20
A scientist is an immigrant from outer space
Fondly thinking to tear the veil from love’s beloved face.
The secret of life is not for men of unlove to uncover—
It is for the ruined-in-love dwelling in dust, love’s faithful lover.
Wisdom herself seeks out the men of love to whom she tells her secrets;
To the men of mind she gives her immaculately precise regrets.
Smiling and arm-bangled, she comes to those with whom ‘flat-out’ is the usual stance,
But on the vertical eggheads she bestows not even a casual glance.
No man has added a cubit to his height by taking thought;
But by love the miracle of heart-mirrorness has ever been wrought.
True, mathematics has forced matter to release its powers—
But the final power is God’s which is in the Grace he showers.
The cruellest flower of man’s mind is the violet of space,
When God has come to this Earth to show lovers the Rose’s face.
Again the poet attacks the arrogance of modern man, his attempting to strip truth by his own assertive independence. Baba had suggested some head-heavy people were visitors from other planets and heart-deficient. Francis takes up this suggestion and declares the real secret belongs to those bowled over by love. Love must be wooed by love to uncover, as the poem wonderfully states, ‘the miracle of heart-mirrorness’. The projection of the human quest into the outer journey of conquering space is the ‘cruellest flower’, trying to force truth. The violet is of course the ultra violet radiation of empty space as against the blooming rose of earth. The rose radiating out from the centre with loveliness and spreading its fragrance is a symbol of the God-Man, in the West being an equivalent to the lotus of the East.
Jesus words again ring out, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?” (Mt 6:27). And again to emphasize the impotence of mind when it comes to love, the female personification of Sophia or true wisdom is used, scorning her vain lovers stiff in their own self-assertion. She answers them with their own rational words lacking all heart quality. A basic feature of Francis’ vision is that truth and beauty are inseparable.