Young Adventure (1918), The Quality of Courage
Context: It is not given me to trace
The lovely laughter of that face,
Like a clear brook most full of light,
Or olives swaying on a height,
So silver they have wings, almost;
Like a great word once known and lost
And meaning all things. Nor her voice
A happy sound where larks rejoice,
Her body, that great loveliness,
The tender fashion of her dress,
I may not paint them.
These I see,
Blazing through all eternity,
A fire-winged sign, a glorious tree!
Source: Young Adventure (1918), The Quality of Courage
“I have cast fire upon the world, and see, I am guarding it until it blazes.”
10
Gnostic Gospels, Gospel of Thomas (c. 2nd century AD manuscript)
“Eternity is a glorious word but eternity is ice.”
“Eternity and Eternity,” p. 32
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Skywalking”
Tablet to ‘Him Who Will Be Made Manifest’
Source: 1900s, Our National Parks (1901), chapter 1: The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West
“The blazing fire makes flames and brightness out of everything thrown into it.”
Source: Meditations
“Fire he sang,
that trees fear, and I, a tree, rejoiced in its flames.”
A Tree Telling of Orpheus (1968)
Context: Fire he sang,
that trees fear, and I, a tree, rejoiced in its flames.
New buds broke forth from me though it was full summer.
As though his lyre (now I knew its name)
were both frost and fire, its chords flamed
up to the crown of me.
I was seed again.
I was fern in the swamp.
I was coal.
