You’ve seen the world, and all you’ve seen is nothing; and everything, as well, that you have said and heard is nothing. You’ve sprinted everywhere between here and the horizon; it is nothing. And all the possessions you’ve treasured up at home are nothing.
I can’t reveal the mystery to either saint or sinner; I can’t state at length what I’ve said curtly; I achieve an altered state that I can’t explain; I have a secret that I cannot share.
This clay, so strong of heart, of sense so fine, Surely such clay is more than half divine–‘Tis only fools speak evil of the clay, The very stars are made of clay like mine.
I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell: And by and by my Soul return’d to me, And answer’d: ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell.
How sad, a heart that does not know how to love, that does not know what it is to be drunk with love. If you are not in love, how can you enjoy the blinding light of the sun, the soft light of the moon?
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays Upon this Checker-board of Nights and Days; Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.
Ah Love! could you and I with him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire Would we not shatter it to bits-and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire?
