So the Italian,
through centuries, has avoided our Northern purposive industry, because
it has seemed to him a form of nothingness.
It is the spirit of the tiger. The tiger is the supreme manifestation of
the senses made absolute. This is the
Tiger, tiger burning bright,
In the forests of the night
of Blake. It does indeed burn within the darkness. But the
_essential_ fate, of the tiger is cold and white, a white ecstasy.
It is seen in the white eyes of the blazing cat. This is the supremacy
of the flesh, which devours all, and becomes transfigured into a
magnificent brindled flame, a burning bush indeed.
This is one way of transfiguration into the eternal flame, the
transfiguration through ecstasy in the flesh. Like the tiger in the
night, I devour all flesh, I drink all blood, until this fuel blazes up
in me to the consummate fire of the Infinite. In the ecstacy I am
Infinite, I become again the great Whole, I am a flame of the One White
Flame which is the Infinite, the Eternal, the Originator, the Creator,
the Everlasting God. In the sensual ecstasy, having drunk all blood and
devoured all flesh, I am become again the eternal Fire, I am infinite.
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