Chagrin

Caught still as Absalom,
Surely the air hangs
From the swayless cloud-boughs
Like hair of Absalom

Caught and hanging still.
From the imagined weight
Of spaces in a sky
Of mute chagrin my thoughts
Hang like branch-clung hair
To trunks of silence swung,
With the choked soul weighing down
Into thick emptiness.
Christ, end this hanging death,
For endlessness hangs therefrom !

Invisibly branches break
From invisible trees:
The cloud-woods where we rush
(Our eyes holding so much),
Which we must ride dim ages round
Ere the hands (we dream) can touch,
We ride, we ride-before the morning
The secret roots of the sun to tread-
And suddenly
We are lifted of all we know,
And hang from implacable boughs.