University of Virginia Library


81

VIII
NIRVANA

II

Woof of the scenic sense, large monotone
Where life's diverse inceptions, death and birth,
Where all the gaudy overflow of earth,
Merge—they the manifold and thou the One.
Increate, complete—when the stars are gone
In cinders down the void, when yesterday
No longer spurs desire starvation-gray,
When God grows mortal in men's hearts of stone,—
As each pulsation of the Heart Divine
Peoples the chaos, or with falling breath
Beggars creation, still the soul is thine!
And still untortured by the world's increase,
Thy wide, harmonic silences of death;
And last—thy white uncovered breast of peace.