Transfiguration is for Thompson the most familiar of mysteries. Good faith needs no Burning Bush. Or, rather, for the faithful every bush is alight. For this faithful poet the seasons were full of the promise of Resurrection. In spring he calls
Hark to the _Jubilate_ of the bird For them that found the dying way to life!
The rebirth of the earth after winter is the figure of the future life:
Thou wak'st, O Earth, And work'st from change to change and birth to birth Creation old as hope, and new as sight.
All the springs are flash-lights of one Spring.
In the same poem he is seen at his daily business, the routine work of co-ordinating and synthesising. Light--the light of the sun--is also
Light to the sentient closeness of the breast, Light to the secret chambers of the brain!
Arguments that go from heaven downwards are the commonplaces of his poetry; that he was ready to prove the sum of his wisdom from earth upwards is told in a passage of his prose:--
"If the Trinity were not revealed, I should nevertheless be induced to suspect the existence of such a master-key by the trinities through which expounds itself the spirit of man. Such a trinity is the trinity of beauty--Poetry, Art, Music. Although its office is to create beauty I call it the trinity of beauty, because it is the property of earthly as of the heavenly beauty to create everything to its own image and likeness. Painting is the eye of Passion, Poetry is the voice of Passion, Music is the throbbing of her heart. For all beauty is passionate, though it be a passionless passion. . . . Absolutely are these three the distinct manifestations of a single essence."
He had found another analogy in Pico della Mirandola, whom he thus renders:--
"'The universe consists of three worlds--the earthly, the heavenly (the sun and stars), and the super-heavenly (the governing Divine influences). The same phenomena belong to each, but each have different grades of manifestation. Thus the physical element of fire exists in the earthly sphere; the warmth of the sun in the heavenly; and a seraphic, spiritual fire in the empyrean; the first burns, the second quickens, the third loves.' Says Pico 'In addition to these three worlds (the macrocosm), there is a fourth (the microcosm) containing all embraced within them. This is Man, in whom are included a body formed of the elements, a heavenly spirit, reason, an angelic soul, and a resemblance to God.'"