Page 116
In these poems, the new name or definition is often the most complex component of an aphorism and its most substantial achievement. By formulating a new equation for an experience, the poet is able to adjust its shades of meaning slightly and so correct what might previously have been an imperfect rendering. Consider for example the following poem:
ECSTASY
What is Peace?
Fulfilment-ecstasy.
What is Light?
Truth-ecstasy
What is Delight? Love-ecstasy.
What is Perfection?
God-ecstasy. [16]
Within these four atomised units, the poet explores the precise relationship of the four major spiritual qualities to ecstasy. His definitions are designed not so much to reveal the inadequacy of current language as to highlight the unity of experience in the context of mystic ecstasy. Peace, Light, Delight and Perfection, he suggests, are the correct names for the ecstatic experiences of fulfilment, truth, love and God, respectively Fulfilment alone does not bear Peace, nor does ecstasy But "fulfilment-ecstasy," that melting into one of two states, is synonymous with Peace.
These compound nouns sketch with exquisite appositeness the experience invoked by the leading rhetorical questions in the poem. They exist as pure generalisations, seeking to approach that ultimate state of being in which ecstasy harbours the highest spiritual emotions. It is a reductive kind of poetry, chastened by virtue of the fact that the poet relies upon unadorned definitive expressions to convey the envisioned possible-in this case, mystic ecstasy. Since naming, and especially the formulating of new names, is a function of perfect comprehension, we, as readers, demand the utmost degree of clarity and accuracy from the poet. The poet achieves those standards by making his definitions the focus of the poem and leaving aside the personal situations in which they may have had their genesis. The definitions thus gain a wider, social character and become representative of an experience that is universally accessible.

