My Heaven is Full of Words but I Desire Love
My heaven is full of words but I desire love,
My heaven is crowded to the doors with good people but I hunger for sinners,
My heaven is dazed with suns—everywhere suns—but I crave for the shadows,
My heaven is the confirmation of the prophets but I am wayward and the prophets bore me,
My heaven is the home of the saints but I shrink from the saints and disdain their prerogatives.
I had done all I could to enrich life and point it the way of my heaven:
Finally I arrived—the last doubting step was taken
Having achieved heaven heaven was not heaven—it tried the patience of my spirit
Heaven was great reward—but reward was discounted in its own mathematics.
Heaven was great joy—but what use had I for joy until all others were absolved?
Heaven was peace—but I did not want peace: peace is death.
Heaven was the unattainable attained—but I did not wish to close my account with desire.
Round me stood the triumphing masters: Yes, I said, you have kept faith!
Round me were choristers—the poets and orators and the great preachers of an abolished earth
But I was unhappy—I stood there in the vast concourse and wept:
Wept not for joy but grief: wept not for having succeeded but because I had not failed—
I, heaven's own, having won heaven, consumed with regret over the lost paradise of my imperfections!
And so somehow there was a power reached forth from infinity into the midst of the orbs,
And the heavens were parted by clouds and loud noises prevailed and flames played forth their perturbant horror,
And out from the midst of the saved I was cast as one not holy enough to endure their beauty,
I, back to martyrdom and man, consigned again to earth's promiscuous dust.
Now I knew how to love,
Now I knew where to follow grief and where to root my dreams,
Now I entered as never before into the waywardnesses of simple men,
Now I found unsuspected paths leading off from my elect raptures to the general joy,
Now I accepted perils I had once shirked to the unsuspecting,
Now I paced easily with the average pulse, reckoning my gains by the successes of others,
Now I passed into shadows without misgiving and came back from expeditions heartrich with the spoil of empty hands,
Now I lifted my claims only to the level of the poorest men and refused to go a foot higher,
Now I saw that all paradise was rehearsed in the innocent acts of every day,
Now I was one with the all of failure and one with the all of success,
And now I looked up to the heaven rejected and gratefully clung to my artless tasks.
My heaven is in the silences: it is barren of pettifogging words,
My heaven is peopled with the creatures of immolating passions,
My heaven contains neither saved nor damned—my heaven contains only love,
My heaven is not given to distinction—it flows out fulltide to the obscure and the useless,
My heaven is simply you when you love me and I when I love you,
My heaven is the promise seized and kept at hand, the partial favor yielded to the whole,
Heaven's completeness verified in the arrival of the last derelict,
Heaven's earth and heaven's heaven one in an impartial destiny,
The result withheld from none and not postponed.
My heaven is crowded to the doors with good people but I hunger for sinners,
My heaven is dazed with suns—everywhere suns—but I crave for the shadows,
My heaven is the confirmation of the prophets but I am wayward and the prophets bore me,
My heaven is the home of the saints but I shrink from the saints and disdain their prerogatives.
I had done all I could to enrich life and point it the way of my heaven:
Finally I arrived—the last doubting step was taken
Having achieved heaven heaven was not heaven—it tried the patience of my spirit
Heaven was great reward—but reward was discounted in its own mathematics.
Heaven was great joy—but what use had I for joy until all others were absolved?
Heaven was peace—but I did not want peace: peace is death.
Heaven was the unattainable attained—but I did not wish to close my account with desire.
Round me stood the triumphing masters: Yes, I said, you have kept faith!
Round me were choristers—the poets and orators and the great preachers of an abolished earth
But I was unhappy—I stood there in the vast concourse and wept:
Wept not for joy but grief: wept not for having succeeded but because I had not failed—
I, heaven's own, having won heaven, consumed with regret over the lost paradise of my imperfections!
And so somehow there was a power reached forth from infinity into the midst of the orbs,
And the heavens were parted by clouds and loud noises prevailed and flames played forth their perturbant horror,
And out from the midst of the saved I was cast as one not holy enough to endure their beauty,
I, back to martyrdom and man, consigned again to earth's promiscuous dust.
Now I knew how to love,
Now I knew where to follow grief and where to root my dreams,
Now I entered as never before into the waywardnesses of simple men,
Now I found unsuspected paths leading off from my elect raptures to the general joy,
Now I accepted perils I had once shirked to the unsuspecting,
Now I paced easily with the average pulse, reckoning my gains by the successes of others,
Now I passed into shadows without misgiving and came back from expeditions heartrich with the spoil of empty hands,
Now I lifted my claims only to the level of the poorest men and refused to go a foot higher,
Now I saw that all paradise was rehearsed in the innocent acts of every day,
Now I was one with the all of failure and one with the all of success,
And now I looked up to the heaven rejected and gratefully clung to my artless tasks.
My heaven is in the silences: it is barren of pettifogging words,
My heaven is peopled with the creatures of immolating passions,
My heaven contains neither saved nor damned—my heaven contains only love,
My heaven is not given to distinction—it flows out fulltide to the obscure and the useless,
My heaven is simply you when you love me and I when I love you,
My heaven is the promise seized and kept at hand, the partial favor yielded to the whole,
Heaven's completeness verified in the arrival of the last derelict,
Heaven's earth and heaven's heaven one in an impartial destiny,
The result withheld from none and not postponed.
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