The Forgotten Threshold: A Journal of Arthur Middleton — John Shaqi
The Forgotten Threshold: A Journal of Arthur MiddletonO'Brien, Edward J. (Edward Joseph)
Religion
The Forgotten Threshold: A Journal of Arthur Middleton
O'Brien, Edward J. (Edward Joseph)
Diaries; Mysticism
Today looking into a narrow dome I saw the seeded planets banded by
circles of light whereon they turned. And color changed into silence
at the bidding of the central suns. And these were the eyes of happy
innocence wherein all others died to the Living Light, God being in
them by their childishness. The tide turned yesterday, and today I
have spent entirely in eternity surrounded by a host of fair-winged
Possibilities, God's angels to humanity. Death is glorified by their
passage from the future to the past, and we respond by plunging our
lights into the Light wherein it dies. _Abt Vogler_ is the musical
philosophy of it all. At my first symphony concert as a little boy, I
saw the face of the dying Christ through the wall, and in it the music
of the seventh Symphony sang through the naked eyes calling me inward
to the Sacred Heart. This morning and noon at table I smiled at white
horizons and in the evening I swam through the Host on my future
wings. We love earth, air, fire, and water now, but the eternal joy of
swimming through the Light of God and reflecting His Light in song and
silence is the infinity of all poets' dreams incarnate in the awful
speed of Absolute Music. It is the privilege of laughing into the Eyes
of God, those Eyes before which the angels veil their faces. It is the
privilege of smelling the blossom of the Living Rose, of tasting and
consuming forever the Body and Blood, of touching the Sacred Knees,
and of hearing the Divinity who is Music. Priests and poets shall swim
in the song of his heart, and those who have died for friends will
reflect its resolving rhythm. How I pity Blake his pride, though he
was preserved from the pride of humility. God will let me see more of
Him in this life than Blake did, though it is of the most trifling
significance to anticipate eternity in poor time, the crippled heir of
original sin. Since it is to be, I wish with all my blood that my will
were worthier.
August 6.
A day of happy drudgery reading proofs. I rode through them in the
winds of eternity. That is the secret of it all,--to teach us joy. The
human symbol of it is a martyr's ecstasy, which is in no way sensuous
or voluptuous since it has completely forgotten the body. The Sacred
Heart is the Mystical Rose spreading its petals over the Cross of
Time. In _Flame and Dew_ is the first application of an idea and
belief that the day will come when anthologies will be books
containing the wisdom of the poets on special sciences, such as the
science of childhood, the science of love, the science of death, and
the science of silence.
August 7.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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