Out of a seeming void and dark-winged sleep
Of dim inconscient infinity
A Power arose from the insentient deep,
A flame-whirl of magician Energy.
Some huge somnambulist Intelligence
Devising without thought process and plan
Arrayed the burning stars’ magnificence,
The living bodies of beasts and the brain of man.
What stark Necessity or ordered Chance
Became alive to know the cosmic whole?
What magic of numbers, what mechanic dance
Developed consciousness, assumed a soul?
The darkness was the Omnipotent’s abode,
Hood of omniscience, a blind mask of God.
Notes on Text
27 July 1938, revised 21 March 1944. Two handwritten manuscripts.
