The Adventure of the Apocalypse

The Signature:

Sharp-hewn yet undertoned with mystery,

A brief black sign from the Incommunicable

Making the Eternal's Night mix with our day

To deepen and deepen the shallow goldenness

We hug to our heart! Laughing whip-lash of love

That leaves a wonder-weal holding bright secrets

Within its snake whose coils are centuries

But whose straight sweep is the backbone of One Bliss!

The characters go flaming up and down

With all time's venture twixt two ecstatic ends.

Clutching with gentle finger our dumb desire

A slanting full-bodied soar loops a firm loop

Of light around some lone invisible peak—

Followed by steady twin strokes toward the same goal,

Yet smooth and statured close to the human's heart.

Then one curve-straightening gracefully girdled stance,

A peace and pulchritude and potency,

A slender pyramid chasing a viewless line

Within, to an upright noon that knows all truth.

Soon from the girdle a quick smiling leap

Across, spaced with a pair of vertical dreams

Still hinting unfallen heights, and then the term

Of all this labour and rapture in a full sweet circle,

Lackless, complete with godhead boundless in a point.

But, never a stagnant splendour, it casts a hook

Answering the curl before, with which the Name

Of the Nameless unwound in the hours, by a curl behind

Downward to dig and drag the dark Divine

Out of some heaven made hell, the Abyss that is All!

12-5-48

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