And the Darkness Comprehended it Not

Elyse Burgess

“A sense of great masses moving at visionary speeds, of giants dancing, of eternal sorrows eternally consoled, of he knew not what and yet what he had always known, awoke in him with the very first bars of the deep-mouthed dirge.” --C.S. Lewis

“We could not bear the beauty and the burning.” --Dante

Have you ever felt the singing of the spheres?
The harmonies of light wound ‘round the world,
The searing strands of reckless joy unfurl’d
Across the cosmos and inside our souls?

Have you ever felt more broken and more whole?
Like every cut and crack and tear and scar
Bleeds with the light that burns within the stars—
The most healing kind of pain I’ve ever known.

Have you ever felt that, when creation groans
Beneath the weight of all this weary, wounded hope
It moans a song that strives to mend what evil broke
That in its sadness is more beautiful by far?

Do you feel this, when you look upon the stars
And their music resonates within your bones?
That all the might of one small speck of light, alone
Is enough to tear through all the darkness here?

Have you ever felt the singing of the spheres?

Elyse is a senior Classical Liberal Arts major from North Carolina.