Many may not notice the young rabbit, caught
in the thicket of brush near the bottom left-
hand corner, because there is so much to see
in the center: an angel of light hovering over
the head of a woman, no more than a girl,
who has turned her head slightly to one side
and lowered her eyes, the better perhaps to
hear what might have been said off-stage, as
it were, or catch a glimpse of what has brushed
past her so quickly she might have missed it.
.
We would only work it all out much later:
that the glimmer of thin glaze over everything
was intended to represent her veiled vision;
to suggest the confusion creeping into her
consciousness, as she lowered her head, trying
to understand what must have been difficult—
almost impossible—to comprehend: this sudden
onset of the miraculous and how it would
come to such a glorious end—so unlike that
of the trapped rabbit, who had no way out.
The Ones Who Didn’t Convert
Melanie McDonagh’s Converts, reviewed in First Things last month, allows us to gaze close-up at the extraordinary…
The Burning World of William Blake (ft. Mark Vernon)
In the latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, Mark Vernon joins…
Bladee’s Redemptive Rap
Georg Friedrich Philipp von Hardenberg, better known by his pen name Novalis, died at the age of…