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.