Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE HOLY OF HOLIES 205 No angel, but the very light And fire and spirit of Her, Unmitigated, eremite, The unmanifested myrrh, Ocean, and night that is not night, The mother-mediator.! O sacred spirit of the Gods !? O triple tongue !* Descend, Lapping the answering flame that nods, Kissing the brows that bend, Uniting all earth’s periods To one exalted end. Still on the mystic Tree of Life My soul is crucified ; 4 Still strikes the sacrificial knife Where lurks some serpent-eyed Fear, passion, or man’s deadly wife Desire, the suicide ! Before me dwells the Holy One Anointed Beauty’s King ;° Behind me, mightier than the Sun, To whom the cherubs sing, A strong archangel,® known of none, Comes crowned and conquering. An angel stands on my right hand With strength of ocean’s wrath ;* Upon my left the fiery brand, Charioted fire smites forth :8 Four great archangels to withstand The furies of the path.’ 1 Binah, the revealer of the Triad of Light. 2 Ruach Elohim (see Genesis i.) adds up to 300=W=Fire. 3 & by shape hath a triple tongue. 4 These archangels are at points on the ‘* Tree of Life” which cause them to surround as described one who is ‘‘ crucified ” thereon. 5 Raphael dwells in Tiphereth, Beauty. 6 Gabriel, dweller in Yesod, where are the Kerubim. 7 Michael, lord of Hod, an Ennanation of a watery nature. 8 Auriel, archangel of Netzach, to which Fire is attributed. 9 The path of N, or Saturn and arth, which leads from Malkuth to Yesod indeed, but is dark and illusory. This first step upward attracts the bitterest opposition of all the Enemies of the Human Soul. Flames on my front the fiery star, About me and around.? Pillared, the sacred sun, afar, Six symphonies of sound ; Flames, as the Gods themselves that are ; Flames, in the abyss profound.? The spread arms drop like thunder! So Rings out the lordlier cry, Vibrating through the streams that flow In ether to the sky, The moving archipelago, Stars in their seigneury. Thine be the kingdom! Thine the power ! The glory triply thine !° Thine, through Eternity’s swift hour, Eternity, thy shrine— Yea, by the holy lotus-flower, Even mine !4 THE MOUNTAIN CHRIST.? OQ WORLD of moonlight! Visionary vale Of ocean-sleeping mountains! Mighty chasm Within whose wild abyss there chants the pale, The dolorous phantasm Of wrecked white womanhood! The wizard cold Grips the mute valley in his grasp of gold! ! As asserted in the ritual, - It flames both above and beneath the magus, who is thus in a cube of 4 pentagrams and 2 hexagrams, 32 points in all. And 32 is MMMN, the sacred word that expresses the Unity of the Highest and the Human. * As in ritual, 4 Supreme affirmation of Unity with the Highest in the I.otus, the universal symbol of Attainment, 5 Composed during a solitary ramble across the Col du Géant.