Earth seems bereft of song and shorn of sun,

A cloistral world. Even the lyric throat

Of the rapt brook is like a pulse-beat faint.

The wood—white architrave on architrave—

Is as a temple where the lips of prayer

Tremble upon the verge of utterance.

Hush! In the heart of this great gulf of sleep,

This void abysmal, may we not divine

The inscrutable Presence clothed about with dreams,

The immaculate Vision that is death yet life,