Arthur Edward Waite - Lucasta, Parables and Poems, 1894

yiBLES &

Poems

THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES

Lucasta.

Lucasta PARABLES AND POEMS

BY

ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE

"

I

see the better things of the

life to

come

A

A'ezv

before mine eyes."

Light of Alcliymy.

London

JAMES ELLIOTT & Te.mi'LK

CO.

Chambers, Falcon Court, Fleet Street, E.C. 1894

TO MY WIFE.

(-^r\r^Vi(Df\

CONTENTS. PAGE

With

IIakp and

Crown

...

...

...

...

...

Prologue

9 13

PARABLES:— The First Parable. — The Generation of Luca.sta The Interlude. — In Exile The Second Parable.— A Golden Key lo a Mystic Palace

...

...

...

...

...

...

The Interlude. — The Message The Third Parable. — The Manifestation ofLucasta The Interlude The Fourth Parable. —The Mystic Marriage of Lucasta

...

...

...

...

...

...

The Interlude. — A Rover's Hynin The Fifth Parable. — The Regeneration of Lucasta The Interlude. — The Benediction of Lucasta The .Sixth Parable. — The Divine Mission of Lucasta

...

...

...

The Interlude. — A Vision The Seventh Parable. — The Lucasta

..

...

...

EriLOGUE

...

...

21

25

29 33 35 41

44 50 55

...

60

...

62 67

Transfiguration of ...

...

...

71

76

MISCELLAlvEOUS POEMS :— Azalea

85

In Akidi'jy

91

A Sea Prophecy

93

Stella

95

With Harp and Crown.

ONS of the *~-^

Morning and

Eternity,

Children of Benediction and of Light,

Daughters of angels'

kisses,

I

have wrought

A little book of melody and love — A book against the Resurrection Day, Song-mystic of humanity divine, Achieved in one regenerated )-outh.

Our 1

bright, sidereal

swear,

my

Lead on

He

Israfel.

prophecies inscribed souls, that starry hosts.

and galaxies of gods.

Spirit, and his reign is nigh.

kings,

that

stands erect

among

frankincense clouds,

A

pillar of

Is

a cloud of harpstrings

And

—

brethren, by the Orphic faith.

And by the faithful Deep in discerning Empyrean

beacon

melody.

ministers, the

His saffron hair ;

as he

moves

ground beneath

in grace,

his feet

Quivers in music like a sounding-board The parted air about him slowly streams ;

lO

Wzi/i

Harp and Crown, In God's

Into faint flute-notes.

Holy Place

—

God Has eyes, and sees celestial hierarchies, And companies of martyrs and of saints,

He

wears himself the aspect of a

:

Who from the four-square basis of the Now visible and militant on earth.

Slope

off,

Church,

ascending to the apex point

Whence undimensional

Deity looks

down

O'er the vast triangle of intelligence,

—

Upreaching towards beatitude and light Has lips which shape man's language to divine :

By inspiration of divinity, And voice it past the common range To traverse God's infinity as prayer Has ears wherein celestial melodies

of sound. :

—

Find passage to the galleries of soul.

Wherein they circulate and amplify, As in white sea-shells tinged with coral pink All ocean's vastness hollowly resounds

Has hands

Among

to sanctify

by

service meet,

the vessels and the mysteries

:

:

—

—

ascending to the Throne of God And, with a clamorous music in his throat, Utters the watchwords of Eternity.

Has

feet

:

—

Sons of the Voice and Peers of Everlasting,

Monarchs of organ-melodies, against

With Harp and The meeting

Croivn.

1

of the Bridegroom and the Bride,

bring you once again a httle book Of transformation on the psychic plane I

—

Most magical, miraculous, emprize, Which by imagination's power intent, Was truthfully accomplished and endures.

Lucasta's litanies and chants,

may

This praise of love,

this praise of maiden These visionary parables and songs,

light,

This hidden meaning, this arcane romance.

Be counted as the prophecy and pledge

Of more resplendent exploits still to come The transmutations of your Orphic art

—

!

look to see most mighty things of God, Accomplish'd in the land of living men 1

!

The unprepared

but pure hypostasis

Developed and elaborated here, one fair-shining maid's simplicity

Was She

in

her outward, manifested

Remains beside me

A

;

life.

as a gracious sign,

sacramental type of hidden truth,

Reality,

and beauty, which transcend

Expression.

We

As Moses' was,

are born with faces veil'd

to hide the

God

within

—

Lucasta's mystic veil with Horeb's light Is

now

transfigured, Earth

and Heaven are

In an alchemic marriage, which transmutes

join'd

1

12

JVzt/i

Harp and Crown.

The world to gold. Discriminate between The letter and the spirit that informs

—

Be, then, lucidity

and

lustre yours.

Peace, inspiration, pure imagining, Unspotted spirit in a frame unsoil'd,

A royal robe, a grand and dreadful doom, A mission, a re\ealment, a wide sea.

An

open sea, a boat to sail thereon. and sacred palm, and Crown of Life

Laurel,

!

Prologue.

I.

MAGI NAT ON, I

I

My

With

minister

Thy

clothing mortal form

attributes of Deity, be thou

Immortal Will, proclaim more Magician of the mind,

I

strength once

!

Directing both, divine, eternal soul Of inspiration and of poesy,

Thy Thy

high, creative faculties assume,

concentrated energies collect.

For holy task

!

On

thee the mantle

falls.

—

wraps thee round in vivifying folds Though o'er thee broods an unresponsive sky, And round thee spreads a disillusion'd world.

It

Mind can

A life is

illumine both, begin thy spells.

put into thy priestly hands

To beautify, develop, and inform To lead by evolution of the mind.

From realm to realm of ideality.

—

14

Prologue.

Creative frenzy searches

The panorama

all

my

soul

;

of the outward world,

Before mine eyes transfigured in a breath, Is supernaturally glorified.

The inspiration lights up earth and sky, And some far-gleaming pageantry, some flash Of crumbling crests proclaim the open sea, Mine adoration and my heritage.

O

one thing more

to beautify

and bless

—

One human soul to deify — one maid To drape with immortality — one deep, Illuminating, infinite

High

art

and duty

dream of love

call, for

!

whatsoe'er

its

lofty spells, Imagination, by Confers on beautiful and human things, May well, projected by a conscious mind,

Become the chosen object's attributes.

However much it be invisible ;

May

A

even by

effort of

plastic, passive,

determined

will,

nature permeate,

Until imagined beauty, glory, grace,

Shine realised and visible therein

With eminent perfection. Be it Be this imagination's holy end

thus

—

!

For no transmutatory enterprise Transcends love's grand, illimitable range.

15

Prologue.

Who,

after every possible emprize, Retains profound, potential energies For new achievements on the golden lines

Of that

ineffable, surpassing art

And splendid Which in the

path of ideality, order of the intellect

Lifts glorified

humanity

to

God.

II.

The

supplicated power of poesy, Imagination's high, creative aid

Have beautified thine incarnation fair, Of modest, maidenlike humanity.

The strength implored m turn from Heaven and'Earth, Sky's brightness of deep azure swooning off To softest lilac on the misty verge ;

The The

sea's invigoi'ating influence.

airy ecstasy of

open downs, Wind-swept, and flooded by a midnight moon,

The concentrated faculty of will.

And inspirations, caught at intervals, From infinite, imperial realms of thought, Have each and all in many a mystic mood Their solemn part of ministry perform'd But all dependence on the outward world

;

This summer spectacle of

—

mead and wood,

1

6

Proloo;iie. i>'

Of early moon which buoys In ether's shining depths

Thy rosebud

a

shell

phantom

— seems needless now.

grace, before the magic glance

Of sympathetic contemplation, bursts.

With sudden plenitude of loveliness.

Into a perfect flower, whose affluent bloom Attracts the venerating sense of art

;

Whose fragrance trances thought attraction To passion, passing as an incense up, And leaving crystal gold of perfect love ;

Upon

the holy altar of the heart

Fire-tried

And

turns

and

shining.

Veil on veil removes,

then the wonder of a lambent star

Above the gracious presence of thy brow, Doth in a solemn and a metric trance Of silence meet and worshipful begin

To manifest a majesty And gentle radiation.

of light

Five at length then I see

Complete the lucent chaplet

Thy nature's The circular Reveals

its

;

heights withdrawn and cryptic depths

progression of thy soul

phases,

all its

latent strength,

Its unelicited abilities

For dread achievement. Thou art infinite The unform'd vastness of thy beauty, strength.

And thine unlimited capacities ;

For

life,

love, truth,

have taken

partial

shape

;

17

Prologue.

And faint expression in thy mortal form, Where maiden elegance and charm of mien Hint dimly the Invisible within.

I

will

Thy

not say that thine

is

vaster strength,

more

spiritual beauty's vistas

Prolong'd, thine altitude unsearchable

Beyond

And

all

height, depth

more profoundly sunk,

striking roots of being in the

dark

Abyss of God, more infinitely low Than other souls. There are unfathom'd depths, Untravell'd spaces, undetermined heights In every heart. There is no human soul Whose possibilities can be limited Whose utmost point of progress can be mark'cl ;

On any

chart

;

but most are veil'd to me.

Thine opens slowly, as the ether bares Its

shining distance through the parted clouds.

After a storm, at evening.

I

am bound

By that divine revealment evermore Thy being to develop and expand.

III.

Invoked with passion of a purpose

fix'd.

That potent Monad which in life o'erbroods The psychal man, directing searching light.

Has rectified and clarified and cleansed

1

8

Prologue.

The chemical florescence of the soul, And gross purgations of man's coarser

part.

trustfully resign thy gentle self,

And

I

will

Of noble

bear thee hence to holy

intellectuality

hills

!

From all things common, limited, and low.

To all things lofty, limitless, and rare.

To naked peaks above the line of snow, The mountains of the mind, the breathless, Capacious world of visionary thought Beyond ambition of the boldest lark,

Beyond the

eagle's flight

unexplored, intelligible realm, Invested with the majesty of dream. is

free,

— a realm unknown —

An

There

—

no peace, no beauty

—

in the glare

About these low, relaxing meadow-lands.

1

bless

Thee

for the bracing mountain-air

Which freshens all Thou mighty God

My

the summits of the Soul, I

I

yearn

—

I

yearn

—to Thee

heart ascends in aspiration pui^e

To meet Thy

majesty and

Another being

in

my

arms

trancjuil light I

bear

—

Baptise her beauty in benignant beams, Invest her with the liberty complete

Of Thine

illuminated and elect

I

;

!

parable6.

21

The

First Parable

The Generation of Lucasta.

'T^HE

generations of immortal soul,

High

soul in delicate

Of marvellous

mortality

and dainty form .

!

.

.

