Part 13 (1/2)
Oh! dreadful is the check--intense the agony-- When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again; The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain
There is no doubt about those three verses; that they are the expression of the rarest and the iven to humanity to know
If ”The Visionary” does not touch that supernal place, it belongs indubitably to the borderland:
Silent is the house; all are laid asleep: One alone looks out o'er the snoreaths deep, Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze That whirls the wildering drift and bends the groaning trees
Cheerful is the hearth, soft the h pane or door; The little la and far I tri-star
Frown, ry dame!
Set your slaves to spy; threatenserf shall know, What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow
What I love shall co human snare; What loves h for faith unstained li stirs, methinks, the air; He for whoe Power! I trust thy ht; trust thouin this poeely and perversely mistaken in their E of one of the most marvellous of all poems of Divine Love: ”En una Noche Escura”
EN UNA NOCHE ESCURA[A]
Upon an obscure night Fevered with Love's anxiety (O hapless, happy plight!) I went, none seeing s quiet be
Blest night of wandering In secret, when by none uide Save that which in ht did leadof noontide, Where well I knew that One Did for ht none but he abide
O night that didst lead thus; O night htest us Lover to lover's sight, Lover to loved, in ht!
[Footnote A: ”St John of the Cross: The Dark Night of the Soul”
Translated by Arthur Symons in vol ii of his _Collected Poems_]
We knohat love is celebrated there, and we do not know so clearly what manner of supernal passion is sy way there between Emily Bronte and St
John of the Cross, between her laht of the Soul”, and yet her opening lines have so power of treestion, the intense, mysterious expectancy of his The spiritual experience is sos to the saanism
She wrote of these supreme ardours andof passionate human love, ”Remembrance”:
Cold in the earth--and the deep snow piled above thee, Far, far reot, my only Love, to love thee
But ”Remembrance” is too well known for quotation here So is ”The Old Stoic”
These are perfect and unforgettable things But there is hardly one of the least adettable and perfect verse or line: