A Single Secret Word - Novalis

[Larry Robinson]

A Single  Secret Word

When geometric diagrams and digits
Are no longer keys to living things,
When people who go about singing or kissing
Know deeper truths than the great scholars,
When society is returned once more
To the unimprisoned life, and to the universe,
And when light and darkness mate
Once more and make something entirely transparent,
and people see in poems and fairy tales
The true history of the world,
Then our entire twisted nature will turn
And run when a single secret word is spoken.

	- Novalis (1800)
(Translated by Robert Bly)