There

A

floats

pungent perfume, changing every step

And sweet in each mutation. Does it come From orchards nigh me, from the garden close, 'Tis the evening breath Or clover meadows ?

Of nature lapsing towards her night's repose. .

.

.

In bridal splendour of the latest spring Right royally invested. How my life Expands within it, and is bathed therein

Deep, deep

it

drinks

What

cryptic springs of melody unseal float serenely up life's lucent stream

Into the further past.

—

golden gates unbar

What I

!

!

I

see thy soul

!

!

22

TJlc First Parable.

— —

Serenely dwelling in its fontal home In spiritual mansion bright and blest Thine ante-natal state a virgin clime,

—

A

purple plain of unalloy'd delights,

Twelve

cubits sphered above the loftiest

hills,

The phoenix-home of immortality, And morning joy. The golden rule of life, From star to star its undisputed sway Immutably extending, has evolved P'rom out the simple, pure, subjective

By an

A

interior,

state.

harmonious law,

portion of thy nature into form.

The inner essence takes an outward shape Of melody made visible, conform'd To that divine and individual thought Eternal cause had consciously express'd To bring thee into being.

Is it well .

To

call

Thy

A I

thee

fair, to

.

.

say thy mien

vesture argent, and thy

lily

is

star-eclipsing wreath of loveliness

see thy perfect,

high,

crown ?

superhuman form,

Like poetry in happy music clothed.

But thine unsearchable, unbounded soul

Has human shape I

I

alone to

human

thought.

sense thy presence in the sphere of mind, know not what thou art I call on thee,

And

;

thou respondest

in the brightest

shape

The First Parable.

Supreme imagination

On human

form.

pictures,

23

based

see thy haunting eyes,

I

Like evening's grey from Heaven's eternal View'd in a holy trance. I pass therein

hills

—

Through fragrant spaces, poised on eager wings Of upward aspiration pass in dream

—

I

;

see thy timeless origin express'd

—

In spiritual symbols a pure spark Or point of life intense, profoundly plunged In the electric ocean of God's bright, Essential intellectuality

Support the dreamer now, ye mighty downs.

Thou

scarlet sunset,

in

draped

formless cloud,

Pinewoods, and wilderness, and windy peaks, And shadow-haunted prospects far prolong'd.

And

closing night

It lifts itself;

And down It

.

!

That point of light

;

An inner impulse prompts above the burning sea .

.

a radiant globe

it

grows,

creation's stream of forming

glimmers

life

slowly into consciousness.

The conscious

life

consumes the shining form

It

turns one thought intent

It

feeds

upon

itself,

;

and, sinking

far,

own unsearchable profundities, And unimaginable, endless heights.

Its

It

dimly measures,

The

till

the vast beyond,

contact form'd with

;

through ages long

God

at either end,

The First Parable.

24

Pulse and vibrate therein

Turns outward then

Desire and will unite

;

the tide of thought

sense-music charms

;

;

it

on,

the magic change,

Encompass'd enigmatically, gives

The outward shape. Thou takest angel form.

And in the sexless, simple world of soul — The purple plain of unalloy'd delights

—

Diaphanously draped, with wide, white wings,

One

torch-like star,

from pale and

lofty

brow

— and auburn hair unbound In rainbow ripples — thus picture thee.

Diffusintr o lisrht o

I

works the outward evolution's law. towards the circle of material things

Still

And It

draws thy nature

A

out.

vortex takes

The circle ever towards its central depths, And downward sailing with the might)' tide, on eternal things,

Eyes

fixed for ever

Thou

enterest the generating world

A

—

narrow passage with a door of night

At either end, a golden hope beyond.

Cross, combat, victory, and crown betwixt.

The

generations of immortal soul.

High soul in dehcate and dainty form Of marvellous mortality !

25

The

Interlude.

In Exile.

'T^HE town The Is

recedes, the turbid stream

is

cross'd

;

heart that throbs beneath the weight of worlds

borne with no more stress of steaming steeds this child-heart beside me.

Than

.

.

Queen

.

of Stars,

White-breasted Virgin, tender, trusting, Translucent Lily, pour thy dainty light

true,

—

White

light,

bright fragrance, beautifying earth.

melt in parabolic morn Of maiden mildness and enravishment,

Whose shadows

While every desert place thy Intelligible

With

lily

being's pure,

harmonies invest

blossoms

All lustre, softness

in thy likeness !

.

.

.

.

Now

made.

the leaning elms

Line country lanes, which take through gentle scenes

May-scented

Now And

still,

their dilatory

way

;

burning sunshine floods transforming skies. winds are winsome as the voice of Christ >

—

The

26

Interlude.

In childhood wafted over Syrian fields

Now

;

pleasant pools, with basking swans beside,

In dim recesses spread their brown expanse, And something ever cf exalting light,

Which thine eyes lend to all on earth and Has visibly transfigured and enrich'd Those golden slopes of uplands

far

sea,

away.

Thy consecrated, delicate, gentle lips, The homes of spiritual melody.

On thy true poet's still in trance are press'd Thy warm arms clasp him, thine eyes shine And when the amplitude of all the world, With woodland wastes and

And an

;

on him

miles of dreaming

;

fell,

intolerable, seraphic sky,

With sudden rushing

of awaken'd wind

From buoyant seas, invigorates once more The sacrificing priest of Nature's shrine^ And breaks up every fountain of the soul Into floods of adoration then I know Yon naked heath, with heaven drawn out beyond,

—

—

A

threshold of the

infinite,

assures

That one black pine upon the

And

;

dizzy

hill.

orchard-closes' plenteous prophecies,

This sacred and illuminating truth

Do

visibly

and sensibly

infuse

—

That thou, sweet maid, though meek in all thy ways, And not more firmly poised on breathless heights

The Of unattainable

And

Interlude.

27

virginity,

dread Uranian loveliness, than low

Immersed

in

glad humility of thought,

And parted far From thy pure

from vanity as

I

peace aud haunting sanctity,

Art truly Queen of Stars, Christ-lighted

Of soul-effulgence, shedding mystic

And

moon

rays,

sprinkling melody of countless larks

Entranced

in

morning

ether.

Do

I

err

?

Let cold imaginations bound to sense

Misread thy beauty's parable profound.

No

less that

Cosmos

of incarnate soul

— Before the quicken'd faculties of mind — Shall in the incandescent light of love

Burn gorgeous, golden.

Whether Pure love that

Or by

its

clarifies

spiritual

and purges

love reveals

—

— sight

chemistry

Transmutes, transfigures, still the change is true.

Thine outward beauty is a hand which points,

Which leads by lily-lined, azalean paths To the seraphic and ineffable shrine Of thy soft, shining, thine unsullied soul.

The outward charm that binds a thousand Is but the

The

shadow of thy

first faint

Inhaled from

hearts

loveliness,

fragrance of the full-blown rose far, a promise of the deep

The

28

Inicriuac.

Intoxication of ecstatic sense,

When

venerating hands shall part

Of jealous

leaves,

Press lips against

its

screen

and bent, adoring^ face its

petals.

29

The Second Parable.

A Golden Key CRYSTAL

A

to a Mystic Palace.

palace, built

by mortal hands,

Uplifts the splendours of

Above the

its

tetrad form.

on the height a world of dreams,

level pastures,

A

crystal cresset to

It

stands transfigured.

As

!

the sinking sun

commonplace and humble things With poetry and glory, this light pile.

Invests

all

By mortals

built, by mighty genii plann'd. draped for ever with a rainbow sheen.

And from diaphanous and hyaline.

Is

Through opal

And

transits, to refulgent turns.

and coruscates, and shines With countless vivid and prismatic hues.

While every Gilead breeze that breathes around scintillates

—

Is raised

by passage of angelic wings, For there Lucasta dwelt. Her steps therein

Awoke adoring

echoes.

There her voice

stir in

the enravish'd air

Did, thrush-like,

TJie

30

Second Parable.

Vibrations subtly circulating still, And stirring timelong in the hearer's

mind

The

In secret nooks, pulse of purest thought.

In sacred chambers utterly apart,

By fountain sides, by many a spellbound lake.

By solemn statues, still her voice is stored.

In tiny ripples of ecstatic

She haunts them

As those

song

times to ears

Is audible at

still

elect.

—the palace and the park —

pale spiritual clouds of gold

Are by the vanish'd sunbeams haunted

Thou

crystal cresset to a world of dreams,

I

enter thee, thy haunted halls explore

I

know

thee well,

But darkness 1

still.

I

!

dwelt myself in thee,

reign'd,

and spurr'd by powers without,

scaled thine endless flights of hollow stairs

To ghostly turrets with a soul adread And nameless doom above. Now light has And from thy windows on the age to come.

dawn'd,

By prophesy and parable and dream Made evident, by all our hopes ensured.

The mystic thinker looks. Creative thought Has limn'd its landscapes, it is nigh this day.

It

passes

O

solemn

With

all

our schemes

—

it

comes,

Niglit, involving earth

inspiration

my

it

comes

and sea!

receptive soul

!

The Second Parable.

31

By all its channels of perception fill Thy May-time fragrance, like a wine, exalts.

Thy cool wind wraps imagination round, And lifts it into prophecy. Thy dews !

Refresh, thy dai'kness haunts, thy stars untold O Night, the joyful wonder of thy stars I

my spirit in adoring lo\-e Ah, mystic, tender, mild, maternal Night, With silent tides of shadow lap me round Prostrate

—

—

I

Ah, haunting lavender of fusing sky

!

!

—

Ah, fading saffron, atmospheric grey Eternal speech, Clear as Lucasta's eyes !

the tops of tall and trembling Prolong your parables and mysteries

Among

trees. !

magic space of sleep and dream and love.

Beneath thy sleepless trees, thy broodmg sky, 1

utterly adore thee

By

1

On

mighty spectacles of

these downs.

open sea

—

In stormy moods of majesty in all Thy moods and phases, wheresoe'er thou art

me thy scald thy holy hands

I

praise thee, minister to

I

place

Haunt,

my

spirit in

thrill

me,

fill

—

!

—

me, thy desire and love

Make agony of illimitable void.

Which frenzied inspiration pouring

forth

Alone can soothe, which thou alone canst Until the rosy morning of

my

soul,

fill,

The Second Payable.

32

Lucasta, come, with light of liquid eyes

And

stream of aureate tresses

— honey-lipp'd,

Dew-fed, sea-scented, and sjringa-crown'd.

Fall dimly, then, serene and holy Night,

And

let

the tender marvel of her eyes

Thy dusk and mournful spaces glorify Fall softly, then, most cool, enchanted Night, !

And

let

With

O

the pulses of Lucasta's heart

words enrich thy mystery and star-crown'd head, thy winds, and lull thy latest bird,

secret

bend thy

!

beautiful

Hush all And let the melody of Lucasta's Upon the tideless surface of thy

voice

Unfathomable ocean wake some

light

And

from whose tender gleam the crescent of a new-born moon

silver ripples,

Shall rise

To

soul's

beautify thy being

!

