POETRY: After The Night Office—Gethsemani Abbey by Thomas Merton

It is not yet the grey and frosty time When barns ride out of the night like ships: We do not see the Brothers, bearing lanterns, Sink in the quiet mist, As various as the spirits who, with lamps, are sent To search our souls’ Jerusalems Until our houses are at rest And minds enfold the Word, our Guest. Praises and canticles anticipate Each day the singing bells that wake the sun, But now our psalmody is done. Our hasting souls outstrip the day: Now, before dawn, they have their noon. The Truth that transsubstantiates the body’s night Has made our minds His temple-tent: Open the secret eye of faith And drink these deeps of invisible light. The weak walls Of the world fall And heaven, in floods, comes pouring in: Sink from your shallows, soul, into eternity, And slake your wonder at that deep-lake spring. We touch the rays we cannot see, We feel the light that seems to sing. Go back to bed, red sun, you are too late, And hide behind Mount Olivet— For like the flying moon, held prisoner, Within the branches of a juniper, So in the cages of consciousness The Dove of God is [...]