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Peake, Mervyn - To All things solid as to All Things Flat
Identifier
004530
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Mervyn Peake – from Collected Poems
To All things solid as to All Things Flat
To all things solid as to all things flat
He raised his little peacock coloured hat
To all things lucent as to all things dense
He bowed his little head in deference
To all things coloured as to things of grey
He turned and smiled in a most gentle way
But, ah, at all things white …. at all things white
He could but stand and stare in grief's delight.
White wonderment upon him and within
That filled him to his cold and wrinkled skin
That was his hour, his phoenix hour, his world
When all his flags of beauty were unfurled
Inhuman ecstasy of chill delight
Unworldly, lonely agony of white;
The white flower in the field, the white mane blowing
The white cloud over the white waters flowing
All things of white transported him to where
Long wings of crystal beat on stainless air.