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The sharpness of the parallel outline in this poem readily yields the sets of related members. Coterminous with the prayer, meditation, surrender sequence is the body, heart, life sequence and the past, present, future sequence. In addition to this organic progression of parts, the poet is intent on specifying the distinguishing quality of each phase. Thus we have the major innovative sequence of the poem: adventurous, glorious, generous. Tremendous weight is placed upon these adjectives by their physical isolation. At the same time, however, they are caught up into the flow of the poem by the similarity of their sounds and by their identical placements within the architecture of the poem.
These carefully selected key words offer new mappings of the realms of prayer, meditation and surrender. The very lack of additional modifiers in the poem compels us to explore such terms for a far greater precision than our linguistic reflexes would normally require. The various images of courage, searching, excursions into the unknown that are summoned by the single word "adventurous," for example, effectively locate "the path of prayer" in the context of a journey. It follows that the knowledge of prayer is claimed by the body. The glory associated with the attainment of a goal, or journeys end, is next invoked by the poet to correspond to meditation. This is the unfolding knowledge of the heart in the present. Finally- the self-giving quality of generosity captures the essence of surrender, the dream of the future.
It is the reader who must "discover" these principles of succession and the relationships between the various components of the poem. While the exact structural parallelism gives the poem a superficially accessible mien, the manifold associations that are suggested by these related clusters engage an active and complete response on the part of the reader. "The most thorough possible understanding of a poem," writes George Steiner, "occurs when we re-enact, in the bounds of our own secon dary but momentarily heightened, educated consciousness, the creation by the artist. [22]
