Instinct creates the recurring and the beautiful, all the winding of the
serpent; but reason, the most ugly man, as Blake called it, is a drawer
of the straight line, the maker of the arbitrary and the impermanent,
for no recurring spring will ever bring again yesterday's clock.
Sanctity has its straight line also, darting from the centre, and with
these arrows the many-coloured serpent, theme of all our poetry, is
maimed and hunted. He that finds the white arrow shall have wisdom older
than the Serpent, but what of the black arrow? How much knowledge, how
heavy a quiver of the crow-feathered ebony rods can the soul endure?