{"id":1443,"date":"2011-04-27T10:04:54","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T09:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2025-09-16T08:16:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T07:16:18","slug":"i-have-tired-the-eyes-of-the-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/2011\/04\/27\/i-have-tired-the-eyes-of-the-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I have tired the eyes of the mind&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>A, a, a, DOMINE DEUS<\/b><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I said, Ah! what shall I write?<br \/>\nI enquired up and down<br \/>\n(He&#8217;s tricked me before<br \/>\nwith his manifold lurking-places.)<br \/>\nI looked for His symbol at the door.<br \/>\nI have looked for a long while<br \/>\nat the textures and contours.<br \/>\nI have run a hand over the trivial intersections.<br \/>\nI have journeyed among the dead forms<br \/>\ncausation projects from pillar to pylon.<br \/>\nI have tired the eyes of the mind<br \/>\nregarding the colours and lights.<br \/>\nI have felt for His wounds<br \/>\nin nozzles and containers.<br \/>\nI have wondered for the automatic devices.<br \/>\nI have tested the inane patterns<br \/>\nwithout prejudice.<br \/>\nI have been on my guard<br \/>\nnot to condemn the unfamiliar.<br \/>\nFor it is easy to miss Him<br \/>\nat the turn of a civilisation.<\/p>\n<p>I have watched the wheels go round in case I might see the living creatures like the appearance of lamps, in case I might see the living God projected from the machine. I have said to the perfected steel, be my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I felt some beginnings of His creature, but <i>A,a,a, Domine Deus<\/i>, my hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible crystal a stage-paste&#8230;. <i>Eia, Domine Deus<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"right\">David Jones, in <i>The Sleeping Lord and Other Poems<\/i> (1974), thank you <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b00zf37p\">Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A, a, a, DOMINE DEUS I said, Ah! what shall I write? I enquired up and down (He&#8217;s tricked me before with his manifold lurking-places.) I looked for His symbol at the door. I have looked for a long while at the textures and contours. I have run a hand over the trivial intersections. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5KQtW-nh","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6537,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions\/6537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idiolect.org.uk\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}