The bird-soul was ashamed;

Their body was quite annihilated;

They had cleaned themselves from the dust,

And were by the light ensouled.

Was wiped out from their breast.
The sun from near-by beamed

Clearest light into their soul;

The resplendence of the Simorg beamed

As one back from all three.

They knew not, amazed, if they
Were either this or that.

They saw themselves all as Simorg,
Themselves in the eternal Simorg.
When to the Simorg up they looked,
They beheld him among themselves;
And when they looked on each other,
They saw themselves in the Simorg.
A single look grouped the two parties,
The Simorg emerged, the Simorg vanished
This in that and that in this,

As the world has never heard.

So remained they, sunk in wonder,
Thoughtless in deepest thinking,
And quite unconscious of themselves.
Speechless prayed they to the Highest
Το open this secret,

And to unlock Thou and We.

There came an answer without tongue

The Highest is a sun-mirror;

Who comes to Him sees himself therein,

Sees body and soul, and soul and body;
When you came to the Simorg,
Three therein appeared to you,
And, had fifty of you come,

So had you seen yourselves as many.
Him has none of us yet seen.
Ants see not the Pleiades.

Can the gnat grasp with his teeth

The body of the elephant ?
What you see is He not;
What you hear is He not.
The valleys which you traverse,
The actions which you perform,
They lie under our treatment
And among our properties.
You as three birds are amazed,
Impatient, heartless, confused:
Far over you am I raised,
Since I am in act Simorg.

Ye blot out my highest being,

That ye may find yourselves on my throne

Forever ye blot out yourselves,

As shadows in the sun.

Farewell!' $

IX

INSPIRATION

THAT flowing river, which, out of regions I see not, pours fo

a season its streams into me.

"IF with light head erect I sing,

Though all the Muses lend their force,

From my poor love of anything,

The verse is weak and shallow as its source.

"But if with bended head I grope

Listening behind me for my wit,

With faith superior to hope,

More anxious to keep back than forward it,

. Making my soul accomplice there

Unto the flame my heart hath lit,

Then will the verse forever wear,

Time cannot bend a line which God hath writ."

"Inspiration," THOREAU.