240 The Future Poetry
he will get his fullest power, deepest sight, broadest scope. To
throw light on the self of things in some power and beauty of it
is after all the native aim of poetry, and that can be done entirely
by this greatest intuitive mind, for it can bring near or going
beyond itself actually reach the vision of identity, that seeing of
our whole self and the self of the world which is the last object
and the highest spirit of all our mental powers and seekings. The
poetry which will accomplish that will be able to see, though in
another way than that of philosophy and religion, the self of the
Eternal, to know God and his godheads, to know the freedom
and immortality which is our divinest aim, to see in the delight
of a union in beauty the self of the Infinite, the self of Nature
and the whole self of man. But so to see the self is to meet the
spirit in everything and the spirit reveals to us the inner and the
inmost truth of all that comes from it, life and thought and form
and every image and every power. Much has been done by the
art of rhythmic self-expression; much remains to be done. To
express these greatest things and to gather up all that man has
come and is yet coming to see and know and feel in a new and
greater light and give to him the universal spirit and power of
beauty and delight behind all this existence is a work that will
open to poetry a larger territory and the perfect greatness of its
function. A beginning of such an endeavour we have seen to be
the noblest strain in recent work; the possibility of a refreshed
and long continued vitality and a hardly exhaustible fount of
inspiration lies in that direction. The Veda speaks in one of its
symbolic hints of the fountain of eternal Truth round which
stand the illumined powers of thought and life. There under
the eyes of delight and the face of imperishable beauty of the
Mother of creation and bride of the eternal Spirit they lead their
immortal dance. The poet visits that marvellous source in his
superconscient mind and brings to us some strain or some vision
of her face and works. To find the way into that circle with the
waking self is to be the seer-poet and discover the highest power
of the inspired word, the Mantra.