I take to be the certainty of eventual union with
the Universal Spirit in the unphenomenal world, a union and a joy
anticipated in the occasional temporary absorptions of the soul into
the Universal Spirit in moments Emerson experienced as "revelation" and
Plotinus as ecstasy.

"A.E.'s" friend, Mr. Charles Johnston, records the two young Irishmen's
joint attempts to attain ecstasy, when he writes of those days when "we
lay on our backs in the grass, and, looking up into the blue, tried to
think ourselves into that new world which we had suddenly discovered
ourselves to inhabit." Do not think this ecstasy too rare and wonderful
a thing. To Plotinus it meant an utter blotting-out of self, a rapture
of peace, and to Mr. Russell it frequently means that he is entirely
"heart-hidden from the outer things," but I suspect it means sometimes
mere lift of the heart through lungs full of fresh air, or through green
fields for tired eyes, or through mountain air for worn nerves, or
through skies thick-sown with stars for the vexed spirit.

The typical poem of "A.E." is that in which the sight of beautiful
things of this phenomenal world in which we live lifts his soul to
participation in the Universal Spirit. It is most often through some
beauty of the sky at sunset, when

"Withers once more the old blue flower of day,"

as in "The Great Breath"; or at twilight, when

"Dusk wraps the village in its dim caress,"

as in "Dusk"; or at night, when

"The yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory
In the lilac-scented stillness,"

as in "The Singing Silences"; or at sunrise, when there is

"Fire on the altar of the hills,"

as in "Dawn";--it is most often through some beauty of the sky at such
times that he becomes one with the Universal Spirit in "the rapture of
the fire," that he is "lost within the 'Mother's Being,'" he would say
that the soul returns to the Oversoul, Emerson would There are ways by
which the soul homes other than these--sometimes it is

"By the hand of a child I am led to the throne of the King."

but it is most often by way of beauties of the sky. Some reasons are not
far to seek. From sunset to sunrise the poet is free as he may be from
the treadmill of the "common daily ways," and the high moods he tries to
express are most easily symbolized by skyey images--massed clouds and
sweeping lights of diamond, sapphire, amethyst; the still blue black of
heaven thrilling with far