Religion
The Prism of Life
From The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse, ed. D. H. S. Nicholson and A. H. E. Lee (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917)
All that began with God, in God must end:
All lives are garnered in His final bliss:
All wills hereafter shall be one with His:
When in the sea we sought, our spirits blend.
Rays of pure light, which one frail prism may rend
Into conflicting colours, meet and kiss
With manifold attraction, yet still miss
Contentment, while their kindred hues contend.
Break but that three-edged glass: — inviolate
The sundered beams resume their primal 'tate,
Weaving pure light in flawless harmony.
Thus decomposed, subject to love and strife,
God's thought, made conscious through man's mortal life,
Resumes through death the eternal unity.
Cite this poem
MLA
Symonds, John Addington. “The Prism of Life.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/symonds/10/.
Chicago
Symonds, John Addington. “The Prism of Life.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/symonds/10/.
Read this poem with the Codex →