XXXV

The Sublime Ones

Calm is the bottom of my sea: who would guess that it hideth droll monsters!

Unmoved is my depth: but it sparkleth with swimming enigmas and laughters.

A sublime one saw I today, a solemn one, a penitent of the spirit: Oh, how my soul laughed at his ugliness!

With upraised breast, and like those who draw in their breath: thus did he stand, the sublime one, and in silence:

O’erhung with ugly truths, the spoil of his hunting, and rich in torn raiment; many thorns also hung on him⁠—but I saw no rose.

Not yet had he learned laughing and beauty. Gloomy did this hunter return from the forest of knowledge.

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