Angelus Silesius: Selections from The Cherubinic Wanderer: III THE STILL WILDERNESS
III
THE STILL WILDERNESS
54 (I. 7)
MAN MUST GO BEYOND GOD
| Where is my hiding-place? Where there's nor I nor Thou. Where is my final goal towards which I needs must press? Where there is nothing. Whither shall I journey now? Still farther on than God—into a Wilderness. |
55 (I. 199)
GOD BEYOND THE CREATURE
| Go, where thou canst not go; see, where light never breaks; Hear, where no sound is heard: then art thou where God speaks. |
56 (IV. 23)
DIVINE CONTEMPLATION
| Who in this mortal life would see The Light that is beyond all light, Beholds it best by faring forth Into the darkness of the Night. |
57 (II. 6)
NOTHING IS THE BEST CONSOLATION
| Best Consolation is in Naught. If God should quench His shine, then dare In naked Nothingness to find Thy Consolation in despair. |
58 (I. 126)
DESIRE EXPECTS FULFILMENT
| If thou hast still for God a yearning and desire, Then doth He not embrace thee yet, whole and entire. |
59 (I. 76)
TO WILL NAUGHT IS TO BE LIKE GOD
| Willing and seeking naught, God is eternal peace: Willest thou likewise naught, thy peace is even as His. |
60 (II. 248)
STILLNESS IS LIKE UNTO THE ETERNAL NAUGHT
| Stillness and Loneliness are liker naught than Naught: These willeth then my Will, if my Will willeth aught. |
61 (I. 98)
THE DEAD WILL RULETH
| God needs must do my Will, if Will in me is dead: I write for Him His Paradigm and Copy-head. |
62 (V. 207)
THE GREATEST DEED
| The greatest Deed that thou canst do For God, is to be deedless—best, Suffering, to suffer unto God, And, resting, unto Him to rest. |
63 (V. 195)
GOD IS FOUND IN IDLENESS
| Who sits in utter Idleness Shall come much sooner to the goal Than he who runneth after God With sweat of body and of soul. |
64 (IV. 31)
THE BLESSED IDLENESS
| Both John upon the breast and Mary at the feet Do nought but pass the happy hours away in sweet Love-dalliance with God.—I would not stir at all, Could I be idle so, even though the sky should fall. |
65 (I. 171)
GOD IS FOUND BY NOT SEEKING
| God is not here nor there. Thou seekest where He may be found? Bound be thy hands and bound thy feet, Body and soul be bound. |
66 (I. 240)
THE PRAYER OF SILENCE
| So high above all things that be Is God uplifted, man can dare No utterance: he prayeth best When Silence is his sum of prayer. |
67 (II. 63)
THE DEAF HEARETH THE WORD
| Unto my hearing momently the Eternal Word doth come —Believe it, friend, or not—when I am deaf and dumb. |
68 (I. 239)
GOD IS PRAISED IN SILENCE
| Thinkest thou, foolish man, that with thy clapping tongue Praise of the silent Godhead fitly can be sung? |
69 (V. 366)
GOD'S LUTE
| A Heart, as God would have it, wholly still and mute. Loves to be played upon by Him—it is His lute. |
70 (II. 169)
SAMENESS BEHOLDETH GOD
| Be naught as all and all as naught, then art thou proved Worthy to see the face of God, the Well-Beloved. |
71 (I. 125)
SAMENESS HATH NO PAIN
| To whom all things are one, to him all things are well, No matter though he lie deep in the pit of Hell. |
72 (II. 134)
SAMENESS
| The man who hath no fatherland, Who walks a stranger everywhere, Though he abide in Hell he'll find His darling country even there. |
73 (II. 42)
NO HARM IN WHAT IS UNDERNEATH
| Who sits above the mountain-tops And high above the clouds doth ride, Cares little when the lightnings flame And the loud-crashing thunders chide. |
74 (V. 136)
ALL IS ALIKE TO THE WISE MAN
| All things are one to the Wise Man; He sitteth peacefully and still; Is his will thwarted, none the less All things befall as God doth will. |
75 (V. 85)
WHO KNOWETH NAUGHT IS AT PEACE
| Had Adam never plucked the Tree Of Knowledge and grown wise, He then had dwelt eternally At peace in Paradise. |
76 (I. 85)
HOW GOD'S WORD IS HEARD
| If thou wouldst hear the Eternal Word speak unto thee, First must thou wholly lose the hearing faculty. |
77 (II. 8)
MAN LEARNETH BY BEING SILENT
| Be silent, silent, dearest one, Only be silent utterly. Then far beyond thy farthest wish God will show goodness unto thee. |
78 (II. 19)
THE HIGHEST IS STILLNESS
| Doing is good; far better prayer; But best of all if thou dost come Into the presence of the Lord With quiet footfall, still and dumb. |
79 (V. 221)
THE DEAD HEAR NOT
| The man who's dead unto himself Rests tranquil in his thought, Though all the world speak ill of him. How so?—Dead men hear naught. |
80 (I. 134)
NOT PERFECTLY DEAD
| If over this and that thou makest such a stir, Then art thou not yet laid with God in the sepulchre. |
81 (II. 214)
WORKS HAVE LIKE WORTH
| Have no distinctions. Angels would at God's behest As lief cart dung as play their harps or take their rest. |
82 (II. 152)
THE DIVINEST OF ALL
| Naught more divine than this—whatever the event, In this world or the next, to be indifferent. |
83 (VI. 191)
WORLD FORSAKEN, LITTLE FORSAKEN
| The whole great World is naught. Little has thou resigned, Though thou hast banished all the World out of thy mind. |
84 (VI. 142)
ON FORSAKING THE WORLD
| Need oftentime determines deed; And thou dost leave the world, maybe, Thy heart foreboding that the world Which thou dost leave is leaving thee. |