THE DREAD OF HEIGHT
By Francis Thompson
"If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say;
We see: your sin remaineth."—John ix. 41
Not the Circean wine
Most perilous is for pain:
Grapes of the heaven's star-loaden vine,
Whereto the lofty-placed
Thoughts of fair souls attain,
Tempt with a more retributive delight,
And do disrelish all life's sober taste.
'Tis to have drunk too well
The drink that is divine,
Maketh the kind earth waste,
And breath intolerable.
Ah, me!
How shall my mouth content it with mortality?
Lo, secret music, sweetest music,
From distances of distance drifting its lone flight,
Down the arcane where Night would perish in night,
Like a god's loosened locks slips undulously:
Music that is too grievous of the height
For safe and low delight,
Too infinite
For bounded hearts which yet would girth the sea!
So let it be,
Though sweet be great, and though my heart be small:
