“Or let me use another illustration: he may feel like the voyager who, having traversed the wide waste of waters, steps upon a new region of the earth, where he is surrounded by unknown and wonderful forms—a region which speaks to him in the mysterious voices of its forests and its streams, and where other species of beings, of a nature different from any he has known, look out wonderingly at him from their strange eyes.
“Indeed, like to such a region these poems hem us round.
“A temple opens before us, in which, as in the Holy Graal Temple of Titurel, the Eternal Word is represented symbolically to the senses.
“At the entrance the breath as if of the Spirit of eternity blows upon us, and a holy auroral splendor, like the brightness of the Divinity, fills the consecrated dome.
“In the centre, as the central point of all being and of all history, stands the cross, on which the infinite Spirit has sacrificed himself from his infinite benevolence towards man.
“At the foot of this sublime symbol stands the poet as hierophant and prophet, who explains the pictures upon the walls, and the dumb language of the tendrils, and the flowers that are twining round the columns, and the melodious tones which reverberate in music from the vault.
“He waves his magic wand, and the halls of the temple extend themselves through the immeasurable; a perspective of pillars spreads from century to century up to the dark gray era of the past, where first the fountain of life gushes up, and where suns and stars, coming forth from the womb of nothing, begin their course.
“And the inspired seer unveils the secrets of creation, showing to us the breath of God moving over the chaos, as he separates the solid earth from the waters, points out to the moon and the stars their orbits, and commands the elements whither they should fly and what they are to seek.
“We feel ourselves folded in the wings of the Spirit of the universe, and we hear the choral jubilation of the new-born suns, as they solemnly enter on their appointed paths, proclaiming the glory of the Eternal.
“From the dusky night, which conceals the source of all things, we see the procession of peoples, through the ever-renewing and decaying generations of men, following that star that led the wise men from the east, and advancing in their pilgrimage towards the place of promise; but beyond, irradiated by the splendors of redemption and reconciliation, lies the future, with its countless generations of beings yet unborn.