supernal, who forgot God in possessing
him. It was the song of birth, of the soul's plunging into darkness and
fire, of the weaving round her of the fleshy veils, the veils of
separation, the veils of illusion; the song of her withdrawal into her
dim house, of her binding and scourging, and of her ceaseless breaking
on the wheel of time, till she renews her passion and the desire of her
return. It was the song of the angels of mortal life, sounding its
secrets; angels of terror and pain, carding the mortal stuff, spinning
it out, finer and yet more fine, till every nerve becomes vibrant, a
singing lyre of God; angels of the passions and the agonies, moving in
the blood, ministers of the flame that subtilizes flesh to a transparent
vehicle of God; strong angels of disease and dissolution, undermining,
pulling down the house of pain.

He paused and she raised her head.

"Owen--that's what you once tried to make me see. Do you remember?"

"Yes, and you said that I was intoxicated and that it was all very dim
and disagreeable and sad."

"I didn't understand it then," she said.

"You don't understand it now. You feel it."

"Why didn't I feel it then? When you said it?"

"I didn't say it. How could I? There's no other way of saying it but
this. It isn't a theory or a creed; if it were it could be stated in a
thousand different ways. It's the supreme personal experience, and this
is the only form in which it could possibly be conveyed. These words
were brought together from all eternity to say this thing."

"I'm not sure that I'm convinced of the truth of it, even now. I only
feel the passion of it. It's the passion of it, Owen, that'll make it
live."

"The truth and the passion of it are the same thing," he said.

He went on chanting. The music gathered and rose and broke over her in
the last verse, in the song of consummation, of the soul's passion,
jubilant, transcendent, where, of the veils of earth and heaven, the
veils of separation and illusion, she weaves the veil of the last
bridal, the fine veil of immortality.

In the silence Laura stirred at his side. She had possessed herself of
his hand again and held it firmly, as if she were afraid that he might
be taken from her in his ecstasy.

She was thinking: He used that theme before, in the first poem of his I
ever heard. He was mistaken. There was more than one way of saying the
same thing. She reminded him of this earlier poem. Surely, she said, it
was t