In a Hard
Intellectual Light

In a hard intellectual light

I will kill all delight,

And I will build a citadel

Too beautiful to tell

O too austere to tell

And far too beautiful to see,

Whose evident distance

I will call the best of me.

And this light of intellect

Will shine on all my desires,

It will my flesh protect

And flare my bold constant fires,

For the hard intellectual light

Will lay the flesh with nails.

And it will keep the world bright

And closed the body's soft jails.

And from this fair edifice

I shall see, as my eyes blaze,

The moral grandeur of man

Animating all his days.

And peace will marry purpose,

And purity married to grace

Will make the human absolute

As sweet as the human face.

Until my hard vision blears,

And Poverty and Death return

In organ music like the years,

Making the spirit leap, and burn

For the hard intellectual light

That kills all delight

And brings the solemn, inward pain

Of truth into the heart again.

RICHARD EBERHART