By all these I prayed. I felt an
emotion of the soul beyond all definition; prayer is a puny thing to
it." He prayed by the thyme; by the earth; the flowers which he
touched; the dust which he let fall through his fingers; was filled
with "a rapture, an ecstasy, an inflatus. With this inflatus I
prayed.... I hid my face in the grass; I was wholly prostrated; I lost
myself in the wrestle.... I see now that what I labored for was soul
life, more soul learning." After gazing upward he would turn his face
into the grass, shutting out everything with hands each side, till he
felt down into the earth and was absorbed in it, whispering deep down
to its center. Every natural impression, trees, insects, air, clouds,
he used for prayer, "that my soul might be more than the cosmos of
life." His "Lyra" prayer was to live a more exalted and intense soul
life; enjoy more bodily pleasure and live long and find power to
execute his designs. He often tried, but failed for years to write at
least a meager account of these experiences. He felt himself immortal
just as he felt beauty. He was in eternity already; the supernatural
is only the natural misnamed. As he lay face down on the grass,
seizing it with both hands, he longed for death, to be burned on a
pyre of pine wood on a high hill, to have his ashes scattered wide and
broadcast, to be thrown into the space he longed for while living, but
he feared that such a luxury of resolution into the elements would be
too costly.
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