The word travels on.

Out of the mists of time, out of innumerable births, of endless journeys, transfigurements, lives, deaths, sorrows, emerging, my voice sounds to myself, to you, nearer than all thought: tentatively trying the first notes, wonderingly at its beauty, of the Song—strange word!—of Joy.

To spread abroad over the earth, to be realised in time: Freedom to be realised in time, for which the whole of History has been a struggle and a preparation:

The dream of the soul’s slow disentanglement.

* * * * *

[O Blessed is he that has passed away!

Blessed, alive or dead, whom the bitter taunts of existence reach not—nor betrayals protruded from dear faces, nor weariness nor cold nor pain—dwelling in heaven, and looking forth in peace upon the world.

Blessed, thrice blessed, by day, by night! Blessed who sleeps with him, blessed who eats walks talks, blessed who labors in the field beside him; blessed whoever, though he be dead, shall know him to be eternally near.]

* * * * *

I am the poet of hitherto unuttered joy.

A little bird told me the secret in the night, and henceforth I go about seeking to whom to whisper it.

I see the heavens laughing, I discern the half-hidden faces of the gods wherever I go, I see the transparent-opaque veil in which they hide themselves; yet I dare not say what I see—lest I should be locked up!

Children go with me, and rude people are my companions. I trust them and they me. Day and night we are together and are content.

To them what I would say is near; yet is it in nothing that can be named, or in the giving or taking of any one thing; but rather in all things.

Laughter, O laughter! O endless journey! O soul exhaled through suffering, arising free! Little bird petrel through the stormy seas diving darting—thy boundless home—O clouds and sunshine shattering! Elf in thine own dark eyes gazing! O beckoner of companions, hastening onward—winged spirit divine, girt round with laughter, laughter, laughter.