It seems to me an impossibility to fully express in words the sentiments that were embodied in that song. It contained a desire for death or transformation—terms which mean the same thing, namely, the abandoning one state of existence for another one. It embodied a wish for entering upon a higher plane of life and consciousness. The melody which I heard formed itself into a language, whose meaning may perhaps be approximately expressed in the following words:—
“O what is this secret longing,
Welling up within my heart?
Unknown powers, surging, thronging,
Rending solid rocks apart.
New-born joys and dying sadness,
Bursting clouds and opening sight!
Something whispers, full of gladness,
This is love, is life and light!”
These words formed themselves within myself without any conscious volition or ratiocination of my own; and, what is still more surprising, they had a certain magical effect upon me. I felt as if I were myself entering into a new state of consciousness, such as I never experienced before or afterwards, and as if I had become a new being, endowed with a new kind of perception and memory; it was as if I had been asleep all my life and suddenly awakened for the first time. I now somehow knew that I was I; but I could dissect or analyse my Self. I knew that my Self was a unity and not a compound, and therefore incapable of being taken to pieces. I had never known it before, and knew of no authority on whose strength I would have accepted that theory; nevertheless I was certain of it; because I found that my self-consciousness was not composed of parts.