You are a bannered balcony Of God's heraldic house, Waving above the dinning throng of the days Pennants of purple and oriflammes of crimson
And cloths of gold. Your varying device is on every shining shield Of the brilliant row that flames beneath the eaves Of that house whose street is cobbled with silver clouds.
The days go down that street, the troops of days Dark and bright, tramping to tread the earth. Ever, with trumpets and tumult, rigor or laughter, They pass saluting, to press upon the world,
Regiment after regiment unnumbered. Your beauty is a balcony hung with banners To wave them on. The foremost have sent your name Echoing rearward to hearten new battalions.
Your beauty is the sunset's streaming flag, It is the vivid standard of the dawn Flapping over dazed dream-voyagers That kneel on new sun-pooled, mysterious strands.
It wasted the moon to pallor, set the sun Pulsing with burning blood — it shattered the mind Of heaven into stars. The beauty of your spirit has sent the winds
Eternally sighing, and sharpened the cold ache Of the heart-broken, incessantly-sobbing sea. It has scattered its sparks in the hearts of silken flowers And has raised the frozen fury of glaciers against the North
And has permeated the South with its elusive fragrance. Auroral over East and West it dances. You are a crystal goblet of such wine Set in a niche of night
That when Death quaffs you he must glow to life Flushed with eternity. O proud Love, so humble and human, Yet beyond the gods to exalt —
O quiet Love, couching with the curled might and majesty Of tawny leopards! O tamed tiger, Love, whose golden eyes Weep for the thrift of angels!
Thou pinnacled pain of the midnight, Rose-strewer of daylit mire, Transfiguration of our futile lives, Dazzler into the secret courts of heaven —
Thou whose passion is written in all men's blood and tears And in silver letters upon the books of God — Make me to stand erect, and walk with danger, And strive like a flame!
For Thou and I are struck as cymbals of God's exultation In Life, His song!
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