33

The

Interlude.

The Message.

Y

Star has shed one beam of purest light To soothe me by lone waters wandering, My Swan one feather in her starry flight Has shaken from her wing,

IVT

Vibrating with melodious delight And with the voice of seraphs, when they sing ;

Their unknown canticles

My My Dove On

ineffable,

virgin Philomel,

that, dwelling in

Dodonian grove,

dread, divine, immutable decrees

Of Amidst the

all

providing Fates,

rustle of

/Eonian trees

Vaticinates,

Hath sung me one revivifying song Which lifts me straight from darkness

A

thousand echoes

The It

cools

in

my

silver lay

all fever,

soul prolong

;

as a fountain's spray

into day-

TJic Interlude.

34 Makes

cool the forehead on an August day

Again

My

my

heart

is

toihng brain intuitively clear

Mine eyes behold

The harmonies

reality

;

strong, :

and truth

of every starry sphere

—

;

—

Endow'd with inner faculties I hear That golden and unconquerable youth Pure, buoyant, and divine.

Which under some more favour'd influence ;

—

Than common

Had

stars of destiny dispense.

once been mine

—

That youth flows bounding now through every vein I hold the measure of the mighty main Within the single compass of my being The bounds of possibility expand.

There

is

no scheme too grand,

No doom And

;

too great for dreeing.

throned for ever on the seat of mind

All doubts dispell'd,

all

darkness

left

—

behind

—

Divine imagination, purged from Earth, Beholds the world's new birth

—

Beholds the

future, like a formless sea,

Stretch, ever bright'ning, to infinity,

The

evolutiu

i

into

Of that we

And

dream'd Ideal

call the Real,

through the purple vistas of the distance, the Meaning of Existence

The Magic and

I

;

35

The Third

Parable.

The Manifestation of

A LL 1 I

I I

sense of duty seems in thee to mer^e, have no duty left but love for thee ;

ha\e no hopes, no dreams, no conscious thought do not breathe nor feel, I am no more,

all

Through Embraces I

in

me,

like

worship

all

star.

and warmth

contains and searches

love the world in thee, ser\e

When my

man

things beautiful in

pent

spirit its

In ardour forth on thee.

O

a radiant

the world in light

all,

diffused,

all.

in thee,

life

existence pours

O

love, love, love

1

adoration of ecstatic love,

The entrance

;

"love but live no more."

I

simply love,

The passion

I

Lucasta..

to the palace of the King,

Against all scorners closed and barr'd and With twelve hermetical and mystic seals !

O Salem, city on the mountain-top O promised land of honey and of milk !

!

seal'd.

The Third Parable.

36

O Aden, Eden, land of holy dream O House of God 'Tis cold to call !

!

'Tis

weak

to call thee beautiful,

'tis

thee strong,

vain.

With the drear commonplace of mortal speech,

To name thy storms, thy calms, thy heights, thy depths, To call thee joy, to call thee life of life.

For thou art love, which names both man and God — Which names creation's law, whose fourfold term Is God's own mystic city built four-square.

The everlasting, mighty tetragram.

Thou art salvation, immortality, The resurrection and the crown to come: Thou art God infinite, thou boundest all :

Darkness and horror and the deep abyss.

The void and vortex ot impurity.

—

Chaotic malice, arrogance, and hate in life alone devoid of thee.

Those deaths

'Tis not the

—

moon whose

Has

spell'd the sea, for

And

in

spiritual light

thou art

moon and

sun

immeasurable ocean thou

Assumest other majesty and form Thy grace is in acacia and in beech. :

And when

thy lover in a lane at noon

Beneath some maple lays

his languid limbs.

And those broad, beautiful, benignant leaves Make shade and shelter in a torrid time.

The Third Parable.

And drooping Fan

37

low with lissome whispering

fever'd forehead

and

in ears

adream

Recite dryadic rhymes and roundelays, It is

the providence of thy pure love

Which

closes round

heart the

him

;

on thy lap he

lies,

and thy breath

moss which

pillows, Thy The zephyr, the leaf-messages thy voice, And those dryadic rhymes and roundelays The rhythmic efflorescence of thy soul, Whose depths are resonant with organ-odes And the high epics of eternity.

—

A

haunted house where ghosts and mortals dwell Together, in a city of the dead

—

The I,

dreadful city of the dead in soul

—

bent on secrets to be won from death,

Ambitious of the dream'd-of

And

life

With aspiration to prolong life's Round all the circle of eternity.

Sought

out,

won

entrance, took

the hush'd

Among And round

We

beyond.

ardently, incessantly devour'd line

my

place assign'd,

and necromantic throng,

a table such as Merlin plann'd. nightly with the men call'd dead.

communed

Ye melancholy shadows of the past.

Ye unsubstantial entities, ye thin

The Third Parable.

•

58

Phantasmata, reflecting back my thoughts repellent, unobservant eyes,

—

With dim,

And

—

baleful blue and phosphorescent lights About the darksome chamber floating slowly In ominous silence was it there and then,

—

On

such an awesome and forbidden quest,

That any light native Could ever reach ?

to earth or sea

A sacramental pause Came in that thaumaturgic mystery, And with the brightness of thy human laugh.

And with thy human presence passing fair. .

Thou

I

didst

its

.

.

space enrich and beautify.

sought the wither'd leaves of fairy gold, I found thee, a true and living wealth,

And The

vivifying seed of deathless gold,

Within the ivory casket of thy Intelligible beauty.

O many moons Of passion Through

.

.

.

Not

fresh,

at

once

—

of misery and want,

spent in vain, of lines misread

all

the tangled skein of destin)-.

Of inspiration round

the idol-shrine

Long squander'd in abortive prophecy.

The harvest moon of fruit and fulness shines The skein unrolls, the knots are loosed therein.

The inspiration finds an impulse new.

The prophecies discredited assume

—

The Third Parable.

A

new

significance

and solemnity

For by the psychic telegraph of

39

;

tlioughts,

From mind to mind incessantly transferr'd, Thou Jost electrify me day by day With beautiful imaginings, with soft

And

tender messages, with odours sweet ever follow upon fancy's flight.

Which

Uprising, bird-like, from thy being's nest lines of poetry, song-bursts,

With random

Sky-fallen cadences.

stand this day,

I

As in the middle of a mighty wold Which open heaven enrings, still belted round

By normal sequences In

common and

of circumstance

unvisionary spheres

;

—

But on the verge an arch of rainbow light With battlemented turrets of pure gold.

With blazon'd banners of the sunset land- — Star-glister'd

And powers

— edified by

elfin

In shining stillness stands

Gate Beautiful,

My

path

is

to thine

there

'Tis lost in thee

The

O

refuge,

kings

— — the entrance-gate.

pontifical of fairyland

all

;

it

own

nature's world.

leads from

mundane

things,

—from disenchantment thou

things

exaltation, poetry,

common and and joy

unclean,

!

The bright illimitable elfin land Of thy regenerating beauty's depths —

The Third Parable.

40

My

path

And

is

there

there,

my

romance

By mead and

path,

O

shall lead

soul

!

is

there, all

through

my

life

stream, o'er uplands cool and high.

Through harvest

fields,

exploring further

still.

Sense-thrilled, enraptured, borne on ardent wings,

Thy woman-world.

And

gazing backward thence.

That haunted house, where ghosts and mortals dwell Together

in a city of the dead.

Becomes itself the mystic rainbow arch, The portal of the palace of the queen ;

The phosphorescent vapours brooding

there

Are blazon'd banners of the sunset land

And And

;

those dim ghosts with unobservant eyes, cold corpse-touches, are the elfin hosts,

Which on the threshold of the elfin world Seem spectres, ever to the dreamers sunk In drear delusions of Reality.

41

The npHE

Interlude.

wind blows

freshly.

In this morning light

The beauty round should win

discerning praise,

But through the threshold of thy glorious eyes, By magical election, have I gazed.

And

1

have seen thy

soul.

All stars,

all

seas,

Are stripped of beauty now ....

O mighty main, immeasurable voices high

Lift thine

!

Stars of the distant twilight, circle

still

—

Reproach me

all, and chide thy chosen priest, Sweet Mother Nature I adore thee still. !

Most wondrous world At once placidity and All light, Is but

Thy

all

azure

—

of waters

;

thy bright breast.

restlessness.

like Lucasta's face

an efflorescence

—

of thyself,

Her height, grandeur, depth, and mystery. unconscious height of chastity

Her

soul's

Thy

depth, thy vastness,

Of one unsearchable

;

seem but phases

all

secret.

Her

I

see,

4

TIic Interlude.

42

Who

distant in the City of the Blest,

Will tarry in cool shadow

When, I

till

in the vigour of the

stand, self-poised,

I

come,

morning wind

upon a peak of rock,

And all thy glittering and gladsome pomp Of hasty tide about me swirls and swells :

While every shallow Is like a boy's voice

shore

in the shingly

meeting careful

With blithesome laughter— all

life

the distant depth

Speaks as with tidings of a mission'd man. from the heart and centre of all things

Who

Thou

Ascends with revelation.

When

art there,

in the dreadful City of the Blest

—

dreadful City by thy beauty Blest— stand absorb'd in adoration deep

The I

Absorb'd

Before Lucasta's eyes.

1

stand

!

— — — Grey eyes Madonna adoration deep Immeasurable main of mighty soul Seraphic spirit— thou hast

fiU'd

—

the world

!

There is no sea, no sky, no fertile earth 'Tis not the lark which sings, the summer wind ;

That cools and freshens

;

it

is

thou in each

Thou variously, inscrutably reveal'd.

And plunged for ever in a dream of thee

— My soul no more a separable form I

lose myself,

For

1

melt,

I

in the circle of all

merge in thee knowable things ;

—

—

TJic Interlude.

Thou

43

only art reality and truth,

Though mystic oft

voices,

which are part of thee.

the visionary

Vibrating air.

Divide the hush intent of ecstacy With names the images of things

—

With high prophetic names

— thy

unknown

Christ, thy

— God

!

44

The Fourth

Parable.

The Mystic Marriage of Lucasta.

/^ NIGHT

of fragrance, on these open

downs

—

On these unlimited, exalted downs —

Descend, descend

I

!

yearn once more for thee

Thou art moi'e precious still, more beautiful Thou penetratest more and more the deep And hidden fount of visionary thought Thou art so cool, so vague, so mystical,

:

I

So

close enfolding

But

And And

I

!

I

adore the sea.

passionate and mad for thee, the luminous splendour of thine

am

for

eyes,

thy moon-crown of burnish'd, burning gold.

