For the Time Being, Advent Part V: Chorus

O where is that immortal and nameless Centre from which our points of
Definition and death are all equi-distant? Where
The well of our wish to wander, the everlasting fountain
Of the waters of joy that our sorrow uses for tears?
O where is the garden of Being that is only known in Existence
As the command to be never there, the sentence by which
Alephs of throbbing fact have been banished into position,
The clock that dismisses the moment into the turbine of time?

O would I could mourn over Fate like the others, the resolute creatures,
By seizing my chance to regret. The stone is content
With a formal anger and falls and falls; the plants are indignant
With one dimension only and can only doubt
Whether light or darkness lies in the worse direction; and the subtler
Exiles who try every path are satisfied
With proving that none have a goal: why must Man also acknowledge
It is not enough to bear witness, for even protest is wrong?

Earth is cooled and fire is quenched by his unique excitement,
All answers expire in the clench of his questioning hand,
His singular emphasis frustrates all possible order:
Alas, his genius is wholly for envy; alas,
The vegetative sadness of lakes, the locomotive beauty
Of choleric beasts of prey, are nearer than he
To the dreams that deprive him of sleep, the powers that compel him to idle,
To his amorous nymphs and his sanguine athletic gods.

How can his knowledge protect his desire for truth from illusion?
How can he wait without idols to worship, without
Their overwhelming persuasion that somewhere, over the high hill,
Under the roots of the oak, in the depths of the sea,
Is a womb or a tomb wherein he may halt to express some attainment?
How can he hope and not dream that his solitude
Shall disclose a vibrating flame at last and entrust him forever
With its magic secret of how to extemporise life?