Page:A channel passage and other poems (IA channelpassageot00swinrich).pdf/53

 Of cloud and of change is the form of the fashion that man may behold of it wrought: Of iron and truth is the mystic mid altar, where worship is none but of thought. No prayer may go up to it, climbing as incense of gladness or sorrow may climb: No rapture of music may ruffle the silence that guards it, and hears not of time. As the winds of the wild blind ages alternate in passion of light and of cloud, So changes the shape of the veil that enshrouds it with darkness and light for a shroud. And the winds and the clouds and the suns fall silent, and fade out of hearing or sight, And the shrine stands fast and is changed not, whose likeness was changed as a cloud in the night.

All the storms of time, and wrath of many winds, may carve no trace On the viewless altar, though the veil bear many a name and face: