Oh, yes, Andrew, I agree that the higher reaches of reason, the spiritual realm of Nous, is one of direct unmediated knowing. It is the descent of this spirit into the psychic middle realm - the marriage of spirit and soul - which produces "inspired" poetry.
This poem (a fragment here) seems to concern this realm of direct knowing. And in my reading, it confirms the Heraclitean saying that "the way up and the way down are the same" - the "gods" (or archetypes) are the both the highest and the lowest.
From "The Labyrinth"
- Edwin Muir (1887-1959)
Since I emerged that day from the labyrinth,
Dazed with the tall and echoing passages,
The swift recoils, so many I almost feared
I’d meet myself returning at some smooth corner,
Myself or my ghost, for all there was unreal
After the straw ceased rustling and the bull
Lay dead upon the straw and I remained ...
I could not live if this were not illusion.
It is a world, perhaps; but there’s another.
For once in a dream or trance I saw the gods
Each sitting on the top of his mountain-isle,
While down below the little ships sailed by.
Toy multitudes swarmed in the harbours, shepherds drove
Their tiny flocks to the pastures, marriage feasts
Went on below, small birthdays and holidays,
Ploughing and harvestingand life and death,
And all permissible, all acceptable,
Clear and secure as in a limpid dream.
But they, the gods, as large and bright as clouds,
Conversed across the sounds in tranquil voices
High in the sky above the troubled sea,
And their eternal dialogue was peace
Where all things were woven, and this our life
Was as a chord deep in this dialogue,
As easy utterance of harmonious words,
Spontaneous syllables bodying forth a world.
That was the real world; I have touched it once,
And now shall know it always. But the lie,
The maze, the wild-wood waste of falsehood, roads
That run and run and never reach an end,
Embowered in error – I’d be prisoned there
But that my soul has birdwings to fly free.
Oh these deceits are strong almost as life.
Last night I dreamt I was in the labyrinth,
And woke far on. I did not know the place.
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