Brilliant and lone she sat
Upon eternal height
And veiled her face about.
She was in fear of sin,
She was in fear of deadly night,
I saw her eyes peer out.
I saw her eyes peer out
And knew she was divine,
But oh, her stedfast, dreadful gaze
And her importunate doubt.
She did not make me word or sign
Or turn away her face.
She did not make word or sign,
But as she watched me err
Her eyes grew cold like the dark star
And her body ceased to shine.
I could not breathe for the breath of her
Was frost of Winter and fire of war.
Her body ceased to shine.
I dare not let her die.
I opened my heart to the sun
And I breathed her breath for mine.
Behold, that Inmost One was I,
And I was the inmost one.
I opened my heart to the sun.
O colour and line, and birth
Of wonder and word and light!
Through love and her I have won
The earth within the earth
And the sight that is more than sight.
O colour and line and birth,
Birth of an order new,
Of a life that is more than my own ...
Birth that is your birth ...
Birth in me of you
O God, brilliant and lone!
STONE CELL
Let me not see thee, Lord God of my essential life, where thou art not.
Let me not look upon colour and pray to thee believing thee to be colour.
Let me not go in silence or in dream and dream thee to be that silence.
With the failing of the light let me not thrill at the intricate touch of that spirit
Who films light to shadow, and kneel believing ecstasy to be prayer.
From my dreams, from the siren singing and the imperious call,
From the blinding joy and the august mystery of simple beauty
Wilt not thou, compassionate, O deliver me, faint for beauty.
God! If I were praying to be delivered from thee ...