I will Listen, I will Learn – till my
Soul is as large as the Shining World²
Let there be many Windows to the Soul, that
All the glory of the Universe may Beautify it³
Stare into the Fire – Look at the Clouds – and
When Ideas or Intuitions come to you and the
Voices of your Soul start to speak: Trust them⁴
With wide-embracing Love thy Soul animates
Eternal Years – Pervades and Broods above –
Changes, Sustains, Dissolves, Creates & Rears⁵
The Split-Second Flutter of Knowing visible in
Your Eyes as you see the Invisible Nuance of Soul⁶
In my Soule yet me thinketh I here a Blisful Soun⁷
Ah! from the Soul itself must issue forth a Light,
A Glory, a fair luminous Cloud enveloping the
Earth – and from the Soul itself must there be
Sent a sweet & potent Voice, of its own Birth,
Of all sweet sounds – the Life & Element!⁸
The deeds of Earth, however etherealized
By Piety or Genius, are without value,
Except as Manifestations of the Spirit⁹
The Soul’s Superior Instants occur to
Her alone – when friend and earth’s
Occasion have Infinite Withdrawn¹⁰
¹ George Eliot, Middlemarch
² Ursula K. Le Guin, Solitude
³ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Progress
⁴ Hermann Hesse tr. Damion Searls, Demian
⁵ Emily Brontë, Last Lines
⁶ Susan Griffin, Celebration
⁷ Geoffrey Chaucer, The Complaint of Troilus
⁸ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode
⁹ Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Artist of the Beautiful
¹⁰ Emily Dickinson, The Soul’s Superior Instants