Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous,
Within its vital boundary, the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one. . .
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.
—Wallace Stevens (1879-1955 )
from Collected Poetry and Prose
Library of America (1997)
COMMENTARY
“Principle of metaxy reality: The reality determined by the coordinates of the In-Between reality, intelligible as such by the consciousness of Nous and Apeiron as limiting poles. All ‘eristic phantasies’ which try to convert the limits of the metaxy, be it the noetic height or the apeirontic depth, into a phenomenon within the metaxy are to be excluded as false. This rule does not affect genuine eschatological or apocalyptic symbolisms which imaginatively express the experience of a movement within reality toward a Beyond of the metaxy, such as the experiences of mortality and immortality.” Eric Voegelin, "Reason: The Classic Experience," Published Essays 1966-1985 (vol 12, The Collected Works), 290.