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Here the stone leapt up from the plain of earth, leapt up in

a manifold, clustered desire each tiht and dusk and the whole range

of desire, through the swerving, the declination, ah, to the

ecstasy, the touch, to the , the clasp, the close e consummation, the timeless ecstasy There his

soul remained, at the apex of the arch, clinched in the timeless

ecstasy, consummated

And there was no time nor life nor death, but only this, this

timeless consummation, where the thrust from earth met the

thrust from earth and the arch was locked on the keystone of

ecstasy This was all, this was everything Till he caathered hiether, in transit, every jet of him strained and leaped,

leaped clear into the darkness above, to the fecundity and the

unique mystery, to the touch, the clasp, the consummation, the

climax of eternity, the apex of the arch

She too was overcome, but silenced rather than tuned to the

place She loved it as a world not quite her own, she resented

his transports and ecstasies His passion in the cathedral at

first awed her, then ry After all, there was the

sky outside, and in here, in this ht, when

his soul leapt with the pillars upwards, it was not to the stars

and the crystalline dark space, but tostone, there in the dusk and

secrecy of the roof The far-off clinching andof the

arches, the leap and thrust of the stone, carrying a great roof