Book Eleven. The Book of Everlasting Day
| Music | Book Eleven. Canto One:The Eternal Day: The Soul’s Choice and the Supreme Consummation |
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898 “Choose, spirit, thy supreme choice not given again; 899 For now from my highest being looks at thee 900 The nameless formless peace where all things rest. 901 In a happy vast sublime cessation know,- 902 An immense extinction in eternity, 903 A point that disappears in the infinite,- 904 Felicity of the extinguished flame, 905 Last sinking of a wave in a boundless sea, 906 End of the trouble of thy wandering thoughts, 907 Close of the journeying of thy pilgrim soul. 908 Accept, O music, weariness of thy notes, 909 O stream, wide breaking of thy channel banks.” 910 The moments fell into eternity. 911 But someone yearned within a bosom unknown 912 And silently the woman’s heart replied: 913 “Thy peace, O Lord, a boon within to keep 914 Amid the roar and ruin of wild Time 915 For the magnificent soul of man on earth. 916 Thy calm, O Lord, that bears thy hands of joy.” 917 Limitless like ocean round a lonely isle 918 A second time the eternal cry arose: 919 “Wide open are the ineffable gates in front. 920 My spirit leans down to break the knot of earth, 921 Amorous of oneness without thought or sign 922 To cast down wall and fence, to strip heaven bare, 923 See with the large eye of infinity, 924 Unweave the stars and into silence pass.” 925 In an immense and world-destroying pause 926 She heard a million creatures cry to her. 927 Through the tremendous stillness of her thoughts 928 Immeasurably the woman’s nature spoke: 929 “Thy oneness, Lord, in many approaching hearts, 930 My sweet infinity of thy numberless souls.” 931 Mightily retreating like a sea in ebb 932 A third time swelled the great admonishing call: 933 “I spread abroad the refuge of my wings. 934 Out of its incommunicable deeps 935 My power looks forth of mightiest splendour, stilled 936 Into its majesty of sleep, withdrawn 937 Above the dreadful whirlings of the world.” 938 A sob of things was answer to the voice, 939 And passionately the woman’s heart replied: 940 “Thy energy, Lord, to seize on woman and man, 941 To take all things and creatures in their grief 942 And gather them into a mother’s arms.” 943 Solemn and distant like a seraph’s lyre 944 A last great time the warning sound was heard: 945 “I open the wide eye of solitude 946 To uncover the voiceless rapture of my bliss, 947 Where in a pure and exquisite hush it lies 948 Motionless in its slumber of ecstasy, 949 Resting from the sweet madness of the dance 950 Out of whose beat the throb of hearts was born.” 951 Breaking the Silence with appeal and cry 952 A hymn of adoration tireless climbed, 953 A music beat of winged uniting souls, 954 Then all the woman yearningly replied: 955 “Thy embrace which rends the living knot of pain, 956 Thy joy, O Lord, in which all creatures breathe, 957 Thy magic flowing waters of deep love, 958 Thy sweetness give to me for earth and men.” 959 Then after silence a still blissful cry 960 Began, such as arose from the Infinite 961 When the first whisperings of a strange delight 962 Imagined in its deep the joy to seek, 963 The passion to discover and to touch, 964 The enamoured laugh which rhymed the chanting worlds: 965 “O beautiful body of the incarnate Word, 966 Thy thoughts are mine, I have spoken with thy voice. 967 My will is thine, what thou hast chosen I choose: 968 All thou hast asked I give to earth and men. 969 All shall be written out in destiny’s book 970 By my trustee of thought and plan and act, 971 The executor of my will, eternal Time. 972 But since thou hast refused my maimless Calm 973 And turned from my termless peace in which is expunged 974 The visage of Space and the shape of Time is lost, 975 And from happy extinction of thy separate self 976 In my uncompanioned lone eternity,- 977 For not for thee the nameless worldless Nought, 978 Annihilation of thy living soul 979 And the end of thought and hope and life and love 980 In the blank measureless Unknowable,- 981 I lay my hands upon thy soul of flame, 982 I lay my hands upon thy heart of love, 983 I yoke thee to my power of work in Time. 984 Because thou hast obeyed my timeless will, 985 Because thou hast chosen to share earth’s struggle and fate 986 And leaned in pity over earth-bound men 987 And turned aside to help and yearned to save, 988 I bind by thy heart’s passion thy heart to mine 989 And lay my splendid yoke upon thy soul. 990 Now will I do in thee my marvellous works. 991 I will fasten thy nature with my cords of strength, 992 Subdue to my delight thy spirit’s limbs 993 And make thee a vivid knot of all my bliss 994 And build in thee my proud and crystal home. 995 Thy days shall be my shafts of power and light, 996 Thy nights my starry mysteries of joy 997 And all my clouds lie tangled in thy hair 998 And all my springtides marry in thy mouth. 999 O Sun-Word, thou shalt raise the earth-soul to Light 1000 And bring down God into the lives of men; 1001 Earth shall be my work-chamber and my house, 1002 My garden of life to plant a seed divine. 1003 When all thy work in human time is done 1004 The mind of earth shall be a home of light, 1005 The life of earth a tree growing towards heaven, 1006 The body of earth a tabernacle of God. 1007 Awakened from the mortal’s ignorance 1008 Men shall be lit with the Eternal’s ray 1009 And the glory of my sun-lift in their thoughts 1010 And feel in their hearts the sweetness of my love 1011 And in their acts my Power’s miraculous drive. 