Ecstatic Longing
Tell it to the wisest only,
For the mob will mock such learning:
I will praise the living creature
That can long for death by burning.
As the candle's quiet gleaming
Cools the nights of hot surrender,
You are touched by strange emotion,
Born again as you engender.
You have passed beyond the shadows:
Snatched aloft, you shall discover
New desire and higher union:
Thrall of darkness now is over.
Distance tires you not nor hinders,
On you come with fated flight
Till, poor moth, at last you perish
In the flame, in love with light.
Die into becoming! Grasp
This, or sad and weary
Shall your sojourn ever be
On the dark earth dreary.
Goethe
Photographs by Jeffrey Harris
