Chapter X

Come with slow steps and sit near the gardenbed,
whose flowers of tranquil light are shut by
evening; let the great night filter through you:
we are too happy for our prayer to be disturbed
by its sea of dread.

Above, the pure crystal of the stars is lit up;
behold the firmament clearer and more translucent
than a blue pond or the stained-glass window
in an apse; and then behold heaven that gazes
through.

The thousand voices of the vast mystery speak
around you; the thousand laws of all nature are
in movement about you; the silver bows of the
invisible take your soul and its fervour for
target,

But you are not afraid, oh! simple heart, you
are not afraid, since your faith is that the
whole earth works in harmony with that love that
brought forth in you life and its mystery.

Clasp then your hands tranquilly, and adore
gently; a great counsel of purity floats like
a strange dawn beneath the midnights of the
firmament.

XI

How readily delight is aroused in her, with her
eyes of fiery ecstasy, she who is gentle and
resigned before life in so simple a fashion.

This evening, how a look surprised her fervour
and a word transported her to the pure garden of
gladness, where she was at once both queen and
servant.

Humble of herself, but aglow with our two selves,
she vied with me in kneeling to gather the
wondrous happiness that overflowed mutually from
our hearts.

We listened to the dying down in us of the
violence of the exalting love imprisoned in our
arms, and to the living silence that said words
we did not know.