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Page 1 of 31904 · PDF PAGE 38
PENTECOST 31 Of thought ! How ends the brave B.D., Summarising Ontology ? “This talk of ‘Real’ is a wraith. Our minds are lost in war of word ; The whole affair is quite absurd— Behold ! the righteous claims of Faith !” (He does not rhyme you quite so neatly ; But that’s the sense of it, completely.) I do not feel myself inclined In spit of my irrevent mind, So lightly to pass by the schemes Of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel (one, Small though the apparent unison), As if they were mere drunken dreams ; For the first word in India here From Koromandl …
1904 · PDF PAGE 19
THE SWORD OF SONG 12 Exactly! Grown my mental stature, I ponder much: but never yet Can I get over or forget That bitter text’s accurded nature, The subtle devilish omission,57 The cruel antithesis implied, The irony, the curse-fruition, The calm assumption of Hell’s fevers As fit, as just, for unbelievers— These are the things that stick beside And hamper my quite serious wish To harbour kind thoughts of the “Fish.”58 Here goes my arrow to the gold ! I’ll make no magpies ! Though I hold Your Christianity a lie, Abortion and iniquity, The most …
1904 · PDF PAGE 44
…surely I my find it queer That you should talk of self-hypnosis, When your own faith so very close is To similar experience ; Lies, in a word, beneath suspicion To ordinary common sense And logic’s emery attrition. I take, however, as before Your own opinion, and demand Some test by which to understand Huxley’s piano-talk,* and find If my hypnosis may not score A point against the normal mind. (As you are please to term it, though ! I gather that you do not know ; Merely infer it.) Here’s a test ! What in your whole life is the best Of all your…
1904 · PDF PAGE 55
THE SWORD OF SONG 48 Putney) in their newly-demonstated capacity as “unnatural” sons, daughters, fathers, and so on. But I leave it. I am content—my work will have been well done—if this trifling essay be accepted as a just instalment towards a saner criticism of our holiest writers, a j uster appre- ciation of the glories of our greatest poet, a possibly jejune yet assuredly historic attempt to place of the first time William Shakespeare on his proper pedastal as an early disciple of Mr. George Bernard Shaw ; and by conse- quence to carve myse…
1904 · PDF PAGE 95
…s he and feeble that he could scarce lift his hands in benediction upon us. And all we waited about him, both by day and night; lest one word should fall, and we not hear the same. But he spake never unto us, though his lips moved and his eyes sought ever that which we could not see. At last, on the day of D., the mother of P.,3 he straightened himself up and spake. This his final discourse was written down then by the dying lions in their own blood, traced willingly on the desert sands about the Grove of the Illustrious. Also here set down : b…
1904 · PDF PAGE 76
…iological, containing allusions to a whole group of phenomena, which those who have begun meditaiton will recognise. Similarly, a single word may be a mnemonic key to an entire line of philosophical argument. If the reader chooses, in short, he will find the entire mass of Initiated Wisdom betw een the covers of this unpretending volume.
1904 · PDF PAGE 35
THE SWORD OF SONG 28 You know for me the soul is nought36 Save a mere phantom in the thought, That thought itself impermanent, Save as a casual element With such another may combine To form now water and now wine ; The element itself may be Changeless to all eternity, But compounds ever fluctuate With time or space or various state. (Ask chemists else !) So I must claim Spirit and matter are the same37 Or else the prey of putrefaction. This matters to the present action Little or nothing. Here’s your theories ! Think if you like : I find it wea…
1904 · PDF PAGE 124
…O Sri Çankaracharya, does not make a theory ; let us rem ember y our fate, and avoid generalising on insufficient evi- dence. W ith this word of warning, I leave the metaphysician to wallow in his m ire, and look toward better times for the great problems of philosophy . Remember that when the solution is attained it is not the solution of one learned man for his fellows, but one realised and assimilated by every man in his own consciousness. And what the solution may be none of us can foreshadow. To hoist the problem on to the horns of a dilem…
1904 · PDF PAGE 121
… consideration deferred, in Sec-tion III. In this Fourth Noble Truth we approach the true direction of Buddhism; progress is but another word for change; is it possible to move in a direction whose goal is the changeless? The answer is Yea and Am en! and it is detailed in the Noble Eightfold Path, of which I propose to give a short resumé. First, however, of the goal. It may be readily syllogised: All existing things are (by nature, inevi- tably) subject to change. In Nirvana is no change. ∴ No existing thing is or can be in Nirvana. Now here i…
1904 · PDF PAGE 87
APPENDIX II 80 that word, and wiping his blade he kissed it and went on, knowing that his luck should now be ill. And ill it was, for a tem ple was set up in his way , and there he saw the grisly Goat enthroned. But he knew better than to judge a goat from a goat’s head and hoofs. And the first week he s acrificed to that goat 1 a crown every day. The second a p hallus. The third a silver vase of blood. The fourth a roy al sceptre. The fifth a sword. The sixth a heart. The seventh a garland of flowers. The eighth a grass-snake. The ninth a sick…
1904 · PDF PAGE 34