Mine inner being in the ample folds Of thy black, beautiful, and boundless limbs Is

drained in sensuous delirium

And The

;

in ecstatic, universal bliss soft

Draws

luxuriance of thine unseen

all

my

spiritual strength

mouth

away

In frenzied, fascinated utterance.

!

The Fourth Parable.

O

45

occidental light of saffron gold,

Collect thy dilatory splendours now,

And

linger not

!

With

all

thy dews and stars

Enfold me, Night, in infinite embrace.

Let me lie with thee on these open downs,

A

naked

soul, with

every inmost part

Responding, by a tingling sense intense Of an immeasurable luxury.

To

thine unstinted, unrestrain'd embrace.

So

cried the spirit of the

Night answered him

And Had And

Night with

Spirit in

communion

progeny of prophecy

With

And

wandering scald

;

— Night answer'd me, the scald — and song

join'd

;

then the visionary mystic rose. inspirations as with mantle clothed.

wings endow'd, transcended starry Night,

And, with the chrism of a psychic love Baptised, virginified, regenerate,

To saffron Morn's auroral-rose embrace, To thee, Lucasta, came, thou morn of soul.

Thou mother-fountain of Time's kings to come, The

continent of

Creation's

By

lips,

the clean of heart.

human crown.

stellar steps to blessed

As

earthly night

day leads

on,

So mystic Night, Lucasta, leads to thee.

And thou, mine Eos, to a Golden Age

TJie

46 Which

Fourth Parable.

every scald foreshew'd, but one

fulfils

—

Angels harps of God, the Scald lo EvoHE Strike harps of Kings With choral chants proclaim the Golden Age Strike, harps of

Strike,

When I

in

watch

!

!

a solemn solitude apart amid God's mystery

for \isions

Of dying

And

!

!

sunset and of tender sky,

smell dry fragrance of the thirsty hedge,

Which

supplicates the tardy evening dew,

While busy sparrows on the

ivied

elm

Chirp out their secrets all unconsciously.

And I interpret by a magic art

Not vainly learn'd, the ferret from the dells Bounds frighten'd by, the burnish'd beetle halts

To let me pass, the blackbird hops before, And some new interest of floral life.

Of beasts',

or birds', distracts in joyful

way

From over contemplation, step by step.

The dreamer's mind. These influences soft Of sylvan things confer receptive moods.

And some new image for thy shining crown Of memorable emblems Nature grants.

Or some new name, which happy fancy wins.

Thou child of " Nature's bridal ecstacy,"

Who

in the nuptial night of

Wast procreated on

heaven and earth

the pyschic plane,

The Fourth Parable.

And somewhat By

thinly clothed with starry flesh

spirit interpenetrated

Art

47

now commission'd

oft

—

—

into worlds of sense,

With magic, life-illuminating words Of everlasting love, celestial pledge, Indelibly this day Delivering.

Those holy words are written in my heart.

And when for us the bridal morning comes

A

Mystic Marriage shall be made therein,

A

crowning and consummate spectacle,

Where Where Poetic

wed with ideality, wed with thee, mid pyschic pomp, The sunset land pageantry.

I

shall

I

shall

Shall lend

its

banners, and the night her stars.

The morn her dew-spread

A

garlands.

choric grandeur from the

Then

shall rise

infinite sea.

The grand, immeasurable, endless sea, The holy, holy sea. Light from the full.

The smiling earth, light from the moon and sun.

Light from the mind of man, the soul within, The deathless spirit overbrooding both, Light out of fancy lands, from Light from imagination's

elfin shores,

loftier

realms,

Light from the desolate, the awful wastes Of magic worlds involved by woful spellsLight concentrated, light ineffable.

Light shall be round us then, shall clothe us then

;

48

Fourth Parable.

TJie

The splendour bursts e'en now, O sky Which veils insufferable sunset gold

of grey,

!

O

and

lonely lanes

Which White

twilight

fills

vistas in the

wood,

with mystery

star, first star,

Wan star,

!

pure font of trembling

light

deep, adorable, ecstatic hush.

Which fills my soul with longings for the The unattainable, the sky-bound verge, Profounder hush and higher mystery

far.

!

By application of the alchemy Of purged imagination, fix'd intent, diaphanise mine outward self— process possible but hard attain'd, One of the sciences of faerie land 1

will

A

—

And

then by aid of well-directed Unlimited ability, I'll drape

Thy

virgin

body

In living light.

will's

for a bridal robe

On

nuptial couch of dream,

a house of prophecy, overbrooded by a moonlit vault

Star-dighted, in

And

Of visionary With a most I'll

compass

violet, star-sprent.

perfect spiritual all

Man

embrace

By an

thy being.

art

masters only on immortal heights Out-pinnacling Parnassus magic heights

The

—

astralising of

my

soul

and

flesh

—

I

The Fourth Parable.

49

Shall be so perfect, eminent, complete,

Accomplish'd with such plenitude, that by

The secret contact of that bridal night.

Thou shalt thyself transfigure to the mind.

And thine eyes' ravishment, thy heart, thy Shall kindle

Stars

all

m thine

the potencies of soul

in the

Shalt thou pass off

limbs,

moon upon thy brow. masses of thy hair through dreams to Deity.

eyes and

Morn's saffron

—

—

CO

The A

/^NCE

I

Interlude.

Rover's Hymn.

wish'd a thousand things,

Thoughts that soar on eagle wings Follow'd in their soaring

Now my

;

raptures rarely rise

Further than thy dear grey eyes, There mine ardours pouring.

Oft in midnights lone and

Fancy fleeted far Through the

Now

still

at will

starry spaces

;

dreams, both day and night.

Round about one only light. it

Shining where thy grace

O

for

darksome

forest haunts,

And — for him no danger

daunts,

Wilds and wildernesses

Open

is.

—

!

seas to sail far over,

Dizzy peaks, to draw the rover, Draped in gleaming dresses

!

TJie Interlude.

O

$1

both height and deep,

to dare

Where the Kraken Hes asleep, Where the last star quivers, Where the last word of existence the darkness, and the distance,

Through

Life to void delivers

And beyond

!

space and time,

all

Far transcending speech or rhyme, Out of thought's dimension, That one central point to win

Which By

secrets centre

all

in,

a soul-ascension.

me these—

God's mercy grant

May

Nature's

And

"

primal sanities," high Truth's unfolding

In such dreams Till thy tender

my

life

!

exhaled,

form unveil'd

Unto my beholding.

Then

the light of rose and gold Gather'd up from \ale and wold,

From

the sky descended.

Shifted off the open sea,

Came and draped

thy symmetry

In a garment splendid.

TJie Interlude.

52

All the beauty In thy tender

named in truth human youth

Visibly inhering,

Breaks the ancient

spells investing

Speculation's fields of questing,

At

its first

appearing.

Melody of merle in Mavis in the poplar Lark

at

copse, tops,

morning's gateway-

How

thy laughter's silver lightness

Robs

the bird-world of

And

Now And

absorbs

it

its

brightness,

straightway

!

the sunset lights the mild

And

may kindle, moon wax and dwindle.

the winds keep calling.

While the Alpine hills point o'er me, While the long paths wind before me, Falling, rising, falling.

And

the bright, the lucent distance

Open realms of new existence.

Keen and cold and splendid See the

There

spirit in its trances

uplifted, there

advances,

Lone and unattended

!

;

The

Interlude.

53

Unattended, lone, untiring,

Upward, onward, Through the

O

the grandeur

Heights and

still

light

aspiring,

and glory

flights unfolding, deathless

Voyager, before thee

But the distance gleams

To immeasurable Grand

—

Ah, the breathless

;

I

vain—

in

main,

in tidal diction,

To sidereal expansions, And to scintillant star-mansions, God tj' give benediction !

When And

the furthest flights are ended,

the furthest heights ascended.

The

last star

transcended.

All the world's resource expended.

Be

the roving soul

Unto

love

commended

more splendid

—

Love more splendid still than its blessings him befall,

all.

May

Inner worlds disclosing

O may

space's final

Into Christ's

own

There be

!

verge

light

emerge.

his reposing

!

The Interlude.

54 But

for

me

Through

the

dream

is

o'er

;

more

the outer world no

Roving and exploring Past the beauty of one face Do I look to greet Christ's grace, ;

In love daily soaring.

Has Has

the rover lost or gain'd

?

the thinker, tax'd and strain'd.

Balancing and proving, Lost the vista, lost the vision.

Sinking all the sense of mission In the sense of loving 'o

Nay, thou

And

art

an open sea,

a green world

Meet

?

fair

and

free

for love's

emprising In the depths of thy grey eves Brood a thousand mysteries Souls

may

;

sink or rise

So, with mystic love

my

in.

guide

In thy woman-nature's wide,

Magian world I enter There the tranced thinker wanders ;

Ever there the rover ponders Voyaging and venture.

55

The

Fifth Parable.

The Regeneration of Lucasta.

I

S that thy voice which deep

Expounds

Is that thy smile

The

haunted glades

in

the passion of the nightingale

beneath whose

fruitful

glance

wheatfields mellow on these Kentish

Is that thine eyes' light

?

cliffs ?

on the gleaming sea?

Is that the dainty fragrance of thy

breath

In hyacinthine dingles deeply sunk, Possess'd by spells and odours

?

Is

it

thou

Whose beauty's light, in amaranthine blue And glory draped, looks down on joj-ful earth, And royal majesty of open sea, From such unmeasured distance ? Hast thou won

— —

Thy dimpled whiteness from the sea-gull's wings Thy splendour drawn from heaven's blue ecstacy Thy freedom's grace from fountains — from the depths Of brooding ocean thine unsearchable Profundity of spirit-speaking eyes ?

Or dost thou lend thy nature's boundless wealth

To

beautify the

Cosmos

?

The Fifth Parable.

56

The I

—

ravish'd spirit into trance ascends I reach the world of mind, again.

Again

—

reach that world where

If

all

things dream'd

may

be.

by subhmity and beauty they

Can urge a claim on

life.

Uplifted there,

By night and day, and glimpsing still beyond, And soaring still, and winding far away, The spiral stairs of being, which transcend The uttermost infinity, my soul

—

Impassion'd by the poetry of love

Beats

—

now

with eager wings through starry space, Aflame with inspiration, seeking out

That process hidden

Whereby

May

in the

psychic plane

the beauty of a mortal

maid

with the luxury and wealth of light

—

The radiant, adorable, supreme.

The highest good, desired of all our eyes-— Be visibly emblazon'd have found The secret path, I know the perfect way.

•

I

By which the streams of spiritual life Flow down to vivify the minds of men I know the channels of receptive mind Can open out and more that flow receive. ;

Till,

every bank o'erflow'd and floodgate burst,

Through It

all

radiates

the pores

and

particles of flesh

and coruscates and glows

In visible splendour bright

— to purge, to cleanse.

