The waters surge on the inner sea,
And the mystic mariner beckons me
To the silken strand of a shrouded shore
In an ark of light, on the winds of "Before."


A reservoir of silence stands
In the placeless realm of inner lands;
Where the gates of "return" stand ever wide
Tempestuous gales and rolling tides
Begin the voyage that knows no time
In the realm of thought or the eye of mind.


Across the crests of that azure plain
My heart was swept in wearied pain,
To the hallowed court of the Presence's call
Whose grace beguiles and beauty enthralls.


I found that shore beneath the waves
Where others only thought their graves.
The path, the dark and sacred depths,
The mighty realms of emptiness;
The universe in sudden flight
Vanished in that world's night.


For in that world was none but He;
The thought of nothing else could be.
The shadow reached unto the sun,
Knowing then that He was One.


And in the moment of His flight,
Seeing it becomes the Light,
Cast His ship adrift to be
The mirror of eternity.


Then came from the unlettered Word
The song that had remained unheard,
And with the letters "B" and "E"
He drew the worlds in symetry.


And when in metaphoric tones
He gave to man and man alone
A talisman with brilliance blessed
Far more noble than the rest...


The choice, a gift and something more,
A sovereignty in metaphor;
That likeness born of Will's design
In touch with universal mind,


To the motion of the spheres
He set the rhythm of the years,
And called from every mote a sign
Of His majesty sublime.


To this song the atoms dance
The cosmogenesis in trance
To weave the thread of being's dream
Into the fabric of the scheme.


But music of the rolling spheres
Lies mute behind the desperate years.
The master of the hidden soul
Is hidden at its deepest pole.


Transcend philosophy and dream
Take voice in the celestial scheme;
Leave the realm of faith and doubt,
And move with ecstacy throughout.


The highest passions of the soul,
Engendered in the breast of time,
Woo the powers of the whole,
And court the magistrate of mind.


Beyond this caste of metaphor
There is a song which silence knows.
Within this frame of emptiness
Undiscerned, the aether flows.
Down a dark and hidden way
Abides an endless land of Day.



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