The Far-off Unseen End, p. 178

Opening Remarks
This world of little life seems to be a failure when seen from one angle. But that is an error of sight. Each is a step in an inevitable chain that climbs towards the Eternal.

She knows not
Even now herself she knows not what she has done.

The workings of this realm seem to be done in ignorance even though a wisdom stands behind her works. Yet this domain moves and acts in ignorance of the wisdom that moves it from behind.

Baffling mask
For all is wrought beneath a baffling mask:
A semblance other than its hidden truth
The aspect wears of an illusion’s trick,
A feigned time-driven unreality,
The unfinished creation of a changing soul
In a body changing with the inhabitant.

The form and appearances disguise this deeper wisdom operating from behind for its far off unseen results. Its forms are mutable and serve as temporary houses for the growing and evolving soul.

Timeless mystery working out in Time
Insignificant her means, infinite her work;
On a great field of shapeless consciousness
In little finite strokes of mind and sense
An endless Truth she endlessly unfolds;
A timeless mystery works out in Time.

We see a step and not the whole. Nor do we know the yet unfinished work towards which Nature is striving. As is the requirement of this plane so too the means are given to mould out of a ground of shapeless consciousness some early semblance of a form by the help of mind and sense. What seems to it the end point is but one small step in the great endless unfolding in Time.

Passion and the pain
The greatness she has dreamed her acts have missed,
Her labour is a passion and a pain,
A rapture and pang, her glory and her curse;
And yet she cannot choose but labours on;
Her mighty heart forbids her to desist.

Driven by an irresistible creative urge to bring out what hides within, the force of life continues to labour on through the blindness and the struggle and the pain. Its moments of glory do not last and all its creates with so much passion ends back in a collapse. Yet she is moved by an impulse that refuses to give up and continues to labour in the fields of ignorance.

Daring delirium of delight
As long as the world lasts her failure lives
Astonishing and foiling Reason’s gaze,
A folly and a beauty unspeakable,
A superb madness of the will to live,
A daring, a delirium of delight.

What seems to our surface view a failure is but one small step towards a much greater end. Reason cannot fathom it and would even regard it as a folly, an error or a mistake even though a beautiful one. There is within it a will to live and a delight that is felt through everything, as if all that she strives for is to express this delight through her immense and mad daring.

Closing Remarks
As we can see this is a step that the force and power of Life takes in its upward ascension. It is moved by an inner passion and delight that knows no failure nor a fixed term for its creative dance.