164. 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 listeners 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.