Though, truly, there did go millions then, as now, that did never to
know love; though the name did be in their mouths, and they to have
belief that the sweet kernel did be in their hearts; but, in verity,
THIS to be love, that your life shall bound in you with abundance, and
joy dwell round you, and your spirit to live in a natural holiness with
the Beloved, and your bodies to be a sweet and natural delight that
shall never be lost of a lovely mystery that doth hold a perfect peace
each unto the need of the other; and all to be that there go round
about you a wonder and a splendour all the days and the nights that you
shall be--the Man with the Woman, the Woman with the Man. And Shame to
be unborn, and all things to go natural and wholesome, out of an utter
greatness of understanding; and the Man to be an Hero and a Child before
the Woman; and the Woman to be an Holy Light of the Spirit and an utter
Companion and in the same time a glad Possession unto the Man. And lo!
if one to die, then the soul of the other shall fail; and that one never
to have full life again, in that bitter parting. And this doth be the
true Human Love; and all else that be not like to this with the Man and
with the Woman, doth be but a borrowing of the name of Love for that
quiet desiring, which is but an Endurance beside Love, which doth be
between they that be not mated both in their souls and in their bodies.
And this telling to take no heed to those base joinings that be made for
purposes of wealth or Desire or other piteous ends; for, in verity,
these to have no more dealings with the thing that I do tell upon, than
hath the merchanting of goods, or the _need_ of a glutton. But the thing
that I do have upon my heart doth be that dear and uplifting Power of
Love, which I to set forth in this mine own story; for, in truth, I to
have known love, and to need death when that I be parted from Mine Own.
Now, surely, Mine Own did come twice and thrice unto weeping, as I did
tell of this thing and that, which did set her memory backward unto the
ways of the Lesser Redoubt. And presently, I did cease from my tellings,
because that she did so be gone into pain of her memories. But, indeed,
she then to beg me that I go forward again; for, truly, she to need in
the heart that she know, and to strive to be no more in grief for the
telling.
And I then to say on, and did tell upon the Might and Wonder and great
Olden Delight of the Underground Fields, that were below the Great
Redoubt, as you do know. And I told how that they went downward an
hundred strange miles, that did be dug of the labour of Millions and of
the years of Eternity.
And I set out unto Mine Own concerning that there did be wondrous
villages spread through that great and hidden Country that did be in the
underground; and how that great millions of the Peoples did live there,
and made a constant labour in those deep Lands and Countries, that did
be truly so monstrous in all as an huge Continent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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