Beyond Both Grief and- Joy

Joy is the homing luminous,

Grief is the brightness flown from us,

Eluding mortal limbs that tire—

Both are a single song of fire

Whose everlasting harmonies

We lose because the strokes of time,

Waking for transient things desire,

Have split the one creative chime.

In God we keep poised fulgencies

By travelling with each flame that flies

And, through a Self of boundless skies,

Conquer the distance that is pain,

So winning a more golden gain

Than pleasure flickeringly caught

Between small hands by feeble thought.

In God both pain and pleasure rhyme—

A single seizure of sublime

Radiance beyond both grief and joy:

A wide white peace without alloy,

Which moves so quick it's everywhere,

One infinite life no hungers tear!

15-6-48.

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