By Richard Mather
He who receives light from above no other doctrine needs
-- Milton, Paradise Regained IV 288-290
At the mill with slaves
in this land of foreign gods
(and more shadow than light),
the poet’s mind is moved
by thought,
an infinite succession of thoughts,
a multitude of images,
appearances
emulating appearances,
extending toward the infinite.
And as each image negates the last,
comprehension is exceeded,
the pillars are toppled
and then a god-like black-out
as the scenery crumbles
and nature and the human dissolve
into the pure mediality
of absolute indifference.
When he opens his eyes
he is as blind as Samson,
calm of mind all passion spent.
But having passed over
from the world of sense,
he now has a different light
in which to see:
an indifferent clarity of mind,
knowledge without perspective,
the zero-point of all opposites,
eternally autonomous,
superordinated,
the unhuman Absolute Person.
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