VI. Aletheia Phrikodes (Eclipsed Understanding) Lyrics

And as I strove to vision the sad sphere

Which lurked, lost in ethereal vortices,

Methough my soul, tuned to the infinite,

Refused to glimpse that poor atomic blight

That misbegotten accident of space

That globe of insignificance, whereon

My guide celestial told me dwells no part

Of empyrean virtue, but where breed

The coarse corruptions of divine disease

The festering ailments of infinity

The morbid matter by itself called man

Such matter said my guide as oft breaks forth

On broad Creation's fabric, to annoy

For a brief instant, ere assuaging death

Heal up the malady its birth provoked.

Sickened, I turned my heavy thoughts away.

Then spake the ethereal guide with mocking mien,

Upbraiding me for searching after Truth

Visiting on my mind the searing scorn

Of mind superior; laughing at the woe

Which rent the vital essence of my soul.

Methought he brought remembrance of the time

When from my fellows to the grove I strayed,

In solitude and dusk to meditate

On things forbidden, and to pierce the veil

Of seeming good and seeming beauteousness

That covers o'er the tragedy of Truth,

Helping mankind forget his sorry lot,

And raising Hope where Truth would crush it down.

He spake, and as he ceased, methought the flames

Of fuming Heaven resolved in torments dire

Whirling in maelstroms of rebellious might,

Yet ever bound by laws I fathomed not.