SONGS OF THE SPIRIT.+
1898.
SONGS OF THE SPIRIT.
‘¢ A fool also is full of words.”
Ecclesiastes.
DEDICATION
To J. L. BAKER.
THE vault of purple that I strove
To pierce, and find unchanging love,
Or some vast countenance! above
All glory of the soul of man,
Baffled my blind aspiring gaze
With sunlight’s melancholy rays,
And closed with iron hand the ways
That sunder space, divide the days with fiery
fan.
Thine was the forehead mild and grave
That shone throughout the azure nave
Where Monte Rosa’s silence gave
The starry organ’s measured sound.
Where for an altar stood the bare
Mass of Mont Cervin,” towering there;
And angels dwelt upon the stair,
And all the mountains were aware that stood
around.
Thine was the passionless divine
High hope, and the pure purpose thine,
Higher and purer than stars shine,
And thine the unexpressed delight
To hold high commune with the wind
That sings, in midnight black and blind,
Strange chants, the murmurs of the mind,
To grasp the hands of heaven and find the
lords of light.
1 The supreme Deity is shadowed by Qaba-
lists in this glyph. See Appendix, ‘* Qabalistic |
dogma,”’ for a synthesized explanation of this !
entire philosophy. |
2 Commonty known as the Matterhorn.
* In this volume and throughout Crowlcy’s
Mine was the holy fire that drew
Its perfect passion from the dew,
And all the flowers that blushed and blew
On sunny slopes by little brooks.
Mine the desire that brushed aside
The thorns, and would not be denied,
And sought, more eager than a bride,
The cold grey secrets wan and wide of sacred
books.
Thine was the hand that guided me
By moor and mountain, vale and lea,
And led me to the sudden sea
That lies superb, remote, and deep,
Showed me things wonderful, unbound
The fetters that beset me round,
Opened my waking ear to sound
That may not by a man be found, except in
sleep.
Thy presence was as subtle flame
Burning in dawny groves; thy name
Like dew upon the hills became,
And all thy mind a star most bright ;
And, following with wakeful eyes
The strait meridian of the wise,
My feet tread under stars and skies3
My spirit soars and seeks and flies, a child of
light.
Thus cager, may my purpose stand
Firm as the faith of honest hand,
Nor change like castles built of sand
Unuil the sweet unchanging end.
Happy not only that my eye
Single and strong may win the sky,
But that one day the birds that fly
Heard your fair friendship call me by the name
of friend.
works the visions, ordeals, cte., are, as a rule,
not efforts of imagination, but records of (subjective) fact.
2Q