48
If anyone asks for proof that God exists—let him disprove
His own existence. Let him declare what makes his mind move.
It is not for the lover to prove, but to be.
God save him then from the slightest hypocrisy,
For with that he is both a witless fool and a liar,
A green log smoking making out it is fire.
Mind demands proof of what is entirely beyond mind.
One day it will learn to sit still and not ask, and find.
Whatever one can say is but a figure of speech,
Like, The sun rises; The moon sinks; The waves wash on the beach.
Love delights in poetry and parables, of itself it is sure;
Mind demands the prose of logic because it is insecure.
Let the demander question and sort—for trash is his treasure.
The lover has another occupation—his Beloved’s pleasure.
This poem takes up the question of true knowledge which was introduced in the previous one. At the primary level we experience being, not logic and facts. The lover responds directly to this. To pretend to anything more is to risk pretence and hypocrisy. Our minds won’t kindle into love with this sort of pretence. The foundation for the lover is the encounter with being, itself undeniable. Mind is founded on doubt, which does not mean it is false but that it is secondary.
Figures of speech bring out the immediacy of experience in its richness and heart quality. The imagination becomes the vehicle of love. The wonder of our relationship to Being, its mutuality, goes beyond analysis of subject and object. If we try to justify with mind’s reason our inner energy and direct relationship we cannot avoid hypocrisy. The second line of stanza 6 seems to my ear to break the rhythm of the poem by having two extra stresses – prose indeed!