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In a slumber of the voices of the world He of the eternal moment grew aware; His knowledge stripped bare of the garbs of sense Knew by identity without thought or word;

Immersed in voiceless internatal trance The beings that once wore forms on earth sat there In shining chambers of spiritual sleep.

Life was not there, but an impassioned force, Finer than fineness, deeper than the deeps, Felt as a subtle and spiritual power, A quivering out from soul to answering soul

All there was soul or made of sheer soul-stuff; A sky of soul covered a deep soul-ground.

A hidden call to unforeseen delight In the summoning voice of one long-known, well-loved, But nameless to the unremembering mind, It led to rapture back the truant heart.

Existence' self was shadowed by a doubt; Almost it seemed a lotus-leaf afloat On a nude pool of cosmic Nothingness.

Then suddenly a luminous finger fell On all things seen or touched or heard or felt And showed his mind that nothing could be known; That must be reached from which all knowledge comes.

An equal Cause of things, a lonely Seer And Master of its multitude of forms, It acted not but bore all thoughts and deeds, The witness Lord of Nature's myriad acts Consenting to the movements of her Force.

All there was an intense but partial light. In each a seraph-winged high-browed Idea United all knowledge by one master thought, Persuaded all action to one golden sense, All powers subjected to a single power And made a world where it could reign alone, An absolute ideal's perfect home.