The Fifth Parable.

To clarify, reijenerate, baptize, And with electric shock to wake

in

57

man

Affinities with

Godhead, as the sun, With gentle heat on tender days in spring Fills germs with teeming life, makes buds unfold,

And

all

Evokes

The

power of new-born things

the inner to

outward beauty and delight.

secret palli

And when,

is

found, the perfect wa)-

Lucasta, far from

human

;

life,

I set thee down, after an arrowy flight, Beside the lone coast's utter solitude,

And

fill thy spirit with the ocean's voice. lone sea caves are filled shall haunt thy brain

As

;

With singing winds and clamour In heaven afloat

;

of joyful birds

thine eyes of trust and love

Transfigure with an ardent violet

From

the bright zenith's royal altitude

;

When sunset's light of rose has tinged thy cheeks.

When lanes and gardens full of floral scents Have made thy breath

To

day-long melody of

when summer months

magnolia)"!

;

thy speech

when harp-harmonies movements of thy limbs When I have set thee with thy hair unbound To meet the magic of a moon at full, Is

modulated

;

Have mellow'd

And by an

the

;

adoration of the soul

s

The Fifth Parable.

58

Pour'd out to Dian, the beloved, the crown'd, The plenteous queen, have drawn a virtue out

From her benignant beams of tawny light To glorify thy tresses when the stars Have overwatch'd thee when the saintly Has tranquillised the waters of thy soul ;

;

night

;

When thou art hush'd, And vitalised, exalted, And when Are

rent

and hallow'd, and subdued, and made strong ;

the veils of matter and of time

and

torn,

and when, beyond

their shows,

The The secret beauty points, and that within The fair illusion of thine outward form Makes answer, leaping towards the actual scald-magician to the secret truth.

—

With parabolic bursts of melody Then from the glory of a thousand stars.

With lifted hands, I'll draw the secret light

To pour on thee, to pour on soul and mind.

To make a visible splendour in thy flesh And thy first nuptial dream of Deity ;

Shall pass into a consciousness divine

And

sanctified, regenerated,

;

high

Uplifted, an illuminated soul. of that bridal night

The Mystic Marriage

Shall be completed then, Lucasta shine

To

light the

age when every maid and boy

Shall equal glories wear, her crown assume.

TJic

Where,

No

Fifth Parable.

59

in the earthly city of the blest,

sun shall

set,

nor

moon

shall

need to

rise,

But there the Christ-light of the human soul In house and street abide.

6o

The

Interlude.

The Benediction

/^NE

dainty, soft,

and

Has purged and

On this It

of Lucasta.

fruitful

shower of rain

clarified the fragrant air,

God-favour'd evening, late in spring.

shines as lucent as thy virgin brow,

Lucasta mine

:

to every slightest stir,

Its cool, translucent particles, replete

With a most

sensitive, subtle, soul-like hfe,

tremulous emotions far prolong'd.

Respond in chiming cadence the lark's song

By

—

The seething murmurs Plunged

in the

—

of the shifting sea,

pleasaunce of a

mood

of dreams-

The tcmper'd merriment and melody Which in the church bell sounds, recalling The benediction of thy beautiful voice, Which lifts my soul into Eternity.

oft

Then falls a gleam upon the open sea.

Which is not blue nor grey the placid, pure Perfection of thine all-delighting eyes— ;

61

TJie Interlude.

Thine eyes' true

light

— shines magically there.

God bless the wonder of those waters deep God bless thine eyes, whose beauty fills my life God bless that lark whose frenzy haunts the sky God bless thy voice, whose modulated tones Have spell'd full often many a waste of waves, And oft Astarte bound through formless nights, !

When tempests raved, to pour her soothing On riven landscapes in the inner world

!

!

light

!

God

My

bless the ripples of thy laughter, all

nature

lifting to love's

mantic height,

The

inspiration which

And

bold ambition towards

All spiritual flights of

God

bless thee ever,

is

poesy.

and

all

noble deeds,

and thought

life

in all thy

stand this night upon a lofty down A dreaming city by a dreaming sea I

Beneath

me

!

ways

!

;

spreads, bevvitch'd in dreaming air

Round me are solitude and wilderness.

With all the potence of immortal will, I called God's rain of benediction down To water all the paradise of thy soul.

Descend, Celestial and Deific Dew Rise Eden Incense, and thy virtue sweet !

Diffuse around thee, as the clover

These

fields uplifted

with

its

fills

teeming scent

!

;

62

The Sixth

Parable.

The Divine Mission of Lucasta.

'T*HE silent pageantry of sunset draws The exiled dreamer forth down winding roads, Where bindweeds close their vein'd and trailing cups About the treasure of the

Of evening dew.

Thou,

first

also,

cool drops

wayside rose,

Thy fragile petals delicate of tint, And permeated with felicitous But unobtrusive fragrance, dost

Thine airy

chalice.

Refresh thy buds;

Thine

elfin

uplift

May a gentle rain may ever thorns protect

beauties from the rustic hand;

temper'd winds about thine arbours green Breathe light in modulated melodies;

May

May

golden bees when thy

Thy mellow sweets extract

And honeycombs;

full

to

bloom

fill

to sing in;

come

with wings of azure gauze

The moth which haunts the fruitful Above thee hover; may thy heaven

A lark

is

their hives

may

fields

ne'er

thy fabled love,

beyond want

The Sixth Parable.

63

The nightingale, through all night's holy space Of vision and of mystery abide In

glow-worm

And

all

lighted thickets close at hand,

the senses of thy floral soul

With rapture

ravish

now thy blush Above the orange, Lo,

It

slowly

!

.

Have

.

I

bless'd thee well

western sky

!

o'er the azure blue,

A

steals.

.

in the

is

solitary star

With solemn expectation high

uplifts

The astronomic spirit, which is vow'd To adoration under starry heights And furthest flights of spiritual thought. day I've tarried in the burning fields.

Awaiting Night. The sun has tann'd my skin, The heat has sapp'd my strength, a parching thirst All

Consumes me.

Minister in cooling dew.

In gentle rain, in vivifying wind,

And And

in the shelter of

Receive and hide

Bid

thy plumage

soft.

in the refuge of thy bridal breast,

all

me

now, supernal Queen

!

thy plaintive nightingales begin

In vale and thicket

!

Droop thy pinions down,

And quench that burst of occidental light Which through thy sea-born panoply of clouds The splendour fades — Has torn so suddenly.

Where art thou now ? Stoop, beautiful and grand .

.

.

?

The Sixth Parable.

64 Unbind thy

tresses, let

them

Diffuse thine odours round

Thy

beautiful,

While

I

on me,

fall

With thy

!

adore thee, gaze

Now

I

me

thrill

With mystic whispers in the wind and How wonderful, how mystical thou art,

How

through

trees

—

deep thy secrets are Thy tenderness all, and I am lost in thee !

Surpasses

Thy

bright eyes,

innumerable eyes.

cool,

I

unconscious kisses on

my mouth

Are pattering in aromatic rain Lean over, press me, breathe into m)' mouth, ;

I

read thine eyes like poems

Speak ever to the

And And

O

!

Speak

me —

consecrated with Uranian love, astral chrism of a scald elect,

Night of odours and of sanctity

And

to

spirit that hast form'd.

lo,

!

the darkness, like a loving mouth,

name The stars stand closer round, the trees incline.

From every quarter of the open world The mystic name Lucasta softly breathes Parts in the utterance of a bcll-swcet

;

;

A

fragrance foreign to the land and sea

That

trisyllabic

May

the strong influence of naked heaths,

harmony

distils.

.

.

.

Of aromatic odours brought from far, Of voices speaking from the heart of things,

Sixth Parable.

TJie

65

Of inspiration and divinity, Of Night's unutterable loveliness

And And

boundless breadth of being, concentrate O may her gentle form pour on her !

Become

a porcelain vessel for the night's

Ecstatic myrrh and essences of nard

The

utter rapture

But

all

And

I

seems a moment's space,

the starry hours elapse therein

stars recede,

;

and aureate morning gleams.

marvel

fills the zenith the black wings from me, there Lucasta shines The darkness blossoms into open day

Its

Are

;

lifted

—

Do thou,

Lucasta, bloom, the

Day

;

of Christ.

With potent seed of spiritual song 'Tis mine to fill thy virgin womb of mind.

Which

out of poetry conceiving light,

Shall with a glorified intelligence

Illuminate the

new humanity.

Shall people the regenerated earth

With

hierarchies of heroes and of gods,

Who

in a

dual stream of perfect

Shall issue from thee I

see

and

them crown'd with

life

shall flood the worlds.

vital beauty's bright

—

And

coruscated splendours maid and youth Join'd in one magic bond of chastity

A

biune

—

spirit,

with a cosmic blaze

66

T/ie SixtJi Parable.

Of planetary

glory circling round

A solar marvel

of wind-woven hair

In spiral aureole.

With gleaming

limbs,

Whose loyal loins of continence contain The ecstacy, the ravishment, the joys Of generative Nature with full breasts :

Of honey'd milk, with mouths of melody, With earnest eyes of everlasting love, They stand, the innocent, the illuminate, The youthhood and the royalty to come

—

Thy sons, thy And magnum

— daughters reign celestial fruit

opus of consummate bliss. thy gentle nature's inmost shrine Bridal Spirit unto Mystic Love

When

in

The Made modest

ministry.

^7

The

Interlude.

A

KNOW

T

My And

perturb'd,

desolation of

Transfixes

all

my

Vision.

My

is

taken hence

—

immeasurable sea

whose

There are clouds

being.

a winter wind

In wild confusion.

There

rifts.

—

terrible voice

art of

Through

soul

by a stormy sea

Heap'd by the wild lurid

most exalted doom

dreadful,

future waits.

set full often

A grey, The

some

is

saffron light

The verge

is

tooth'd by waves,

The whole sky torn by tempest. There are sharp And bulging headlands, promontories bleak,

And melancholy

miles of winding coast.

With stones and seaweed I

strewn.

wind-wrapp'd, and

stand,

No sea-mew cries;

dream deep dreams

thereby.

Or wander

Some

My My

aimless, waiting, hush'd

fierce convulsion in the

soul

is

frame

shrivell'd is

by the

and

white,

boding sky.

fire

of thought,

search'd and pierced by icy winds

The

6S

Interlude.

Mine eyes are fixed upon the raving waste Of whirling waves, and, utterly apart

From I

every sympathy and voice of man, madden'd faculties alone

face with

The

mysteries of being.

The doom.

My

spirit

I accept has been tortured there

fail'd.

An inspiration comes From misery, from desolation strength, From Nature in convulsed, terrific moods The solemn secret of supernal things.

But has not

I

A

and rending scene That rent sky

hail that terrible

threshold of revealment.

