True Being


Rich hour! is not thy gift a radiant thing?
The truth here blazoned in this marble and gold,
Here writ in this refulgence manifold,
Hath sunned my groped redemption: lo, I fling--
How lightly!--off ungraced desire; I cling
To that faith firm this splendour hath retold:
My spirit, towered, doth its sheer track behold,
And shakes the dust of chaos from its wing.
Life that is death, riches named with a lie,
This fane would, that the sum of both employs,
Your tears unseal if ignorance could weep.
Is not true being locked in tombs? and die
Must not we in death ere life's innater joys
We may, as I now, clasp as in a sleep?

More verses by William Baylebridge