“Quick my guide close nested me; through its veins the waning light throbbed hard.

“‘Oh, spirit! archangel! god! whate’er thou art,’ it breathed; ’leave me:  I am but blessed, not glorified.’

“So saying, as down from doves, from its wings dropped sounds.  Still nesting me, it crouched its plumes.

“Then, in a snow of softest syllables, thus breathed the greater and more beautiful:—­’From far away, in fields beyond thy ken, I heard thy fond discourse with this lone Mardian.  It pleased me well; for thy humility was manifeat; no arrogance of knowing.  Come thou and learn new things.’

“And straight it overarched us with its plumes; which, then, down-sweeping, bore us up to regions where my first guide had sunk, but for the power that buoyed us, trembling, both.

“My eyes did wane, like moons eclipsed in overwhelming dawns:  such radiance was around; such vermeil light, born of no sun, but pervading all the scene.  Transparent, fleck-less, calm, all glowed one flame.

“Then said the greater guide This is the night of all ye here behold—­ its day ye could not bide.  Your utmost heaven is far below.’

“Abashed, smote down, I, quaking, upward gazed; where, to and fro, the spirits sailed, like broad-winged crimson-dyed flamingos, spiraling in sunset-clouds.  But a sadness glorified, deep-fringed their mystic temples, crowned with weeping halos, bird-like, floating o’er them, whereso’er they roamed.

“Sights and odors blended.  As when new-morning winds, in summer’s prime, blow down from hanging gardens, wafting sweets that never pall; so, from those flowery pinions, at every motion, came a flood of fragrance.

“And now the spirits twain discoursed of things, whose very terms, to me, were dark.  But my first guide grew wise.  For me, I could but blankly list; yet comprehended naught; and, like the fish that’s mocked with wings, and vainly seeks to fly;—­again I sought my lower element.

“As poised, we hung in this rapt ether, a sudden trembling seized the four wings now folding me.  And afar of, in zones still upward reaching, suns’ orbits off, I, tranced, beheld an awful glory.  Sphere in sphere, it burned:—­the one Shekinah!  The air was flaked with fire;—­deep in which, fell showers of silvery globes, tears magnified —­braiding the flame with rainbows.  I heard a sound; but not for me, nor my first guide, was that unutterable utterance.  Then, my second guide was swept aloft, as rises a cloud of red-dyed leaves in autumn whirlwinds.

“Fast clasping me, the other drooped, and, instant, sank, as in a vacuum; myriad suns’ diameters in a breath;—­my five senses merged in one, of falling; till we gained the nether sky, descending still.

“Then strange things—­soft, sad, and faint, I saw or heard; as, when, in sunny, summer seas, down, down, you dive, starting at pensive phantoms, that you can not fix.