And walked through heading rye and purple vetch Into an orchard where great rows of pears Sloped up a hill. It was now evening: Stretches of scarlet clouds were in the west, And a half moon was hanging just above The pears' white blossoms. O, that evening! We came back to the boats at last and loosed One of them and rowed out into the bay, And fished, while the stars appeared. He only said 'Whatever they did with me you too shall do.' A haziness came on me now. I seem To find myself alone there in that boat. At mid-night I awoke, the moon was sunk, The whippoorwills were singing. I walked home Back to the village in a silence, peace, A happiness profound. "And the next morning I awoke with aching head, spent body, yet With spiritual vision so intense I looked Through things material as if they were But shadows--old things passed away or grew A lovelier order. And my heart was full. Infinitely I loved, and infinitely was loved. My landlady looked at me sharply, asked What hour I entered, where I was so late. I only answered fishing. For I told No person of my vision, went my way At carpentry in silence, in great joy. For archangels and powers were at my side, They led me, bore me up, instructed me In mysteries, and voices said to me 'Write' as the voice in Patmos said to John. I wrote and printed and the village read, And called me mad. And so I grew to see The deepest truths of God, and God Himself, The geniture of all things, of the Word Becoming flesh in Christ. I knew all ages, Times, empires, races, creeds, the human weakness Which makes life wearisome, confused and pained, And how the search for something (it is God) Makes divers worships, fire, the sun, and beasts Takes form in Eleusinian mysteries Or festivals where sex, the vine, the Earth At harvest time have praise or reverence. I knew God, talked with God, and knew that God Is more than Thought or Love. Our twisted brains Are but the wires in the bulb which stays, Resists the current and makes human thought. As the electric current is not light But heat and power as well. Our little brains Resist God and make thought and love as well. But God is more than these. Oh I heard much Of music, heard the whirring as of wheels, Or buzzing as of ears when a room is still. That is the axis of profoundest life Which turns and rests not. And I heard the cry And hearing wept, of man's soul, heard the ages, The epochs of this earth as it were the feet Of multitudes in corridors. And I knew The agony of genius and the woe Of prophets and the great.