St John

John, oh John, Thou honourable bird Sun-peering eagle.

Taking a bird’s-eye view Even of Calvary and Resurrection Not to speak of Babylon’s whoredom.

High over the mild effulgence of the dove Hung all the time, did we but know it, the all-knowing shadow Of John’s great gold-barred eagle.

John knew all about it Even the very beginning.

“In the beginning was the Word And the Word was God And the Word was with God.”

Having been to school John knew the whole proposition. As for innocent Jesus He was one of Nature’s phenomena, no doubt.

Oh that mind-soaring eagle of an Evangelist Staring creation out of countenance And telling it off As an eagle staring down on the Sun!

The Logos, the Logos! “In the beginning was the Word.”

Is there not a great Mind pre-ordaining? Does not a supreme Intellect ideally procreate the Universe? Is not each soul a vivid thought in the great consciousness stream of God?

Put salt on his tail The sly bird of John.

Proud intellect, high-soaring Mind Like a king eagle, bird of the most High, sweeping the round of heaven And casting the cycles of creation On two wings, like a pair of compasses; Jesus’ pale and lambent dove, cooing in the lower boughs On sufferance.

In the beginning was the Word, of course. And the word was the first offspring of the almighty Johannine mind, Chick of the intellectual eagle.

Yet put salt on the tail of the Johannine bird Put salt on its tail John’s eagle.

Shoo it down out of the empyrean Of the all-seeing, all-fore-ordaining ideal. Make it roost on bird-spattered, rocky Patmos And let it moult there, among the stones of the bitter sea.

For the almighty eagle of the fore-ordaining Mind Is looking rather shabby and island-bound these days: Moulting, and rather naked about the rump, and down in the beak, Rather dirty, on dung-whitened Patmos.

From which we are led to assume That the old bird is weary, and almost willing That a new chick should chip the extensive shell Of the mundane egg.

The poor old golden eagle of the creative spirit Moulting and moping and waiting, willing at last For the fire to burn it up, feathers and all So that a new conception of the beginning and end Can rise from the ashes.

Ah Phœnix, Phœnix John’s Eagle! You are only known to us now as the badge of an insurance Company.

Phœnix, Phœnix The nest is in flames Feathers are singeing, Ash flutters flocculent, like down on a blue, wan fledgeling. San Gervasio.