Books: AE in the Irish Theosophist
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George William Russell >> AE in the Irish Theosophist
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--May 15, 1895
The Free
They bathed in the fire-flooded fountains;
Life girdled them round and about;
They slept in the clefts of the mountains:
The stars called them forth with a shout.
They prayed, but their worship was only
The wonder at nights and at days,
As still as the lips of the lonely
Though burning with dumbness of praise.
No sadness of earth ever captured
Their spirits who bowed at the shrine;
They fled to the Lonely enraptured
And hid in the Darkness Divine.
At twilight as children may gather
They met at the doorway of death,
The smile of the dark hidden Father
The Mother with magical breath.
Untold of in song or in story,
In days long forgotten of men,
Their eyes were yet blind with a glory
Time will not remember again.
--November 15, 1895
Songs of Olden Magic--IV
The Magi
"The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan."
--Old Celtic Poem
See where the auras from the olden fountain
Starward aspire;
The sacred sign upon the holy mountain
Shines in white fire:
Waving and flaming yonder o'er the snows
The diamond light
Melts into silver or to sapphire glows
Night beyond night;
And from the heaven of heavens descends on earth
A dew divine.
Come, let us mingle in the starry mirth
Around the shrine!
Enchantress, mighty mother, to our home
In thee we press,
Thrilled by the fiery breath and wrapt in some
Vast tenderness
The homeward birds uncertain o'er their nest
Wheel in the dome,
Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest,
Wheel in the dome,
But gather ye to whose undarkened eyes
The night is day:
Leap forth, Immortals, Birds of Paradise,
In bright array
Robed like the shining tresses of the sun;
And by his name
Call from his haunt divine the ancient one
Our Father Flame.
Aye, from the wonder-light that wraps the star,
Come now, come now;
Sun-breathing Dragon, ray thy lights afar,
Thy children bow;
Hush with more awe the breath; the bright-browed races
Are nothing worth
By those dread gods from out whose awful faces
The earth looks forth
Infinite pity, set in calm; their vision cast
Adown the years
Beholds how beauty burns away at last
Their children's tears.
Now while our hearts the ancient quietness
Floods with its tide,
The things of air and fire and height no less
In it abide;
And from their wanderings over sea and shore
They rise as one
Unto the vastness and with us adore
The midnight sun;
And enter the innumerable All,
And shine like gold,
And starlike gleam in the immortals' hall,
The heavenly fold,
And drink the sun-breaths from the mother's lips
Awhile--and then
Fail from the light and drop in dark eclipse
To earth again,
Roaming along by heaven-hid promontory
And valley dim.
Weaving a phantom image of the glory
They knew in Him.
Out of the fulness flow the winds, their son
Is heard no more,
Or hardly breathes a mystic sound along
The dreamy shore:
Blindly they move unknowing as in trance,
Their wandering
Is half with us, and half an inner dance
Led by the King.
--January 15, 1896
W. Q. J. *
O hero of the iron age,
Upon thy grave we will not weep,
Nor yet consume away in rage
For thee and thy untimely sleep.
Our hearts a burning silence keep.
O martyr, in these iron days
One fate was sure for soul like thine:
Well you foreknew but went your ways.
The crucifixion is the sign,
The meed of all the kingly line.
We may not mourn--though such a night
Has fallen on our earthly spheres
Bereft of love and truth and light
As never since the dawn of years;--
For tears give birth alone to tears.
One wreath upon they grave we lay
(The silence of our bitter thought,
Words that would scorch their hearts of clay),
And turn to learn what thou has taught,
To shape our lives as thine was wrought.
--April 15, 1896
[* This is unsigned but is very possibly G.W. Russell's. It was a
memoriam to William Quan Judge (W.Q.J), the leader of the American
and European Theosophical Societies at the time, one of the original
founders of the Theosophical Society, and close co-worker with
H.P. Blavatsky.]
Fron the Book of the Eagle
--[St. John, i. 1-33]
In the mighty Mother's bosom was the Wise
With the mystic Father in aeonian night;
Aye, for ever one with them though it arise
Going forth to sound its hymn of light.
