The Secret of the Universe
AN ODE
(By a Western Spinning Dervish)
I SPIN, I spin, around, around,
And close my eyes,
And let the bile arise
From the sacred region of the soul’s Profound;
Then gaze upon the world; how strange! how new!
The earth and heaven are one,
The horizon-line is gone,
The sky how green! the land how fair and blue!
Perplexing items fade from my large view,
And thought which vexed me with its false and true
Is swallowed up in Intuition; this,
This is the sole true mode
Of reaching God,
And gaining the universal synthesis
Which makes All—One; while fools with peering eyes
Dissect, divide, and vainly analyse.
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poem by Edward Dowden
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In the Cathedral Close
IN the Dean's porch a nest of clay
With five small tentants may be seen;
Five solemn faces, each as wise
As if its owner were a Dean.
Five downy fledglings in a row,
Packed close, as in the antique pew
The school-girls are whose foreheads clear
At the Venite shine on you.
Day after day the swallows sit
With scarce a stir, with scarce a sound,
But dreaming and digesting much
They grow thus wise and soft and round:
They watch the Canons come to dine,
And hear, the mullion-bars across,
Over the fragrant fruit and wine
Deep talk of rood-screen and reredos.
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poem by Edward Dowden
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By the Window
STILL deep into the West I gazed; the light
Clear, spiritual, tranquil as a bird
Wide-winged that soars on the smooth gale and sleeps,
Was it from sun far-set or moon unrisen?
Whether from moon, or sun, or angel’s face
It held my heart from motion, stayed my blood,
Betrayed each rising thought to quiet death
Along the blind charm’d way to nothingness,
Lull’d the last nerve that ached. It was a sky
Made for a man to waste his will upon,
To be received as wiser than all toil,
And much more fair. And what was strife of men?
And what was time?
Then came a certain thing.
Are intimations for the elected soul
Dubious, obscure, of unauthentic power
Since ghostly to the intellectual eye,
Shapeless to thinking? Nay, but are not we
Servile to words and an usurping brain,
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poem by Edward Dowden
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