davmor73

The Nature of Evil

She felt it as a force; but thought it

as an absence, lack of being,

nothing in its inner self.

 

Inspired by the words

of a long-dead bishop

she gave intellect a sovereignty

 

over will and over feeling.

Take up and read’, said the voice,

and she listened to the voice:

 

a child’s soft whisper in

a postlapsarian garden.

And so she picked up and read.

 

But the words and the book

gave no guidance,

gave no thought to the force

 

descending upon her.

She closed the book and wept,

and felt the feeling as before.