Helena Coleman’s speaker makes a quiet plea not to let everyday familiarity wear away our sense of awe. She describes mystery as something that hovers around ordinary life and keeps rising from an unknown source. If we get too casual or too accustomed, we risk missing the deeper harmony beneath life’s noise and the faint glory that surrounds us. The speaker feels protective of this openness, almost reverent. The final lines promise a special kind of happiness to those who still make room for what cannot be explained—people who can glimpse the infinite in something as small as a folded leaf or a flower. The mood is hushed and contemplative, full of wonder rather than sadness, as if the speaker is holding onto a truth that is both delicate and enormous.
The Sense of Mystery — Summary
I WOULD not lose the sense of mystery That broods about our little lives and springs Eternal from the unknown heart of things, Nor miss by rude familiarity Perception of the finer harmony That underlies all dissonance and brings The unseen to our consciousness and flings A glory round our way continually.
For they alone shall win their happiness Who still make room for things inscrutable; And he who sees the greater in the less — Who finds in folded leaf or purple bell The Infinite — doth in himself possess Some kinship with the daily miracle.