And now, at last, these geometries fade and waver,
Shimmer and dissolve. They pale into dream by the minute,
Their patterns particular, their patterns platonic, eidetic,
Now smudge and stumble, arching poetry drowned
As crystalline mechanics impose precisions of direction.
Here revolve the greater means, the spheres of motion.
More primal their causes, more abstract and faceless
In their godwards ascending.
Spera nona – spera motus octave spera que fit motus eius de septentrione ad meridiem et e converso ( ninth sphere, which moves the eighth sphere and causes it to travel from north to south and vice versa)
We spin and drift
Caught in a mighty flow of will,
Ninth and tenth now are these spheres,
Mighty, faceless,
A slow measuring out
Of purpose,
A swing of footsteps,
A steady scythe, left to right.
A fall of stars,
A winnowing light.
Spera decima – spera suprema qua fit motus de occidente ad orientem et est pricipium motus (tenth sphere – highest sphere in which takes place the movement from west to east and which is the principal of all movement).
Fold up and slew the horizons.
The palaces of motion,
Hollow vowels, time evolving
Revolving through centuries
Turning one way, turning another,
A dance, stately and preposterous.
Natura pricipium corporis (Nature as the principal of bodies)
The four spheres of the soul:
Anima vegetabilis
Anima animalis
Anima rationabilis
Anima celestis
Discontiguous,
Folded between the transcendent, fierce certainty
Of angels, and sullen dust,
(The grinding orbs of time and space),
Float four soul worlds,
Unhinged, awaiting injection,
Awaiting ejection:
A breathed upon word to vivify
And consecrate voiceless earth.