The Illuminations Of St. Peter’s Poem by Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton

I.
FIRST ILLUMINATION.
Temple! where Time has wed Eternity,
How beautiful Thou art, beyond compare,
Now emptied of thy massive majesty,
And made so faery--frail, so faery--fair:
The lineaments that thou art wont to wear
Augustly traced in ponderous masonry,
Lie faint as in a woof of filmy air,
Within their frames of mellow jewelry.--
But yet how sweet the hardly--waking sense,
That when the strength of hours has quenched those gems,
Disparted all those soft--bright diadems,--
Still in the Sun thy form will rise supreme
In its own solid clear magnificence,
Divinest substance then, as now divinest dream.


II.
SECOND ILLUMINATION.
My heart was resting with a peaceful gaze,
So peaceful that it seemed I well could die
Entranced before such Beauty,--when a cry
Burst from me, and I sunk in dumb amaze:
The molten stars before a withering blaze
Paled to annihilation, and my eye,
Stunned by the splendour, saw against the sky
Nothing but light,--sheer light,--and light's own haze.
At last that giddying Sight took form,--and then
Appeared the stable Vision of a Crown,
From the black vault by unseen Power let down,
Cross--topped,--thrice girt with flame:--Cities of men,
Queens of the Earth! bow low,--was ever brow
Of mortal birth adorned as Rome is now?


III.
REFLECTION.
Past is the first dear phantom of our sight,
A loadstar of calm loveliness to draw
All souls from out this world of fault and flaw,
To a most perfect centre of delight,
Merged in deep fire;--our joy is turned to awe,
Delight to wonder. This is just and right;--
A greater light puts out the lesser light,--
So be it ever,--such is God's high law.
The self--same Sun that calls the flowers from earth
Withers them soon, to give the fruit free birth;--
The nobler Spirit to whom much is given
Must take still more, though in that more there lie
The risk of losing All;--to gaze at Heaven,
We blind our earthly eyes;--to live we die.