At its incantation rose the starry fane;
At its magic thronged the myriad race of men;
Life awoke that in the womb so long had lain
To its cyclic labours once again.
'Tis the soul of fire within the heart of life;
From its fiery fountain spring the will and thought;
All the strength of man for deeds of love or strife,
Though the darkness comprehend it not.
In the mystery written here
John is but the life, the seer;
Outcast from the life of light,
Inly with reverted sight
Still he scans with eager eyes
The celestial mysteries.
Poet of all far-seen things
At his word the soul has wings,
Revelations, symbols, dreams
Of the inmost light which gleams.
The winds, the stars, and the skies though wrought
By the one Fire-Self still know it not;
And man who moves in the twilight dim
Feels not the love that encircles him,
Though in heart, on bosom, and eyelids press
Lips of an infinite tenderness,
He turns away through the dark to roam
Nor heeds the fire in his hearth and home.
They whose wisdom everywhere
Sees as through a crystal air
The lamp by which the world is lit,
And themselves as one with it;
In whom the eye of vision swells,
Who have in entranced hours
Caught the word whose might compels
All the elemental powers;
They arise as Gods from men
Like the morning stars again.
They who seek the place of rest
Quench the blood-heat of the breast,
Grow ascetic, inward turning
Trample down the lust from burning,
Silence in the self the will
For a power diviner still;
To the fire-born Self alone
The ancestral spheres are known.
Unto the poor dead shadows came
Wisdom mantled about with flame;
We had eyes that could see the light
Born of the mystic Father's might.
Glory radiant with powers untold
And the breath of God around it rolled.
Life that moved in the deeps below
Felt the fire in its bosom glow;
Life awoke with the Light allied,
Grew divinely stirred, and cried:
"This is the Ancient of Days within,
Light that is ere our days begin.
"Every power in the spirit's ken
Springs anew in our lives again.
We had but dreams of the heart's desire
Beauty thrilled with the mystic fire.
The white-fire breath whence springs the power
Flows alone in the spirit's hour."
Man arose the earth he trod,
Grew divine as he gazed on God:
Light in a fiery whirlwind broke
Out of the dark divine and spoke:
Man went forth through the vast to tread
By the spirit of wisdom charioted.
There came the learned of the schools
Who measure heavenly things by rules,
The sceptic, doubter, the logician,
Who in all sacred things precision,
Would mark the limit, fix the scope,
"Art thou the Christ for whom we hope?
Art thou a magian, or in thee
Has the divine eye power to see?"
He answered low to those who came,
"Not this, nor this, nor this I claim.
More than the yearning of the heart
I have no wisdom to impart.
I am the voice that cries in him
Whose heart is dead, whose eyes are dim,
'Make pure the paths where through may run
The light-streams from that golden one,
The Self who lives within the sun.'
As spake the seer of ancient days."
The voices from the earthly ways
Questioned him still: "What dost thou here,
If neither prophet, king nor seer?
What power is kindled by they might?"
"I flow before the feet of Light:
I am the purifying stream.
But One of whom ye have no dream,
Whose footsteps move among you still,
Though dark, divine, invisible.
Impelled by Him, before His ways
I journey, though I dare not raise
Even from the ground these eyes so dim
Or look upon the feet of Him."
When the dead or dreamy hours
Like a mantle fall away,
Wakes the eye of gnostic powers
To the light of hidden day,
And the yearning heart within
Seeks the true, the only friend,
He who burdened with our sin
Loves and loves unto the end.
Ah, the martyr of the world,
With a face of steadfast peace
Round whose brow the light is curled:
'Tis the Lamb with golden fleece.
So they called of old the shining,
Such a face the sons of men
See, and all its life divining
Wake primeval fires again.
Such a face and such a glory
Passed before the eyes of John,
With a breath of olden story
Blown from ages long agone
Who would know the God in man.
Deeper still must be his glance.
Veil on veil his eye must scan
For the mystic signs which tell
If the fire electric fell
On the seer in his trance:
As his way he upward wings
From all time-encircled things,
Flames the glory round his head
Like a bird with wings outspread.