1012 My will shall be the meaning of their days; 1013 Living for me, by me, in me they shall live. 1014 In the heart of my creation’s mystery 1015 I will enact the drama of thy soul, 1016 Inscribe the long romance of Thee and Me. 1017 I will pursue thee across the centuries; 1018 Thou shalt be hunted through the world by love, 1019 Naked of ignorance’ protecting veil 1020 And without covert from my radiant gods. 1021 No shape shall screen thee from my divine desire, 1022 Nowhere shalt thou escape my living eyes. 1023 In the nudity of thy discovered self, 1024 In a bare identity with all that is, 1025 Disrobed of thy covering of humanity, 1026 Divested of the dense veil of human thought, 1027 Made one with every mind and body and heart, 1028 Made one with all Nature and with Self and God, 1029 Summing in thy single soul my mystic world 1030 I will possess in thee my universe, 1031 The universe find all I am in thee. 1032 Thou shalt bear all things that all things may change, 1033 Thou shalt fill all with my splendour and my bliss, 1034 Thou shalt meet all with thy transmuting soul. 1035 Assailed by my infinitudes above, 1036 And quivering in immensities below, 1037 Pursued by me through my mind’s wall-less vast, 1038 Oceanic with the surges of my life, 1039 A swimmer lost between two leaping seas 1040 By my outer pains and inner sweetnesses 1041 Finding my joy in my opposite mysteries 1042 Thou shalt respond to me from every nerve. 1043 A vision shall compel thy coursing breath, 1044 Thy heart shall drive thee on the wheel of works, 1045 Thy mind shall urge thee through the flames of thought, 1046 To meet me in the abyss and on the heights, 1047 To feel me in the tempest and the calm, 1048 And love me in the noble and the vile, 1049 In beautiful things and terrible desire. 1050 The pains of hell shall be to thee my kiss, 1051 The flowers of heaven persuade thee with my touch. 1052 My fiercest masks shall my attractions bring. 1053 Music shall find thee in the voice of swords, 1054 Beauty pursue thee through the core of flame. 1055 Thou shalt know me in the rolling of the spheres 1056 And cross me in the atoms of the whirl. 1057 The wheeling forces of my universe 1058 Shall cry to thee the summons of my name. 1059 Delight shall drop down from my nectarous moon, 1060 My fragrance seize thee in the jasmine’s snare, 1061 My eye shall look upon thee from the sun. 1062 Mirror of Nature’s secret spirit made, 1063 Thou shalt reflect my hidden heart of joy, 1064 Thou shalt drink down my sweetness unalloyed 1065 In my pure lotus-cup of starry brim. 1066 My dreadful hands laid on thy bosom shall force 1067 Thy being bathed in fiercest longing’s streams. 1068 Thou shalt discover the one and quivering note, 1069 And cry, the harp of all my melodies, 1070 And roll, my foaming wave in seas of love. 1071 Even my disasters’ clutch shall be to thee 1072 The ordeal of my rapture’s contrary shape: 1073 In pain’s self shall smile on thee my secret face: 1074 Thou shalt bear my ruthless beauty unabridged 1075 Amid the world’s intolerable wrongs, 1076 Trampled by the violent misdeeds of Time 1077 Cry out to the ecstasy of my rapture’s touch. 1078 All beings shall be to thy life my emissaries; 1079 Drawn to me on the bosom of thy friend, 1080 Compelled to meet me in thy enemy’s eyes, 1081 My creatures shall demand me from thy heart. 1082 Thou shalt not shrink from any brother soul. 1083 Thou shalt be attracted helplessly to all. 1084 Men seeing thee shall feel my hands of joy, 1085 In sorrow’s pangs feel steps of the world’s delight, 1086 Their life experience its tumultuous shock 1087 In the mutual craving of two opposites. 1088 Hearts touched by thy love shall answer to my call, 1089 Discover the ancient music of the spheres 1090 In the revealing accents of thy voice 1091 And nearer draw to me because thou art: 1092 Enamoured of thy spirit’s loveliness 1093 They shall embrace my body in thy soul, 1094 Hear in thy life the beauty of my laugh, 1095 Know the thrilled bliss with which I made the worlds. 1096 All that thou hast, shall be for others’ bliss, 1097 All that thou art, shall to my hands belong. 1098 I will pour delight from thee as from a jar, 1099 I will whirl thee as my chariot through the ways, 1100 I will use thee as my sword and as my lyre, 1101 I will play on thee my minstrelsies of thought. 1102 And when thou art vibrant with all ecstasy, 1103 And when thou liv’st one spirit with all things, 1104 Then will I spare thee not my living fires, 1105 But make thee a channel for my timeless force. 1106 My hidden presence led thee unknowing on 1107 From thy beginning in earth’s voiceless bosom 1108 Through life and pain and time and will and death, 1109 Through outer shocks and inner silences 1110 Along the mystic roads of Space and Time 1111 To the experience which all Nature hides. 1112 Who hunts and seizes me, my captive grows: 1113 This shalt thou henceforth learn from thy heart-beats. 1114 For ever love, O beautiful slave of God! 1115 O lasso of my rapture’s widening noose, 1116 Become my cord of universal love. 1117 The spirit ensnared by thee force to delight 1118 Of creation’s oneness sweet and fathomless, 1119 Compelled to embrace my myriad unities 1120 And all my endless forms and divine souls. 1121 O Mind, grow full of the eternal peace; 1122 O Word, cry out the immortal litany: 1123. Built is the golden tower, the flame-child born. |