In a town of gods, housed in a little shrine,

From sculptured limbs the Godhead looked at me,–

A living Presence deathless and divine,

A Form that harboured all infinity.

The great World-Mother and her mighty will

Inhabited the earth’s abysmal sleep,

Voiceless, omnipotent, inscrutable,

Mute in the desert and the sky and deep.

Now veiled with mind she dwells and speaks no word,

Voiceless, inscrutable, omniscient,

Hiding until our soul has seen, has heard

The secret of her strange embodiment,

One in the worshipper and the immobile shape,

A beauty and mystery flesh or stone can drape