In, signifying matrimonie
Joined in circles,
Here or there does not matter
The silent listening to the undeniable
the sudden illumination
something given
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
In the uncertain hour before the morning
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.
We shall not cease from exploration
Is that which was the beginning;
Not known, because not looked for
A condition of complete simplicity
When the tongues of flame are infolded
In that open field
If you do not come too close,
if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the small pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the fire
The association of Emily and Jedidiah
Illuminating and glorious sacrament.
Two and two, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde.
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Clamour of the bell of the last annunciation.
We cannot think of a future that is not liable
Like the past, to have no destination.
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,
Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The wild thyme unseen,
Or the waterfall,
Or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all,
But you are the music
While the music lasts.
Near the ending of relentless night
At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
To purify the language of the tribe
And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
Calling
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.