising

New loveliness

The mind must strain—a curve

Pulled more and more intent

With a hush that has no name,

Till one sheer rent

Aches forth the marvel word

Whose quiverings make

Each deathless mystery

Timeward awake!

Alone this burst of love,

The crumbling cry

Of earth's rich roof, can bring

The apocalypt sky.

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