know that they are indeed the legs of a beast
and then you will not be afraid any more. Do you not love beasts? Surely
you should love them for they yearn to you humbly or fiercely, craving
your hand upon their heads as I do. If I were not fashioned thus I would
not come to you because I would not need you. Man is a god and a brute.
He aspires to the stars with his head but his feet are contented in
the grasses of the field, and when he forsakes the brute upon which he
stands then there will be no more men and no more women and the immortal
gods will blow this world away like smoke."

"I don't know what you want me to do," said the girl.

"I want you to want me. I want you to forget right and wrong; to be as
happy as the beasts, as careless as the flowers and the birds. To live
to the depths of your nature as well as to the heights. Truly there are
stars in the heights and they will be a garland for your forehead. But
the depths are equal to the heights. Wondrous deep are the depths, very
fertile is the lowest deep. There are stars there also, brighter than
the stars on high. The name of the heights is Wisdom and the name of the
depths is Love. How shall they come together and be fruitful if you do
not plunge deeply and fearlessly? Wisdom is the spirit and the wings of
the spirit, Love is the shaggy beast that goes down. Gallantly he dives,
below thought, beyond Wisdom, to rise again as high above these as he
had first descended. Wisdom is righteous and clean, but Love is unclean
and holy. I sing of the beast and the descent: the great unclean purging
itself in fire: the thought that is not born in the measure or the ice
or the head, but in the feet and the hot blood and the pulse of fury.
The Crown of Life is not lodged in the sun: the wise gods have buried it
deeply where the thoughtful will not find it, nor the good: but the Gay
Ones, the Adventurous Ones, the Careless Plungers, they will bring it to
the wise and astonish them. All things are seen in the light--How shall
we value that which is easy to see? But the precious things which
are hidden, they will be more precious for our search: they will be
beautiful with our sorrow: they will be noble because of our desire for
them. Come away with me, Shepherd Girl, through the fields, and we will
be careless and happy, and we will leave thought to find us when it can,
for that is the duty of thought, and it is more anxious to discover us
than we are to be found."

So