09.06.2007, 18:37
The Vanishing Point
There are who, when the bat on wing transverse
Skims the swart surface of some neighbouring mere,
Catch that thin cry too fine for common ear:
Thus the last joy-note of the universe
Is borne to those few listners who immerse
Their intellectual hearing in no clear
Paean, but pierce it with the thin-edged spear
Of utmost beauty which contains a curse.
Dead on their sense fall marches hymeneal,
Triumphal odes, hymns, symphonies sonorous;
They crave one shrill vibration, tense, ideal,
Transcending and surpassing the world's chorus;
Keen, fine, ethereal, exquisitely real,
Intangible as star's light quivering o'er us.
There are who, when the bat on wing transverse
Skims the swart surface of some neighbouring mere,
Catch that thin cry too fine for common ear:
Thus the last joy-note of the universe
Is borne to those few listners who immerse
Their intellectual hearing in no clear
Paean, but pierce it with the thin-edged spear
Of utmost beauty which contains a curse.
Dead on their sense fall marches hymeneal,
Triumphal odes, hymns, symphonies sonorous;
They crave one shrill vibration, tense, ideal,
Transcending and surpassing the world's chorus;
Keen, fine, ethereal, exquisitely real,
Intangible as star's light quivering o'er us.