Gnosis
By
Christopher Pearse Cranch
The poem was most published in the
transcendentalist journal "The
Dial" from 1840-44. Though it uses simple
language and is easily
comprehended, that in no way suggests that its
imagery isn't effective.
THOUGHT is deeper than all
speech,
Feeling deeper than all thought:
Souls to souls never can teach
What unto themselves was taught.
We are
spirits clad in
veils;
Man by man was never seen;
All our deep communing fails
To remove the
shadowy screen.
Heart to
heart was never known;
Mind with
mind did never meet;
We are columns left
alone
Of a
temple once complete.
Like the
stars that gem the sky,
Far apart though seeming near,
In our light we scattered
lie;
All is thus but starlight here.
What is
social company
But a
babbling summer
stream?
What our wise
philosophy
But the glancing of a
dream?
Only when the Sun of
Love
Melts the scattered stars of thought,
Only when we
live above
What the dim-eyed world hath taught,
Only when our
souls are fed
By the Fount which gave them birth,
And by inspiration led
Which they never drew from
earth,
We, like parted drops of
rain,
Swelling till they meet and run,
Shall all be
absorbed again,
Melting,
flowing, into one.