Genie

 

 

He is affection and the present since he has made the house open to foamy

winter and to the murmur of summer-- he who has purified food and drink--

he who is the charm of fleeing places and the superhuman delight of

stations.-- He is affection and the future, love and strenght whom we,

standing in our rages and our boredoms, see passing in the stormy sky and

banners of ecstacy.

 

He is love, perfect measure reinvented, marvelous and unlooked-for

reason, and eternity: loved instrument of fatal qualities. We all have

known the terror of his concession and of ours: O relish of health, the

soaring of our faculties, selfish affection and passion for him,-- for

him who loves us for his infinite life...

 

And we remember him and he has gone on a journey... And if Adoration

goes, rings, his promise rings: "Away these superstitions, these ancient

bodies, these couples, and these ages. It is the epoch that has foundered!"

 

He will not go away, he will not come down again from any heaven, he will

not accomplish the redemption of the angers of women and the gaieties of

men or of all this sin: for it is done, he being, and being loved.

 

O his breaths, his heads, his flights: terrible celerity of the

perfection of forms and of action.

 

O fecundity of the mind and immensity of the universe!

 

His body! the dreamed-of release, the shattering of grace crossed by new

violence! His vision, his vision! all the old kneelings and the pains

_raised_ at his passing.

 

His day! the abolition of all resounding and restless sufferings in

intenser music.

 

His step! migrations more vast than the ancient invasions.

 

O he and we! Pride more compassionate than the lost charities.

 

O world and the pure song of new evils!

 

He has known us all and all of us has loved: Take heed this winter night,

from cape to cape, from the tumultuous pole to the castle, from the crowd

to the shore, from glance to glance, force and feelings weary, to hail

him, to see him and to send him away, and under the tides and high in the

deserts of snow, to follow his visions,-- his breaths,-- his body,-- his day.