Tormented by the thirst for the Spirit, I was dragging myself in a sombre desert, And a six-winged seraph appeared Unto me on the parting of the roads; With fingers as light as a dream He touched mine eyes; And mine eyes opened wise, Like unto the eyes of a frightened eagle. He touched mine ears, And they filled with din and ringing. And I heard the trembling of the heavens, And the flight of the angels' wings, And the creeping of the polyps in the sea, And the growth of the vine in the valley. And he took hold of my lips, And out he tore my sinful tongue, With its empty and false speech. And the fang of the wise serpent Between my terrified lips he placed With bloody hand. And ope he cut my breast with a sword, And out he took my trembling heart, And a coal blazing with flame He shoved into the open breast. Like a corpse I lay in the desert; And the voice of the Lord called unto me: "Arise! O prophet and guide, and listen,-- Be thou filled with my will, And going over land and sea, Burn with the Word the hearts of men!" 24. This is the highest flight of Pushkin. He knew that the poet comes to deliver the message. But _what_ the message was, was not given unto him to utter. For God only speaks through those that speak for him, and Pushkin's was not yet a God-filled soul. Hence the last height left him yet to climb, the height from which the "Hymn of Force" is sung, Pushkin did not climb. Pushkin's song, in short, was so far only an utterance of a gift, it had not become as yet a part of his life. And the highest is only attainable not when our lives are guided by our gifts, but when our gifts are guided by our lives. How this thus falling short of a natively richly endowed soul became possible, can be told only from a study of his life. To Pushkin his poetic ideal bore the same relation to his practical life that the Sunday religion of the business-man bears to his Monday life. To the ordinary business man, Christ's words are a seeing guide to be followed in church, but a blind enough guide, not to be followed on the street. Hence Pushkin's life is barren as a source of inspiration towards what life ought to be; but it is richly fruitful as a terrifying warning against what life ought not to be.