Will open suddenly,

A

sunset

all

in

of majesty

depths serene

and

light

Revealing clouds transfigured grouping round Will lead imagination on from world ;

To

world of thoughts ineftable. Some ray fall full redly on the restless sea

Will

And

A

soothe

its

tortured surges, smoothing out

path of magical and mystic light

Salt breeze

My

and rosy splendour

soul, uplifted in a

With

faculties

made

—

—

all

whose length

mighty trance,

clean, with tranquil step,

Will swiftly traverse.

To the Land of Light A magnet draws thee on Go, favour'd Soul .

.

.

!

The

spiritual prospects

;

open wide,

TJie Interlude.

Dream

preludes vision

;

69

like a flower of

Unfolds high vision into truth attain'd pinions bear thee to ecstatic In quiet seas of spiritual space

Thy

flame

;

rest,

The magnet draws Profoundly la]5p'd.

Thou art awaken'd in the world of mind, Whose hosts of beautiful and perfect life .

.

.

thee on

;

Are gleaming round thee, poised and sphered at length

Upon the heights of supersensual things.

An emblematic but objective world Prolongs

its

shining vistas far and wide,

And ministers To thy reflned

in

beauty and delight

Takes form according

Which

And

rule thine

fairest

Life therein

perceptions.

to the loftiest

own imaginings

images of truths

all

laws

—purest types

thought,

dream transcending. Thou art taught Thou art inspired; the end of all is seen—

All

How man In

more

proceeds through death to birth anew and more significant worlds

refined

Of typical phenomena Is taught, prepared,

The naked and Whose essence

And when The

thereby,

;

in

each

and led

to face at length

unutterable truth is

the Deity reveal'd.

the vision into night recedes.

soul descends,

and

in

some wondrous way

The Interlude,

70 I

stand and look into Lucasta's eyes,

The whole

significance of outward things

Unrolls before me, as a scroll unwinds,

And

in the hyaline

Of her unspotted Infinities of

and

spirit

meaning.

crystal depths

do

I

read

71

The Seventh

Parable.

The Transfiguration of Lucasta.

'T'HE summer The

storm has ravaged wide and

rent sea, madden'd, flings

its

far,

tortured crests

In savage tatters to a writhing sky.

AU the air

Defiant of the hghtning.

Is rack'd Itself

by winds; the

makes answer

With spasms

firm, establish'd earth

to the thunder's

shock

of portentous shivering.

Reverberation and vibration both

Combine about

my

path to

But, like a necromantic

And

terrify;

Magus

wali'd

fortified

by mystic circle, poised Erect and central there, with pointed sword And prominent pentagram, commanding thence Chaotic crowds of elemental souls.

Which headlong surge against that mighty line, And break like billows into formless spume The dregs and lees of life— adoring love Of Nature, manifest in milder moods.

—

The Seventh Parable,

72 Doth now

protect

me

like a four-fold shield;

And

as the fishes

The

surface of their glorious element,

when a tempest

tears

Plunge down to still, immeasurable depths, I sink unconscious to consummate calm In dream-world's oceanic bowers profound.

When The "

from

this

mystic matrix of the mind time returns

—

virile spirit into

Lo,

I

make

all

things

new

" !

creative Light

Cries sparkling forth from every globe of rain; With rose-leaf softness falls the tender night.

Its

breath— the moderate, mellifluous

With aromatic odours

air

—

softly blent

In delicate proportions, intertwines

Among the unbound meshes of thy hair, And in the alabaster " entrance gates Of melody," with low-toned breathings soft infinitely modulated, makes A silken rustling. The bindweed twines

And The

sincosity of spiral sprays,

With

A

graceful terminals of pendant bells

And

drooping down

About thy shoulders

And

O

—

— simple chaplet round thy dainty head, slowly folds

in errant elegance falls in

gladsome gleam.

— Lucasta— into sleep.

luminiferous and azurine,

The Seventh Parable.

73

Immeasurable vault of holy sky,

Thy

living purple soften slowly

down

Through hyacinthus and through heliotrope To opal's pallid and evasive charm !

And

in the twilight let Lucasta's eyes,

Dilating gently, as a soul expands vital light of noble thought,

Within the

Ineffably diffuse a conscious light

Of holy, human love Descending dew, The long-desired, distil thy purest drops, !

These scattered

My

tresses cool

and consecrate

!

nature softens in a pool of love.

Which

is

the Mystic

Water

Apollo's Baths, removing

all

of the Wise,

things rank,

All imperfections, superfluities.

Which pass in fumes and leave the Mystic The Perfect White ineffable, supreme.

—

Inclusive Love, which flows for

all

Stone,

mankind

—

My dove of Dian, my Hesperian Tree, My Phoebus bright, my oriental Pearl, My Psychal Chemistry which tinges life And

aureates the Cosmos.

Nature drinks

The sacred, deifying soma di-aught Of dews and moonlight then in every ;

In each light breath which

stirs its

Vaticinates about us, pouring forth

leaf,

magic

sleep,

TJic

74

An

Seventh Parable.

aromatic blessing, which, in turn, my spirit, as its pulses beat

Exalts

thee, Lucasta, as a virtue falls In broad vibrations from the trembling beams

By

Of that Whose

orb'd

moon

aureoline,

whose

eyes.

lucent eyes are turned alone on thee

;

While by thy being's mediation sweet.

And

through thy luminiferous nature's love,

As through the vistas of a magic glass.

Thou art The world transfigures, .

.

.

Isis

now,

I'he manifested mother of the Gods.

An

My

unimaginable splendour fills spirit with an infinite prophecy,

And

in the floral future of the

world

stand translated, in that golden age The royal line laegotten of thy pure.

I

Elected body, has by psychic

art.

After the pattern in the poet's mind, On the summits of the soul Created.

The

four-square city of the Salem

new

Stands high erected, stands the House of God,

The This

final is

Temple

of Humanity.

the bright and everlasting day

The Lord hath made,

this is the

Day

— of Christ;

And thou — the mystical and moonlit morn Which

And by

did that day of majesty forerun

conception did originate

—

S event]

TJie

Art

Parable.

venerating love that

lifts

thee

up^

joy transfigured through the infinite

Held

7$

memory

in beatifying

And

A

L

—

in the endless age.

now

lose thee

I

Thy glory passes on its grand ascent, Beyond the. narrow range of mental sight, Along the I

circle of Eternity.

stand in vision on the timeless plane

—

What part for me Ye stars of prophecy,

in the di\ine romance,

Lucasta shines I

wake

this

is granted^there ? eve a simple maid

;

the splendid and titanic

Of Psycho-solar majesty by

dream

strong

Ecstatic force of penetrating will

In

all

her being.

INIay its

Find one star-chaplet

Whose The

end achieved

for the poet's

brow

medial^mortality received

inspiration

And permeates With magic

from seraphic heights. the spirit of his bride

ideality

;

76

Epilogue.

"V/'E scornful crowds, far hence

—

far hence, profane There falls a rapture on my heart and mind Above the measure of all sordid thoughts,

Above the common reach of intellect.

Above imaginations based on clay.

My lips are cleansed with spirit-kindled flame, My features shine, mine eyes are glorified With

And

O

I

a strange, mystical, and purple light. am beautiful a little space.

golden light which swathes both

Beatifying sunset, flood the world

Shew open downs,

illimitable

mead and

!

sky

Incarnadine, and brood on maple leaves.

O little space On oaks and orchards brood !

To

O O

shine with borrow'd beauty, lengthen out sweet new sense of happiness and health

!

!

ever to be beautiful and free

!

Thou sacred chann, thou presence in Thou grace of inmost deity ungauged

the eyes,

hill,

!

yy

Epilogue.

Which from

the furthest vistas of the soul

Uplightest outer

life

— abide awhile

I

.

.

.

The day is spent, alas the glory fades, The borrow'd glory from thy beauty caught, !

When

by a

Of magical

privilege election,

and grace supreme was set,

I

By dread imagination's awful aid, To utterly transmute thy mortal life With supermortal beauty, and behold The ravish'd wonder, the uplighted shrine.

The soul, the sourunveil'd.

That deed

is

done

— That wonder compass'd — consuintnatum est

And By

me by holy

thou art bound to

Indissoluble, spiritual

Of magic's

strong

bonds

Thine own

affinity.

Imperishable part, thy Its

ties.

intimate and infinitely close.

human

form.

every phase of mien, thy lineaments'

Innumerable changes, every

And

transitory

Which

light

gleam of gentle thought

beautifies the planets of thine eyes,

Are wholly and irrevocably mine.

O

Love, the

Above those

moon above silent

the vanish'd sea,

waters merged

in mist,

Uplifts the splendour of her perfect disc

With hay-time halo

ring'd,

and

fills

the sky

—

78

Epilogue.

Turn thine eyes on me!

With golden glamour.

Consummate altitudes of azure sky's .

Immeasurable distance

With boundless

.

.

fill

exultation.

my soul When

I

seek

Some lofty ridge which fronts the boreal fount And source of souls, and evening's balmy wind Breaks

tide-like

With viewless

And

round me, bathing

billows, fragrant, cool,

life-infusing,

Expands

my

my

all

and

frame fresh,

then some psychic force

faculties, the length

and breadth,

beauty, the resources of the world And when with patient, fond. realise.

The I

Discerning eyes,

Thy

I

gaze and gaze on thee,

nature's possibilities unfold.

Thine own inherent

might

joy, thy light, thy

Elected mother of the

life

to

;

come.

Of unborn nations, kings and priests to be.

The holy hierarchs of intelligence.

I see the new regenerated earth With emanant humanities divine From thy most sacred, pure, and fruitful womb The matrix of the cosmic man to come

—

As with resplendent blossoms,

all

adorn'd

In everlasting May-time of the mind.

By God's auroral redness far diffused By that bright, beautiful, supernal hope, ;

—

79

Epilogue.

Which makes an eminent

lustre in

my

soul

;

By all associations of romance Which bind me close with unobtrusive ties To simple things — white roads and winding lanes, And country inns, and certain upland slopes Which moons transfigure, or to ancient lore, To tales of prowess in the times of old, To truthful chronicles of knightly deeds And kingly quests and faerie ventures wild By mine own spiritual enterprise, ;

My pilgrim travels into mystic realms, My psychic explorations far prolong'd.

My progress there, the triumphs still to

—

come,

The

prophecies, the presages, the s'gns Inscribed upon the spiritual sky.

And

timeless wonders stored

Beyond

the Gates

;

By most of all the iron force of will.

Which fells and tills and levels and makes smooth, Which crushes opposition; O by all Unfolding prospects, as

I speak reveal'd.

Height over height, of infinite romance.

With golden dreams emblazon'd I am pledged

—

To

perfect thee.

My

soul

is

staked thereon.

