The Great Face

O we must plunge to the Great Face behind

The myriad vanity of our mortal look.

Not in that house of mirrors, the small mind,

Dwells the Great Face. Never this glory took

Pleasure of glory. The golden eyes are blind

To their immortal preciousness: they find

Paradise through the deep discovery

Of their sweet self-forgetfulnesses by

The aching gaze of man which suddenly

Recalling them forgets for ever all ache!

Here lives a light that knows life's secret source—

Omniscience with no single shadow-break—

Yet here too is the thoughtless rain that pours

In crystal quavers deaf to their rich tone,

The hill dawn-crimsoning like some angel's birth

But dark to its own epiphany on earth,

The well-water sunk far from cool self-taste,

A sleeping sweetness, or the wonder-waste

Of emerald innocent of its green allure.

Divinity is quick flesh and vague stone,

Arms stretched in a lost attitude of trance,

Palpitant marble rapt in giving grace

Of radiant love to every tear-filled glance,

Perfection's breathing statue unconcerned

With the luminous line all ages come to adore:

Ever for others the white peace has burned!

A power beyond all lack, yet slave to a sigh

From lips that pray or to frail lifting hands—

Heart like the sun shining without demands—

Hunger which finds appeasement when void days

Of the world's hunger brim—God is intense

With bliss undying that would gladly die

If one time-creature's gold might never grey.

His splendour flows and flows with the same dense

Desire to every depth: He will not shrink

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From making His whole wine the desert's drink!

The abyss He built from His magnificence

That He might hurl into its vacant stare

His Being's heaven—of heaven unaware

Except when hurled below. How shall He stay

An inexhaustible love? God is immense

To have immensity to throw away!

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