Splendid and Terrible - Seamus O'Sullivan

Splendid and terrible your love.
The searing pinions of its flight
Flamed but a moment’s space above
The place where ancient memories keep
Their quiet; and the dreaming deep
Moved inly with a troubled light,
And that old passion woke and stirred
Out of its sleep.

Splendid and terrible your love.
I hold it to me like a flame;
I hold it like a flame above
The empty anguish of my breast.
There let it stay, there let it rest—
Deep in the heart whereto it came
Of old as some wind-wearied bird
Drops to its nest.

---

Seamus O'Sullivan (born James Sullivan Starkey) (1879 – 1958) Ireland
Source: Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Volume V. No. 3. December, 1914