Collected Works (Vol. I)

196 THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GHOST And now [live in Him; my heart may trace the years In drops of virginal blood and springs of virginal tears. I love you now again with an undivided song. Because I can never love you, I cannot do you wrong. I saw in your dying embraces the birth of a new embrace ; In the tears of your pitiful faces, another Holier Face. Unknowing it, undesiring, your lips have led me higher ; You have taught me purer songs that your. souls did not desire ; You have led me through your chambers, where the secret bolt was drawn, To the chambers of the Highest and the secrets of the Dawn ! You have brought me to command you, and not to be denied ; You have taught me in perfection to be unsatisfied ; You have taught me midnight vigils, when you smiled in amorous sleep ; You have even taught a man the woman’s way to weep. So, even as you helped me, blindly, against your will, So shall the angel faces watch for your own souls still. A little pain and pleasure, a little touch of time, _And you shall blindly reach to the subtle and sublime ; You shall gather up your girdles to make ceady for the way, “And by the Cross of Suffering climb seeing to the Day. _ Then we shall meet again in the Presence of the Throne, Not knowing ; yetin Him! O Thou! know- ing as we are known. Ill. THE HOLY PLACE THE NEOPHYTE.! TO-NIGHT I tread the unsubstantial way Has wrought its splendour through the gates of death. ' My courage did not falter: now I feel That looms before me, as the thundering night |My heart beat wave-wise, and my throat Falls on the ocean: I must stop, and pray One little prayer, and then—what bitter fight - Flames at the end beyond the darkling goal? These are my passions that my feet must. tread ; This is my sword, the fervour of my soul; This is my Will, the crown upon my head. For see ! the darkness beckons: I have gone, | Before this terrible hour, towards the gloom, | Braved the wild dragon, called the tiger on | With whirling cries of pride, sought out the - tomb Where lurking vampires battened, and my| steel 1 This poem describes the Initiation of the true ‘‘ Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn”’ in its spiritual aspect. catch breath As if I choked ; some horror creeps between The spirit of my will and its desire, Some just reluctance to the Great Unseen | That coils its nameless terrors, and its dire | fear round my heart ; a devil cold as ice Breathes somewhere, for I feel his shudder take My veins: some deadlier asp or cockatrice Slimes in my senses: I am half awake, Half automatic, as I move along Wrapped in a cloud of blackness deep .as hell, i Hearing afar some half-forgotten song As of disruption ; yet strange glories dwell | Above my head, as if a sword of light, | Rayed of the very Dawn, would strike within