All crowns thereon contingent.

I

have search'd

Thy nature's depths with sp' ritual eyes, And all its possibilities reveal'd Have bound Ijcyond revoke through life and

death

8o

Epilogue.

My whole

devotion,

To compass their These

Thy Is

canticles

my

resources

all,

development.

Receive

and parables, wherein

soul's creation in prophetic

thought

The mountains round

dimly sketch'dl

us

Heights beckon, blue, illimitable vault, Pierced by the snow-capp'd peaks, exalts and I

take thee hence,

I

lead,

I

lead thee on

spnid thrills.

The

;

aspiration, the desire, the will no more of earth Uplift us both thou art of created ocean The troubled things

—

;

Remotely gleams and glimmers. O the wings thee now the Morning Dawn which

—

Which bear breaks

And

floods thy stars with everlasting light,

Auriferous, intolerable light

Of circumambient sunshine! ....

It is

Strong Love proclaims these heights,

this

Which lifts thee up, which will not, will The Faerie World, the mystic Avalon,

Love, path reveals, not fail !

Sword-guarded Eden, and those gardens bright, palaces, those haunted mosques

—

Those shadow

Irem, the wandering City, are in thee possession of my soul,

The permanent

O Garden

Rose,

O

Lily of the Blest,

Pomegranate of the Paradise of God,

81

Epilogue.

My cistus white, syringa pure and My glory-marvel of Magnolia!

sweet,

Now, God be praised Who made thy gentle soul.

And Christ the Word by Whom thy soul was made, And those beneficent, wonder-working gods

Who

shaped the

plastic

And

soften'd

the geometric curves,

all

matter of thy frame,

Contourine symmetry for matchless limbs, For grace of poised head and holy breast,

Be

EHciting!

Who

bright Aurora blest.

under sacramental

veils abides

Within thy nature's virgin sanctuary

!

Bless'd

all

the stars that shape thy future ways

Bless'd

all

who

Be thy

true lover in thy beauty blest.

His dreams

And

love thee

ideal,

1

and are loved by thee

taking shape in thee,

truth ecstatic, truth triumphant, truth

lUuminant, the deathless Crown of Attain'd in thee.

The Daughter

Life,

Bath-Kol the Mystic, Daughter of the Voice Makes answer in the Infinite Amen

—

— —

of the Voice

!

!

riDisccllaneoue pocnicn

85

Azalea.

/^NE dream The

is

over now; the morning dawns,

and visionary night, length, by winds inform'd,

beautiful

Moon-haunted

all its

Star-litten plenitude of pure

And And The Has

worshipful and spiritual night, in this

grey and disillusion'd morn

The

Been slowly merged.

Begins to

One

stir.

I

wake,

I

coarse and

stand alone

common

life

—

billow broke upon the sea far out

moment

This

pass'd

fell.

No

No magic

left,

Then

The once

And

romance

temple of high thought. consecrated house of love. mystic,

inspiration,

;

it

flash'd a seething crest,

space for inspiration now.

no message

bright-shining

burnt to cinders.

in the sea!

moon

is

When

the trees were draped

bleak and white

In solemn darkness, in their mien was awe, Their aspect majesty, their rustling leaves Dodonian prophecy they were mighty thoughts

—

Azalea.

86

Made typically visible, not trees.

The spell is broken as a part once more ;

Of vegetable nature, they stand stripp'd Of poetry and meaning. The lark's song Is just the singing of the

The

drawn

engine's

out,

morning lark; melancholy shriek

pauses far prolong'd, with dismal wail its golden close.

Fills all its silver

And drowns bitterness

To

!

There

is

no human word

give expression to the infinite depth desolation in a human heart

Of The futile methods of our mortal speech Choke sympathy by commonizing grief.

I learnt Thou art gone, gone O misery ;

—

Such

Now am

I

life,

as an alchemist bereft

Of sophic sulphur and 1 made by magic in a

A

!

spells to beautify thy house of

Paradisal garden

of mercuiy.

winter

full

of

month

bloom

—

The holy lotus in its lakes abode With plumaged swans, and all its paths were lined With lustrous lilies. The azalea fiU'd The consecrated air with grateful light From myriad blooms. Thou hadst no care therein spent the strength of spirit on thy dreams To crowd the magic hush of maiden sleep I

—

;

Azalea.

'Sy

With pleasing idealities. I search'd of mind to deck thy maiden bed, In amaranthine bowers, with purple blooms

The world Of dim

inviolable violets

Whose scented heads received thy psychal limbs And soften'd moss beneath.

Themorningbroke .

Then was

.

.

—

a latch upon the garden gate

Uplifted by thy voluntary

hand

And

out from poesy, from purple light high, adorable, divine romance,

Of From ecstacy

of dream, from magic hush,

Into the commonplace, material world

Thou

go forth. A poet's arms embraced on thine, lips have dwelt and dream'd

didst

A poet's A poet's

eyes,

With magic

by conscious act and

art,

thy beauty's mortal grace, And passing charm transfiguring, had clothed With utter immortality, but thou

Hast chosen I

am

skill

earth.

a priest,

I

I

had been god

swear, a mission'd

for thee.

man —

High Nature, delegate of God supreme, Imposed pontifical and holy hands

Upon

her prostrate postulant, ordain'd,

Commission'd, consecrated, set apart.

And dedicated to her ministry

And

sacred service,

Me miserable

lifted,

me

deserving not, royal robes

—

tliee,

Azalea.

88

Of inspiration made my

And set me ever To sacrifice.

Above

at

soul assume, her secret shrine

The blush of Morning bursts dim and wavering line of downs

the

And sends a sanguine glory up Whose lofty and immeasurable

the sky,

arch

Transforms from grey to lavender, and With sudden ecstacy of morning birds

The charm I

fills

....

arrested leaves thee clay once more.

might have leaven'd thee with angelhood

—

Attest

it, Prophecy, imperial Dreams, thousand Songs attest .... And thou Thou art not wholly false nor wholly true.

A

art

gone

Thou art not clay nor spirit, and the world, God knows, may leaven thee one golden chance

—

Thy

foolish heart rejecting, leaves thy

Bereft of glamour

But

lo,

the

and

dream remains

to comfort

For me, the mortal part alone hath I

have not

lost

;

'tis

Of immortality and Because

I

life

divinity.

me

!

pass'd.

thou hast fallen short beatitude,

would have clothed thee with a love

Of power

I pictured thee unparallel'd.

In mystic samite, zoned and lily-crown'd, Even so would I have crown'd thee in thy

God's secrets fashion'd into shining stars

mind

;

\

Azalea.

89

Had shone upon thy forehead as a hght To lead humanity, to lead the world, There was no Torchlike, to truth and Him !

Beyond

To scale for The heights Have

height

the will-ability of soul

There was no height beyond my spirit would itself

thee. to

which

O

lifted thee.

poised in purest space,

Seraphic, sunlike, crown'd, beatified, Intolerable God-light seething round

Thy

beauty's blaze,

My poet's Had

set thy soul infallibly

God, and now

My

all

beyond

time and thought

art ineffable, intense.

.

!

— and now,

.

.

I

see thee deck'd with

pearls

And

turquoise rings, and

splendours brought from

East

And West With

O O O

invest thy body.

Thou

art clothed

earthly wealth instead of phantasy.

sole

and only

truths of deathless mind,

intellectual realities, infinite, intolerable

lapse

From starry heaven of seraphic mind.

Of sacred, inmost, pure, unclouded mind, The everlasting, the adorable,

To

the gross, coarse, and commonizing wealth Can I wish thee bless'd riches

Of earthly

In these, or

!

mated unto mortal man 7

Azalea.

90

Ascribe thee true beatitude therein

Thou wast

And

I

A god How

a

my

spirit in

?

arms' embrace,

transfigured in thine

own became

beside thee, deified thereby.

art

thou

fallen,

O

Lucifera

!

But ecstacy of passion never quench'd Exalts

O

me ever up

upward ever

the heights of soul.

O

!

the endless height

!

Which meets

the bottomless abysmal depth In the infinite circle of Eternity.

Light for thee

O

further

If

I

O

still

charm

— O somewhere, somewhere Ligh

!

eclipse thee in

O

strength for steeper path

my

angelhood,

thou too pure e'er to be wholly false, clothe thee in the mantle of my light,

I'll

And on my shoulders raise To heights beyond me !

thee past myself

!

91

In Aridity.

'T^HE

road

It

With

dives

is

brown, a hundred yards below

full

steeply

—aspen, elm, and ash,

graceful willow, at the sides thereof

Make shade and music round it. It has rain'd all the morn, but now the August sun — Is warm and brilliant, flooding mead and down

Through Far

hills

And

are flooded,

of gabled farms

tiles

distant churches glow

I

gaze on

all

The manifested beauties of the world, And have not lost the vivid sense of charm Which all can weave. The power of speech is mine, The strength of love — why seems the tide of song Thou inspiring God, Arrested in me .''

By bard and prophet commonly invoked, One in thy varied names, call on Thee — Abide in song with me Forsake me not The grace of inspiration still vouchsafe I

!

!

!

I

am

a poet

;

This constant

One

soul in

I

can see, below of outward surfaces,

flu.\

all

;

and

in ecstatic trance

In Aridity.

92 I

stand by hedges where the fern and oak

With modest hawthorn interweave and blend

The

variations of their greenery,

And

there the gnat which buzzes in the air

A busy message Of life in The cool

all,

of

fresh

of continual life

through

wind which

life

all

—

and

stirs in

all

—

flower and frond,

In leaf and twig, in every blade of grass

;

Which tempers summer at its thirsting noon, Awake some random thought to bless my life.

As dews bless eve. Descend once more on me — Descend I call thee in the name of all Which soothes and vivifies — thou fire of God Thou "light that never wast on land or sea," Transform the world Thou inner sense of sight, ;

!

!

Transform

my

soul

!

The Is

fountain seal'd awhile

broken now, the speech from heaven descends

From yon intolerable, azure sky, Which hath no cloud to stain its It does

descend

The Poet

virgin depths,

— and Ave, Ave, Earth

!

Nature puts His vestments on, the prophet's mantle wears, And offers praise again. A thousand trees cries; the Priest of

Take up the message; may the winds prolong — The distant hills re-echo— all is song !

—

93

A Sea A N

infinite

A

shimmer on the open sea

thousand, thousand lights

now,

And

Prophecy.

ever

!

—

To

cross thee

— ever— ever—

sail away, with thy vastness, with the mighty vault Which rounds thine urgent being, 1 am one-

Till

One

with the stellar ministers of night

Who

populate the spaces of the air

Above thy breezy bosom, one with her

Whose

path of pure, illuminating

Through Is

all

light,

the four-fold phases of her reign,

night by night, with blanch'd, transfigured face,

Perform'd in silent ecstacy^with these

To

unify existence

Stars, Sea,

Wrap

!

