You will not hear of me after this night,
And thus I say farewell. It may be, far
In time not yet appointed, our life's spirit
Will know its fate, through all the thickets of grief,
As simply and as gladly as one's eyes
Greet the blue weather shining behind trees.
Yea, and I think there will be more than this:
Is not the world a terrible thing, a vision
Of fierce divinity that cares not for us?
Do we not seem immortal good desire,
Mortally wronged by capture in swift being
Made of a world that holds us firm for ever?
And yet is it not beautiful, the world?
How read you that? How is our wrong delightful?
Thus it is: Spirit finding the world fair,
Is spirit in dim perception of its own
Radiant desire piercing the worldly shadow.
But what is dim will become glorious clear:
All in a splendour will the Spirit at last
Stand in the world, for all will be naught else
But Spirit's own perfect knowledge of itself;
Yea, this dark mighty seeming of the world
Is but the Spirit's own power unsubdued;
And as the unruled vigours of thought in sleep
Crowd on the brain, and become dream therein;
So the strange outer forces of man's spirit
Are the appearing world. But all at last,
Subdued, becomes self-knowing ecstasy,
The whole world brightens into Spirit's desire.
This is for Spirit to be lord of life;