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“That is why even the
universe, in its entirety, is insufficient for the momentum of human
contemplation and human ideas. Yet intuition often breaks through those
limits, and, taking in the whole spectrum of life, lets us see how the
elevated and the beautiful prevail in all things and quickly reveals to us
the purpose of our lives on earth.”
Longinus, “Treatise on the Sublime”
My soul, the first primroses are in bloom,
how they shine and smile, O my soul,
how they bask in the generous goodwill of the seasons!
O sweet promise of tears, calyxes germinating joy!
O flowers that restore to words their original sense,
free, glorious, amazing!
Listen to the archangel bells!
O Easter, sublime, divine!
Weave your pure knowledge into the morning,
you who are time beyond ordinary time
and light beyond all light!
Sing, sing, celestial choirs, you who were there
before Destiny was unveiled!
Listen to the archangel bells!
Without you, O greatest of all feast days, would my life have
any more value than a tiny speck of dust?
Open your eyes, O Night of nights,
let me enter into the Life of lives,
I beg you, let me
slip through unexpectedly,
as if I'd suddenly changed my mind,
let me do this today
despite my body's protests!
Listen to the archangel bells!
Bind together, O immemorial Day of Life,
whatever is most true, most penetrating and most transparent
in my love!
Lend to my thin melody strength, persuasiveness and beauty!
Force me to feel the sweet ecstasy of robins
swooning in the foam of wisterias,
the bold tenderness of buds!
Listen to the archangel bells!
O Easter of the scrupulous!
How beautiful is this Night of nights!
How the shadows diminish at the approach of Dawn!
How the edifice of planets and stars
opens its divine elegance to lips
touched by the extreme intimacy of grace!
Listen to the archangel bells!
Wisdom of the material world! Wisdom of the depths!
Year that escapes the scansion of clocks,
bring back to light the sepulchres of the beloved dead,
the wild greenery that soothes their sleep,
the shattered bones
in the vaults built by the blazing hands of the faithful,
the memories of lofty necropolises where our ultimate Hope
rests for ever unbroken!
Listen to the archangel bells!
Come, sublime Easter, supreme architecture of the azure,
come on the waves of Dawn,
on the beatings of wings
that build the castle of the soul,
lead me astray without remission into your ecstatic splendour!
Come, step up, smile, O my Easter
your arms loaded with spring!
Listen to the archangel bells!
Translated from the French by Norton Hodges
21.06.05.
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