.

.

.

I

Moon— Mother

me, ye Winds, away

am

yours,

of

all

to

some wild

mystic thought! place,

Where, in the centre of a surging world Of crested billows full of stormy speech,

My

sea-dream bark

is

bound, awaiting me.

A

94 There

is

Sea Prophecy.

an ecstacy which passes speech,

an inspiration which transcends Expression, there is joy which deifies;

There

The

is

Hmitations of our mortal hfe

Dissolve therein; through every sense enlarged

The

floods of rapture pour into the soul.

All these in generous

But something waits From every harbour

The promise,

measure have been mine, far from every coast,

me far

— alone,

alone

the prevision cannot

!

fail.

But drifting— drifting— drifting— night and day,

And drifting — drifting— drifting — moon by moon, Amid revolving galaxies above, The scenic splendours and illuminant glare Of lissome lightnings, and the organ tones Of rending thunder, over open seas Of majesty and turbulence and might, I

shall

go forth invincible,

erect,

Inspired, to seek the threshold of

Whereon

And

all

doom.

the echoing voices of the sea,

With one

precipitous, infinite music crash,

Shall break and

In

my

the crests and surges and sea-winds.

vistas, in

merge

in revelating light,

low melodies,

In silver speech divine

in

—

speech Land.

— of Spirit

95

Stella.

T^HE

mystic singer to a certain

In salutation

... Be thy

!

"

Star

secret

"

name

Inscribed upon the Palace of the King, And on the white apocalyptic stone Indelibly engraved

The

City's streets; like

And,

I paced at night an inspiration came, !

a tempest, suddenly

it

rent

Through my being. To thyself it bore A mighty message, until now retain'd, all

That from the sacred heart of sylvan things, From woods and forests, from eternal downs,

From

water-sides, the

Golden Word might come

In the mellifluous, melodious

Of multitudinous

And

names

angels, of divine

ministrant immortals, and of high,

Supreme, exalted, everlasting kings.

The Golden Word descends to sun thy soul — A formal promise of the Crown of Life Assured

h

bids

And

in

me

next

poem which first

its

is

prophecy.

recall thy nature's depths.

heights,

and then those sacred

arts

Stella.

96 With whose

exalted themes thy nature holds

Impassion'd correspondence. These are proofs, that outreaching towards ennobled thought,

And

That consciousness of purpose

Of thwarted

Whose

unfulfiU'd,

mission, of exalted fate,

plans miscarried, which

I

read

in thee,

Are unmistakable, convincing proofs That nothing is beyond thee. In thy hands Thy future lies; conceive what height thou wilt, And, on the honour of the angel bands,

Thou

shalt attain

My soul To

is set

it,

thou shalt reign therefrom

upon an endless quest

span the bounds of being; on the height?,

The

high-exalted, spiritual my face is

Towards which

To

!

be

greet thy spirit,

Forth to the Light

The

tocsin call

!

it

hills,

set,

Forth

soon

to the

comes from the

swear

I

behold,

late or

'

!

height of

Infinite

God

;

All Nature taking voice, her organ tones

Have culminated in a single cry Of clamorous accordance, urging on The arrow to the Star ascends, Speed on !

!

Through mortal channel comes immortal speedn.

The

mystic singer to a certain

His salutation sends.

"

Star

"

!

BY Bound

THE SAME AUTHOR.

in peacock blue, luith design.

an

Price

asthetic

and

symbolic

^s.

THE SPIRITUAL HISTORY OF JASPER CARTWRIGHT.

SOME OPINIONS OF THE "

In this

PRESS.

work Mr. Waite has produced a poem very

the average of poetic merit. Though A SouPs Comedy is never Hkely to become a popular book, yet it will be read by many with a considerable amount of pleasure.

Jasper Cartwright's struggle against the circumstances which have combined to ruin his spiritual existence, and his final triumph over them, are powerfully portrayed, and cannot fail to interest such as are thoughtHis blank verse is pleasing and fully inclined. melodious. Scattered at intervals throughout his volume The there are passages of more than ordinary beauty."

much above

.

.

.

—

Spectator.

"A

Sotil's

Comedy

is

a very extraordinary composition.

story of this poem is in some respects very repulsive, and yet told with great delicacy and beauty. .

.

.

The

Opmions of

ii

the Press.

Part of the book

is the baldest prose, cut up into lengths ; unintelligible mysticism about magical studies ; and part— by far the largest part is real poetry.

Its sustained poetry will well repay the reader, if he will

part

is

—

.

.

.

put up with the bald prose of Mister Gilp, the schooland the mystic nonsense of the magical One merit should be noticed in encouragepart. ment of those who might be repelled by the opening of the story, viz., that it steadily increases in interest and in beauty until near the end.

Some songs or poems introduced into the narrative are very good one, a passionate address to a dead boy-friend, Gabriel, being If the poem were recast in the especially beautiful. sense that we have indicated, we venture to think that it would be entitled to a high place among the poems of the The Guardian. day."

master .

.

.

.

.

,

.

.

.

.

;

—

"

Mr. Waite

possessed of genuine inspiration that forth every year to the world as poetry. The presence of an oversubtle mysticism, and even of an occasional tinge of Rosicrucian darkness, will not prevent lovers of poetry lifts

his

is

work above the mass of wares sent

from enjoying the many passages in his play as remarkable for power of thought as for beauty of expression.

Mr. Waite's sympathy with Nature and his descriptive powers are likewise of a high order." Literary World,

—

"

Some

time has elapsed since

we paid a

sincere

and we are not sorry to meet with another work from the same pen in A Soul's tribute to the beauty of Israfel,

Comedy. ...

It

may

suffice

to say in general that the

poem, cast in a quasi-dramatic form, is a very noble one, though painful to a degree. The main idea of Jasper's is so horrible in its pathetic tragedy as to rouse reminiscences of Ford's masterpiece, and the after-episode but out of these of Mary Blake is little less distressing seemingly unpromising materials Mr. Waite has evoked a

origin

;

opinions of the Press.

iii

sorrow, struggle, and final triumph such The to the heart of every true man. for instance, poetry rises at times to unusual heights, as, in the description of Mary's death, the Benediction in the monastery chapel, Austin Blake's prologue to the third where Jasper resigns part, or, best of all, the scene tale of

as

human

must appeal

.

hensions.

.

.

.

worthy poem."

.

Jasper's prose fairy-tale is be, suited to all comprealtogether, this is a true and

Gertrude to his friend. though not,

delightful,

.

.

it

.

.

may

—Taken The Graphic.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Cro-d'ii

parchment, red

^vo,

top.

Price y. 6J.

LETTERS, VISIONS, AND POEMS. Mystical Allegory of the

New Age and

New Regenerated

the

Humanity.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. "

as seems most likely, a small but appreciative audience will satisfy the author, the favourable reception of Israfcl: letters, visions, and poems, by Arthur Edward Waite, need not be matter of conjecture the book must be both admired and prized by the few elect spirits fitted If,

;

and understand it. For our own part, we should rank it very near to that marvellous work, The It is undoubtedly true that the Droadstoue of Honour. whole is pitched in far too high a key for the generality of some may be deterred from perusal modern readers by the subtle mysticism of much of the contents, while and lofty others, it may be feared, will fail to grasp the pure Christian ideal embodied in the letters and visions, but we may unhesitatingly aver that no man reading the work to appreciate

;

v

opinions of the Press.

with a properly prepared intellect, and with a sympathetic mind, can rise from it without feeling better and stronger for the task. This is not the place, even did space permit, to enter into a discussion of the author's theme, but if any seek the keynote of the whole, we would refer him to the last lines of that fine poem, The Higher Life, or to pages The poetry is of a high order, and, apart 23, 24, and 108. from its more spiritual aspects, remarkable for a passionate appreciation of natural beauty, and for pictorial treatment.

The blank verse is specially good, reminding one, perhaps, more of Cowper at his best than of any other poet, but thoroughly original both in style and matter. Israfel is one of those rare books which are part of the salt of the Tlie Graphic. earth, but it is not for all readers." " To dabble in those who delight in magic and Bab)-lonian numbers,' Israfel, by Arthur Edward Waite, will afford much comfort and consolation. ... By way of a guess, we hazard the suggestion that Israfel is the

—

'

ideal soul of man, distinct from individual souls, and personified in order at once tu mirror and to magnify the aspirations of individual souls not yet at one with the universal.

The verse is harmonious, and not without a peculiar and original beauty."

Wtstininstcr RevicitK " It is a long time since Horace said that poets have the right (juid libet audetidi, and the maxim seems to be acted .

.

.

—

upon to-day with no less confidence than it was, we may presume, when the Roman critic wrote. No flight appears to be too daring for the modern poet, and if his wild career leads him into the misty obscurity of the clouds, he will generally find a band of admirers to declare that it is the reader's obtuseness alone which prevents a due underIt may be that there are standing of the poet's ideas. some who will grasp the true meaning of Mr. Waite's remarkable poem, Israfel, though we confess to a lurking suspicion that the author was animated by no very lively anxiety to make himself understood, even granting that

Opinio7is of the Press.

vi

he knew what he meant himself. satisfaction of reading, unintelligible, passages of true poetic talent.

But we have the great deal that is rather which bear the unmistakable stamp .

.

.

among a

.

.

.

We

have quoted enough to

that Mr. Waite's poetry is of no mean order, and, after all, Israfel is a work of considerable power, and in

show

parts quite intelligible." "

— Literary

World.

may, perhaps, be gathered that the writer has, or has had, a friend of an exceptionally pure, exalted, and It

powerful nature

:

that

in

his

contemplating

character

under an emotion similar to that which gave rise to the Laureate's In Memoriam, the writer, by employing the Divine exaggeration of analogy, has constructed to himself a conception of the nature of the angel or presiding masculine influence its Michael, so to speak, of the new age or order, which in all spiritual aspirational natures is being now earnestly looked for, and, by some such, realised In realising the Divine perto be in actual operation. sonage symbolised, the symbolical human person is lost by, or absorbed to, the seer, who sees only the being symbolised, and celebrates in a distinctly deep and genuinely earnest spirit the virtues and Divine attributes of the angel under the name of Israfel.

This inductive method of arriving at a spiritual conception by means of a material symbol, belongs, no doubt, to the higher order of mysticism.

Speaking generally, we should say that the profit of this book to most readers will not be its dogma, or body, but the spirit in which it is written. It is pure, elevated, and aspirational, and is, moreover, singularly free from that arrogant individualism which dis-

—

.

.

.

figures so frequently the utterances of those entering the spiritual region of life, and as yet unaware of the phantasies of the Dwellers on the Threshold The miscellaneous verse in the volume is very graceful." Light. .

.

,

.

—

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