Apropos of Two Vast Negations — 21

Apropos of Two Vast Negations — 21

The Presence he yearned for suddenly drew close. ||81.1||

Across the silence of the ultimate Calm,

Out of a marvellous Transcendence’ core,

A body of wonder and translucency

As if a sweet mystic summary of her self,

Escaping into the original Bliss

Had come enlarged out of eternity,

Someone came infinite and absolute. ||81.2||

A being of wisdom, power and delight,

Even as a mother draws her child to her arms,

Took to her breast Nature and world and soul. ||81.3||

Abolishing the signless emptiness,

Breaking the vacancy and voiceless hush,

Piercing the limitless Unknowable,

Into the liberty of the motionless depths

A beautiful and felicitous lustre stole,

Imaged itself in a surprising beam

And built a golden passage to his heart

Touching through him all longing sentient things. ||81.4||

A moment’s sweetness of the All-Beautiful

Cancelled the vanity of the cosmic whirl. ||81.5||

A Nature throbbing with a Heart divine

Was felt in the unconscious universe;

It made the breath a happy mystery

And brought a love sustaining pain with joy;

A love that bore the cross of pain with joy,

Eudaemonised the sorrow of the world,

Made happy the weight of long unending Time,

The secret caught of God’s felicity. ||81.6||

Affirming in life a hidden ecstasy

It held the spirit to its miraculous course;

Carrying immortal values to the hours

It justified the labour of the suns. ||81.7||

For one was there supreme behind the God. ||81.8||

A Mother Might brooded upon the world;

A Consciousness revealed its marvellous front

Transcending all that is, denying none:

Imperishable above our fallen heads

He felt a rapturous and unstumbling Force. ||81.9||

The undying Truth appeared, the enduring Power

Of all that here is made and then destroyed,

The Mother of all godheads and all strengths

Who, mediatrix, binds earth to the Supreme. ||81.10||

The Enigma ceased that rules our nature’s night,

The covering Nescience was unmasked and slain;

Its mind of error was stripped off from things

And the dull moods of its perverting will. ||81.11||

Illumined by her all-seeing identity

Knowledge and Ignorance could strive no more;

No longer could the titan Opposites,

Antagonist poles of the world’s artifice,

Impose the illusion of their twofold screen

Throwing their figures between us and her. ||81.12||

The Wisdom was near, disguised by its own works,

Of which the darkened universe is the robe. ||81.13||

No more existence seemed an aimless fall,

Extinction was no more the sole release. ||81.14||

The hidden Word was found, the long-sought clue,

Revealed was the meaning of our spirit’s birth,

Condemned to an imperfect body and mind,

In the inconscience of material things

And the indignity of mortal life. ||81.15||

A Heart was felt in the spaces wide and bare,

A burning Love from white spiritual founts

Annulled the sorrow of the ignorant depths;

Suffering was lost in her immortal smile. ||81.16||

A Life from beyond grew conqueror here of Death;

To err no more was natural to mind;

Wrong could not come where all was light and love. ||81.17||

The Formless and the Formed were joined in her. ||81.18||

Immensity was exceeded by a look,

A Face revealed the crowded Infinite. ||81.19||

Incarnating inexpressibly in her limbs

The boundless joy the blind world-forces seek,

Her body of beauty mooned the seas of bliss. ||81.20||

At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate,

In their slow round the cycles turn to her call;

Alone her hands can change Time’s dragon base. ||81.21||

Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;

The spirit’s alchemist energy is hers;

She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire. ||81.22||

The luminous heart of the Unknown is she,

A power of silence in the depths of God;

She is the Force, the inevitable Word,

The magnet of our difficult ascent,

The Sun from which we kindle all our suns,

The Light that leans from the unrealised Vasts,

The joy that beckons from the impossible,

The Might of all that never yet came down. ||81.23||

All Nature dumbly calls to her alone

To heal with her feet the aching throb of life

And break the seals on the dim soul of man

And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things. ||81.24||

All here shall be one day her sweetness’s home,

All contraries prepare her harmony;

Towards her our knowledge climbs, our passion gropes,

In her miraculous rapture we shall dwell,

Her clasp will turn to ecstasy our pain. ||81.25||

Our self shall be one self with all through her. ||81.26||

In her confirmed because transformed in her,

Our life shall find in its fulfilled response

Above, the boundless hushed beatitudes,

Below, the wonder of the embrace divine. ||81.27||

This known as in a thunder-flash of God,

The rapture of things eternal filled his limbs;

Amazement fell upon his ravished sense;

His spirit was caught in her intolerant flame. ||81.28||

Once seen, his heart acknowledged only her. ||81.29||

Only a hunger of infinite bliss was left. ||81.30||

All aims in her were lost, then found in her;

His base was gathered into one pointing spire. ||81.31||

The featured image is a painting by Huta:

Book 3 Canto 2 – The Adoration of the Divine Mother