Page 163

The concept of God as the food and drink of the soul is favoured by mystics because of the universal meaningfulness of hunger and thirst. The keenness of these physical needs and the joy of their satisfaction is a paradigm of man's yearning for God and the ecstasy of God-union. When such biological symbolism is introduced, especially when it is used with simplicity and vigour, it impresses us with the fact that in order to approach God-union, the seeker must claim God, must seize Him, in the most direct way possible.

A significant number of poems addressed to God as Lord are colloquies in which the soul petitions Him, pleads, accuses, listens for a divine answer or waits, sometimes in vain, for a response. It is the natural speaking voice of man that is hereby recorded. This is particularly evident in the following poem, where the seeker, in a charming reversal of roles, shares with God his own illumining "wisdom":

STAY WITH ME

    My sweet Lord,
Don't withdraw
If You want me to live.
    Stay with me.
Satisfaction grows
On patience-tree.[16]

The fulfilment of union has conferred upon the seeker a childlike dependency He has entered into a new life and cannot bear to be abandoned by his Lord. If the voice with which he speaks is unaffected, then perhaps we may read into this artless simplicity something of that innocence which lies on the far side of experience.

The poet does not always apprehend God in a single form, such as Lord. It is not uncommon to find him combining several perceptions in order to create a rich and allusive portrait of God's many-sided mysteries. Alternating epithets with proper names or replacing divine names with explicative or illustrative epithets gives the poet an opportunity to introduce variation or to express, for the sake of emphasis, more or less parallel thoughts. This tissue of attributive words for God is an outstanding feature of the following longer poem, which I quote in full: