The Star in the West

312 THE STAR IN THE WEST duced in a halfpenny test tube ; so in the West , though the state arrived at was one similar to that worked out on Eastern principles , it was intensely more regal and majestic ; for whilst the rishi sat in a howling jungle , contemplating the tip of his nose , the mystic philosopher was groping in the charnel - house of death , midst drear effigies of the living , and dread symbols of the dead , and lit the same triple flame of glory , losing himself in that poetic vision of rapture , so entirely unknown in the prosaic East . And curious to say , that while the East was applying mechanical means to attain a divine illumination , the West arrived at a similar position on the circumference of ity , by a diametrically opposite road ; applying the whole of her artificial faculties to a perfecting of her material needs — hence the growing triumphs of the West . ... “ And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord : and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward , by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz " ( 2 Kings , 20 ). All the world round the key which opens the treasure house is Ecstasy . Myself being idle for an hour I dare one thing to speculate : Namely , that life hath cusps yet higher On this our curve : a prize , a power Lies in our grasp : unthinking Fate Shall build a brain to nestle nigher Under the ultimate Truth : I burn To live that later lives may learn . Wisdom and Love , intenser glow ! Beauty and strength , increase and burn Be brothers to the law of life ! Things as they are — their nature know !