PENTECOST 27 Why, in a word, I seek to gain A different knowledge. Why retain The husk of flesh, yet seek to merit The influx of the Holy Spirit ? And, swift as caddies pat and cap a tee, Gain the great prize all mortals snap at, he- Roic guerdon of Srotapatti ?35 With calm and philsophic mind, No fears, no hopes, devotions blind To hamper, soberly we’ll state The problem, and investigate In purely scientific mood The sheer Ananke of the mind, A temper for our steel to find Whereby those brazen nails subdued Against our door-post may in vain Ri…
1904 · PDF PAGE 37
THE SWORD OF SONG 30 That masks the primal cause of being. With all respect to Buddha, fleeing The dreadful problem with the word “Who answers, as who asks, hath erred,” I must decidedly insist On asking why these things exist. My mind refuses to admit All-Power can be all-Wickedness. —Nay ! but it may ! What shadows flit Across the awful veil of mist ? What thoughts invade, insult, impress ? There comes a lightning of my wit And sees—nor good nor ill address Itself to task, creation’s ill, But a mere law without a will,40 Nothing resolved in s…
1904 · PDF PAGE 5
THE SWORD OF SONG II I suppose!” continued the Knight, in a superior, but rather offended voice. “If you would, please, sir!” “Well, that,” pronounced the Knight, with the air of having thoroughly studied the question and reached a conclusion absolutely final and irreversible, “ that, Goodness only knows. But I will sing it to you.” PRELIMINARY INVOCATION NOTHUNG.* THE crowns of Gods and mortals wither ; Moons fade where constellations shone ; Numberless aeons brought us hither ; Numberless aeons beckon us on. The world is old, and I am strong—…
1904 · PDF PAGE 47
THE SWORD OF SONG 40 Such reservations—and I class Myself a Christian : let us pass Back to the text whose thread we lost, And see what means this “Pentecost.” This, then, is what I seem occurred According to our Saviour’s word) That all the Saints at Pentecost Received the gift—the Holy Ghost ; Such gift implying, as I guess This very super-consciousness.59 Miracles follow as a dower ; But ah ! they used that fatal power And lost the Spirit in the act. This may be fancy or a fact ; At least it squares with super-sense Or “spiritual experience.…
1904 · PDF PAGE 26
ASCENSION DAY 19 And slide to leaning on another, God, or the doctor, or my mother. But dare you quote my fevered word For better than my health averred ? The brainish fancies of a man Hovering on delerium’s brink : Shall these be classed his utmost span ? All that he can or ought to think ? No ! the strong man and self-reliant Is the true spiritual giant. I blame no weaklings, but decline To take their maunderings for mine. You see I do not base my thesis On your Book’s being torn to pieces By knowledge : nor invoke the shade Of my own boyhood…
1904 · PDF PAGE 18
…wart the blue ? I say not, Which in hearts aright Are treasured ? but, What after ages Engrave on history’s iron pages ? This is the one word of “Our Lord” ; “I bring not peace ; I bring a sword.” In this the history of the West55 Bears him out well. How stands the test ? One-third a century’s life of pain— He lives, he dies, he lives again, And rises to eternal rest Of bliss with Saints—an endless reign ! Leaving the world to centuries torn By every agony and scorn, And every wickedness and shame Taking their refuge in his Name. No Yogi shot h…
1904 · PDF PAGE 21
THE SWORD OF SONG 14 But if you drink your mystic fill Under the good tree Igdrasil64 Where is at all your use for Christ? Hath Krishna not at all sufficed? I hereby guarantee to pull A faith as quaint and beautiful As much attractive to an ass, And setting reason at defiance, As Zionism, Christian Science, Or Ladies’ Leage,65 “Keep off the Grass !” From “Alice through the Looking-Glass.” Hence I account no promise worse, Fail to conceive a fiercer curse Than John’s third chapter (sixteenth verse). But now (you say) broad-minded folk Think that…
1904 · PDF PAGE 14
…‡ The nicest man I ever met. We argued of the Cosmic plan. I was Lord Roberts, he De Wet.44 * Scots legal term for defendant. † A Romany word for woman. ‡ The Rev. J. Bowley. The conversation described actually occurred in Mr. Gerald Kelly’s studio in Paris. 185 190 195 200 205 210 215 Ascension Day. Moral aspect of Christianity to be discussed to prejudice of the metaphysical. Orthodoxy to be our doxy.† Gipsies barred. Henrik Ibsen and H. G. Wells. Parson and poet. Fugitive nature of dogma in these latter days. The Higher Criticism.
1904 · PDF PAGE 17
THE SWORD OF SONG 10 Et præter—such as Huxley tells) I’ll pierce your rotten harness-joints, Dissolve your diabolic spells, With the quick truth and nothing else. So not one word derogatory To your own version of the story ! I take your Christ, your God’s creation, Just at their own sweet valuation, For by this culminating scene, Close of that wondrous life of woe Before and after death, we know How to esteme the Nazarene. Where’s the wet towel ? Let us first Destroy the argument of fools, From Paul right downward to the Schools, That the Ascen…
1904 · PDF PAGE 126
…will go hard with us if we do not !) regard all progress in any direction as morbid. So (as with Lombroso) “disease” will become a m ere word, like its prede- cessor “infidelity,” and cease to carry any obloquy. If Science is never to go bey ond its present lim its; if the barriers which m eta- physical speculation shows to exist are never to be trans cended, then indeed we are thrown back on faith, and all the rest of the nauseous mess of medieval superstition, and we may just as well have vital principle and creative power as not, for Science…