TO SCRIABINE: L’EXTASE
NOT with the drums, the throbbing scarlet drums,
Not with the voice of a silver flute,
Not with the brazen clangour of cymbals,
Nor the trumpets slitting the silence;
Not with the maelstrom of sound
Monstrous, prodigious,
Comes ecstasy.
But with stillness
As when a flame burns unflickering
In far, empty places;
With the quiet of a leaf falling in the forest;
With the hush of the elevation of the Host.