COME, holy Silence, come
great bride of all creation.
Come, holy Silence! reach, reach
from the presence of God, and envelop us.
Let the sea heave no more in sound,
hold the stars still, lest we hear the heavens dimly ring with
their commotion!
fold up all sounds.
Lo! the laugh of God!
Lo! the laugh of the creator!
Lo! the last of the seven great laughs of God!
Lo! the last of the seven great laughs of creation!
Huge, huge roll the peals of the thundrous laugh
huge, huger, huger and huger pealing
till they mount and fill and all is fulfilled of God’s last and
greatest laugh
till all is soundless and senseless, a tremendous body of silence
enveloping even the edges of the thought-waves
enveloping even me, who hear no more,
who am embedded in a shell of silence,
of silence, lovely silence
of endless and living silence
of holy silence
the silence of the last of the seven great laughs of God.
Ah! the holy silence — it is meet!
It is very fitting! there is nought beside!
For now we are passing through the gate, stilly,
in the sacred silence of gates
in the silence of passing through doors,
in the great hush of going from this into that,
in the suspension of wholeness, in the moment of division
within the whole!
Lift up your heads, O ye Gates!
for the silence of the last great thundrous laugh
screens us purely, and we can slip through.