Chapter 9Descent

Poems in Quantitative Metres Descent9 All my cells thrill swept by a surge of splendour, Soul and body stir with a mighty rapture, Light and still more light like an ocean billows Over me, round me. Rigid, stonelike, fixed like a hill or statue, Vast my body feels and upbears the world’s weight; Dire the large descent of the Godhead enters Limbs that are mortal. Voiceless, thronged, Infinity crowds upon me; Presses down a glory of power eternal; Mind and heart grow one with the cosmic wideness; Stilled are earth’s murmurs. Swiftly, swiftly crossing the golden spaces Knowledge leaps, a torrent of rapid lightnings; Thoughts that left the Ineffable’s flaming mansions, Blaze in my spirit. Slow the heart-beats’ rhythm like a giant hammer’s; Missioned voices drive to me from God’s doorway Words that live not save upon Nature’s summits, Ecstasy’s chariots. All the world is changed to a single oneness; Souls undying, infinite forces, meeting, Join in God-dance weaving a seamless Nature, Rhythm of the Deathless. 9 Sapphics. But the second-foot spondee is very usually replaced by a trochee, the final trochee sometimes by a spondee; an antibacchius, cretic or molossus can replace the dactyl. In the fifteenth line elision is used; in a sapphic line there can be only one dactyl.

Mind and heart and body, one harp of being, Cry that anthem, finding the notes eternal, — Light and might and bliss and immortal wisdom Clasping for ever.