Saint Matthew

The apostolic beasts,

They are not all beasts.

One is a man, for example; and one is a bird.

I, Matthew, am a man.

"And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me-"

That is Jesus.

But then Jesus was not quite a man.

He was the Son of Man,

Filius Meus, O remorseless logic

Out of His own mouth!

I, Matthew, being a man,

Cannot be lifted up, the Paraclete,

To draw all men unto me,

Seeing I am on a par with all men.

I, on the other hand,

Am drawn to the Uplifted, as all men are drawn;

To the Son of Man,

Filius Meus.

Wilt Thou lift me up, Son of Man?

How my heart beats!

Tam man.

I am man, and therefore my heart beats,

And throws the dark blood from side to side

All the time I am lifted up.

Yes, even during my uplifting.

And if it ceased?

If it ceased, I should be no longer man

As I am; if my heart in uplifting ceased to beat, to toss

the dark blood from side to side, causing my myriad

secret streams.

After the cessation,

I might be a soul in bliss-an angel, approximating to the

Uplifted.

But that is another matter;

I am Matthew, the man,

And I am not that other angelic matter.

So I will be lifted up, Saviour;

But put me down again in time, Master,

Before my heart stops beating, and I become what I

ami not.

Put me down again on the earth, Jesus, on the brown soil:

Where flowers sprout in the acrid humus, and fade into

humus again;

Where beasts drop their unlicked young, and pasture, and

drop their droppings among the turf;

Where the adder darts horizontal;

Down on the damp unceasing ground, where my feet

belong,

And even my heart, Lord, forever, after all uplifting-

The crumbling, damp, fresh land, life horizontal and

ceaseless.

Matthew I am, the man;

And I take the wings of the morning to Thee, Crucified,

Glorified.

But while flowers club their petals at evening,

And rabbits make pills among the short grass,

And long snakes quickly glide into the dark hole in the

wall, hearing man approach,

I must be put down, Lord, in the afternoon;

And at evening I must leave off my wings of the spirit

As I leave off my braces,

And I must resume my nakedness like a fish, sinking down

the dark reversion of night

Like a fish seeking the bottom, Jesus,

IXOYS,

Face downwards,

Veering slowly

Down between the steep slopes of darkness-fucus-dark,

seaweed-fringed valleys of the waters under the sea;

Over the edge of the soundless cataract

Into the fathomless bottomless pit,

Where my soul falls in the last throes of bottomless con-

vulsion, and is fallen

Utterly beyond Thee, Dove of the spirit;

Beyond everything, except itself.

Nay, Son of Man, I have been lifted up.

To Thee I rose like a rocket ending in mid-heaven.

But even Thou, Son of Man, canst not quaff out the dregs

of terrestrial manhood;

They fall back from Thee.

They fall back, and like a dripping of quicksilver taking

the downward track,

Break into drops, burn into drops of blood, and dropping,

dropping take wing-

Membraned, blood-veined wings.

On fans of unsuspected tissue, like bats,

They thread and thrill and flicker ever downward

To the dark zenith of Thine antipodes,

Jesus uplifted.

Bat-winged heart of man,

Reversed flame,

Shuddering a strange way down the bottomless pit

To the great depths of its reversed zenith.

Afterwards, afterwards

Morning comes, and I shake the dews of night from the

wings of my spirit,

And mount like a lark, Beloved.

But remember, Saviour,

That my heart, which like a lark at heaven's gate singing,

hovers morning-bright to Thee,

Throws still the dark blood back and forth

In the avenues where the bat hangs sleeping, upside down

And to me undeniable, Jesus.

Listen, Paraclete.

I can no more deny the bat-wings of my fathom-flickering

spirit of darkness

Than the wings of the morning and Thee, Thou Glorified.

Iam Matthew, the Man;

It is understood.

And Thou art Jesus, Son of Man,

Drawing all men unto Thee, but bound to release them

when the hour strikes,

I have been, and I have returned;

I have mounted up the wings of the morning, and I have

dredged down to the zenith's reversal;

Which is my way, being man.

Gods may stay in mid-heaven, the Son of Man has climbed

to the Whitsun zenith;

But I, Matthew, being a man,

Am a traveler back and forth.

So be it.