Transformed, the past ecstasy
Grows closer, more intimate.
Rapturous love
Thrills the soul;
Hungrier and thirstier
Grows the heart.
And thus the transports of love
Endure for ever.
Here the remotest limit has been reached—sensuousness seems to flow into eternity, voluptuousness would shatter the world to pieces and create a new relationship of things. Before this poem all ecstasies of sensuousness masquerading as cosmic emotion are dull and timid. The transcendent symbols of Catholicism are used to guide the insatiable sensuous imagination to metaphysics. "Who can say that he understands the nature of blood?" Novalis may ask this question. It is truly blood, human blood, longing to gush forth and pulsate through the body of the universe.
In time to come all will be body