Impossible Things: Part I: The Hereafter, Near an Open Window

THE HEREAFTER (1892)

I believe in the Hereafter. Material appetites or love for the real don't beguile me. It's not habit but instinct. The heavenly word will be added to life's imperfect sentence, otherwise inane. Respite and reward will follow upon action. When sight is forevermore closed to Creation, the eye will be opened in the presence of the Creator. An immortal wave of life will flow from each and every Gospel of Christ wave of life uninterrupted.

NEAR AN OPEN WINDOW

In the stillness of an autumn night, I sit near an open window, for entire hours, in a perfect, voluptuous tranquility. The gentle rainfall of the leaves descends. The keening of the perishable world resounds within my perishable nature, but is a dulcet keening, rising like a prayer. My window opens up an unknown world. A fount of fragrant memories, unutterable, appears before me. Against my window wings are beating, chill autumnal exhalations approach me and encircle me and in their holy tongue they speak to me. I feel vague and wide-embracing hopes and in the hallowed silence of creation, my ears hear melodies, hear the crystalline, the mystic music of the chorus of the stars.