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And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Thursday, January 25, 2018

A Song for the Immortal FreeThinke

Upon a darkened night
the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright
I fled my house while all in quiet rest

Shrouded by the night
And by the secret stair I quickly fled
The veil concealed my eyes
while all within lay quiet as the dead

Oh night thou was my guide
of night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other

Upon that misty night
in secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light
than that which burned so deeply in my heart
That fire t'was led me on
and shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where he waited still
it was a place where no one else could come

Oh night thou was my guide
of night more loving than the rising sun
Oh night that joined the lover
to the beloved one
transforming each of them into the other

Within my pounding heart
which kept itself entirely for him
He fell into his sleep
beneath the cedars all my love I gave
From o'er the fortress walls
the wind would brush his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand
caressed my every sense it would allow

I lost myself to him
and laid my face upon my lover's breast
And care and grief grew dim
as in the morning's mist became the light
There they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
there they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
there they dimmed amongst the lilies fair
The spirit only occupies itself with objects so long as there is something secret, not revealed, in them.
- Hegel
---
My sole occupation is love.

All my occupation now is the practice of the love of God, all the powers of soul and body, memory, understanding, and will, interior and exterior senses, the desires of spirit and of sense, all work in and by love. All I do is done in love; all I suffer, I suffer in the sweetness of love.

---

When a soul has advanced so far on the spiritual road as to be lost to all the natural methods of communing with God; when it seeks Him no longer by meditation, images, impressions, nor by any other created ways, or representations of sense, but only by rising above them all, in the joyful communion with Him by faith and love, then it may be said to have found God of a truth, because it has truly lost itself as to all that is not God, and also as to its own self.
- St. John of the Cross

3 comments:

FreeThinke said...

Thank you kindly, FJ. That is lovely. Wonderful images accompany the gentle, delicate, quasi-hypnotic quality of the music whose text takes on a musing, meditative, almost prayerful aura of sweet inner confession.

I disagree with Hegel in that I believe all physical manifestations of beauty be they scenic, hand-wrought or literary provide tangible evidence –– sweet reminders –– that "Man does not live by bread alone."

I am often reminded of these words written by St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) in her breviary translated here by Henry WAdsworgth Longfellow (1807-1882).

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee.
All things are passing,
God never changeth.
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things
Whom God possesseth
In nothing is wanting
Alone God sufficeth.



-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

I agree with Hegel in that "my gaze" towards beauty originates in, and is driven by, the search for a salve with which to alleviate my own perplexity.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Now, back to all my distractions!