By Thomas Merton
(1915 - 1968)
That dies among the wood-light
Wounding the listener with such bright arrows?
Or do they play in wheeling silences
Defining in the perfect sky
The bounds of (here below) our solitude,
Where spring has generated lights of green
To glow in clouds upon the sombre branches?
Ponds full of sky and stillnesses
What heavy summer songs still sleep
Under the tawny rushes at your brim?
More than a season will be born here, nature,
In your world of gravid mirrors!
The quiet air awaits one note,
One light, one ray and it will be the angels' spring:
One flash, one glance upon the shiny pond, and then
Asperges me! sweet wilderness, and lo! we are redeemed!
For, like a grain of fire
Smouldering in the heart of every living essence
God plants His undivided power --
Buries His thought too vast for worlds
In seed and root and blade and flower,
Until, in the amazing light of April,
Surcharging the religious silence of the spring,
Creation finds the pressure of His everlasting secret
Too terrible to bear.
Then every way we look, lo! rocks and trees
Pastures and hills and streams and birds and firmament
And our own souls within us flash, and shower us with light,
While the wild countryside, unknown, unvisited of men,
Bears sheaves of clean, transforming fire.
And then, oh then the written image, schooled in sacrifice,
The deep united threeness printed in our being,
Shot by the brilliant syllable of such an intuition, turns within,
And plants that light far down into the heart of darkness and oblivion,
Dives after, and discovers flame.
Féach os ard an éanlaith! An leo an chantain
Atá ag éag i solas na coille
An t-éisteoir á ghoineadh le saigheada na gile?
Nó an ag spraoi i bhfáinní tosta iad
Teorainneacha ár n-uaignis (anseo thíos)
Á dtarraingt acu i bhfirmimint gan cháim
Áit a bhfuil soilse glasa ginte ag an earrach
Le lonrú ina néalta ar ghéaga gruama?
Linnte lán de spéartha agus de thostanna
Cad iad na hamhráin samhraidh throma atá fós faoi shuan
Ar bhur mbruacha faoina ngiolcach chrón?
Is mó ná séasúr a shaolófar anseo, a dhúlra,
Id’ dhomhansa de scátháin smaointeacha!
Tá an t-aer ciúin ag súil le nóta amháin,
Solas amháin, ga amháin agus earrach na n-aingeal a bheidh ann:
Scal amháin, sciorr-laom ar an linn lonrach, is ansin
Asperges me! A dhíseart m’anama, is féach! slánaíodh sinn!
Mar, ar nós gráinne tine
Ag cnádadh leis i gcroí an uile ní beo
Cuireann Dia a chumhacht dhoroinnte –
Adhlacann a aigne atá rófhairsing do dhomhain
I síol is i bhfréamh is i seamaide is i mbláth,
Go dtí, faoi sholas iontach Aibreáin,
Tost cráifeach an earraigh faoi ualach róthrom
Níl an saol in ann brú uafásach an Rúin shíoraí Aige
A fhulaingt níos mó.
Ansin, soir siar is gach aon áit, féach! carraigeacha is crainn
Féaraigh is cnoic is srutháin is éanlaith is an fhirminint
Is ár n-anam ionainn ina laom, ár mbá sa ghile,
Is an dúiche fhiáin, aineoil, gan lorg chos an duine,
Lán de laom-phunainn ghlana ár gclaochlaithe.
Is ansin, Ó, an íomhá scríofa ansin atá oilte ar íobairt,
An trí duibheagánach aontaithe atá clóite ionainn,
Criathraithe ag siolla soilseach an iomais sin, casann isteach,
Is cuireann an solas sin síos síos i gcroí an dorchadais is na díchuimhne,
Tumann is aimsíonn an lasair sa tóir.