SONNET

This is the golden book of spirit and sense,

The holy writ of beauty; he that wrought

Made it with dreams and faultless words and thought

That seeks and finds and loses in the dense

Dim air of life that beauty's excellence

Wherewith love makes one hour of life distraught

And all hours after follow and find not aught.

Here is that height of all love's eminence

Where man may breathe but for a breathing-space

And feel his soul burn as an altar-fire

To the unknown God of unachieved desire,

And from the middle mystery of the place

Watch lights that break, hear sounds as of a quire,

But see not twice unveiled the veiled God's face.