From sky to sky the veld, vast, tawny, bare,
Surrounds me like a vision in a dream,
Mysterious and unreal: no flower or stream,
No friendly smoke or stack is anywhere;
E'en God's own living creatures are not there,--
No bird, no bough whereon to perch, no theme
Whereof to sing; to me there only seem
The sun, sky, veld, the light immaculate air.--
Whose great majestic archicraft did raise
This blue-domed temple without priest or psalm,
Without a tone of all the diapase,
With unascending incense without balm,
Without a worshipper in prayer or praise,
Mute with an incommunicable calm?