Gold and silver plumes at rest:
Such a shadowy shining crest
Round the hero's head reveals him
To the soul that would adore,
As the master-power that heals him
And the fount of secret lore.
Nature such a diadem
Places on her royal line,
Every eye that looks on them
Knows the Sons of the Divine.
--April 15, 1896
The Protest of Love
"Those who there take refuge nevermore return."--Bhagavad Gita
Ere I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace,
While I gaze on the light and beauty afar from the dim homes of men,
May I still feel the heart-pang and pity, love-ties that I would
not release,
May the voices of sorrow appealing call me back to their succour again.
Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions
of old,
Ere the ancient enchantment allures me to roam through the star-
misty skies,
I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth
may unfold:
May my heart be o'erbrimmed with compassion, on my brow be the
crown of the wise.
I would go as the dove from the ark sent forth with wishes and prayers
To return with the paradise-blossoms that bloom in the eden of light:
When the deep star-chant of the seraphs I hear in the mystical airs
May I capture one tone of their joy for the sad ones discrowned
in the night.
Not alone, not alone would I go to my rest in the Heart of the Love:
Were I tranced in the innermost beauty, the flame of its tenderest breath,
I would still hear the plaint of the fallen recalling me back from above
To go down to the side of the mourners who weep in the shadow of death.
--May 15, 1896
The King Initiate
"They took Iesous and scourged him."--St. John
Age after age the world has wept
A joy supreme--I saw the hands
Whose fiery radiations swept
And burned away his earthly bands:
And where they smote the living dyes
Flashed like the plumes of paradise.
Their joys the heavy nations hush--
A form of purple glory rose
Crowned with such rays of light as flush
The white peaks on their towering snows:
It held the magic wand that gave
Rule over earth, air, fire and wave.
What sorrow makes the white cheeks wet:
The mystic cross looms shadowy dim--
There where the fourfold powers have met
And poured their living tides through him,
The Son who hides his radiant crest
To the dark Father's bosom pressed.
--June 15, 1896
The Dream of the Children
The children awoke in their dreaming
While earth lay dewy and still:
They followed the rill in its gleaming
To the heart-light of the hill.
Its sounds and sights were forsaking
The world as they faded in sleep,
When they heard a music breaking
Out from the heart-light deep.
It ran where the rill in its flowing
Under the star-light gay
With wonderful colour was glowing
Like the bubbles they blew in their play.
From the misty mountain under
Shot gleams of an opal star:
Its pathways of rainbow wonder
Rayed to their feet from afar.
From their feet as they strayed in the meadow
It led through caverned aisles,
Filled with purple and green light and shadow
For mystic miles on miles.
The children were glad; it was lonely
To play on the hill-side by day.
"But now," they said, "we have only
To go where the good people stray."
For all the hill-side was haunted
By the faery folk come again;
And down in the heart-light enchanted
Were opal-coloured men.
They moved like kings unattended
Without a squire or dame,
But they wore tiaras splendid
With feathers of starlight flame.
They laughed at the children over
And called them into the heart:
"Come down here, each sleepless rover:
We will show you some of our art."
And down through the cool of the mountain
The children sank at the call,
And stood in a blazing fountain
And never a mountain at all.
The lights were coming and going
In many a shining strand,
For the opal fire-kings were blowing
The darkness out of the land.
This golden breath was a madness
To set a poet on fire,
And this was a cure for sadness,
And that the ease of desire.
And all night long over Eri
They fought with the wand of light
And love that never grew weary
The evil things of night.
They said, as dawn glimmered hoary,
"We will show yourselves for an hour;"
And the children were changed to a glory
By the beautiful magic of power.
The fire-kings smiled on their faces
And called them by olden names,
Till they towered like the starry races
All plumed with the twilight flames.
They talked for a while together,
How the toil of ages oppressed;
And of how they best could weather
The ship of the world to its rest.
The dawn in the room was straying:
The children began to blink,
When they heard a far voice saying,
"You can grow like that if you think!"
The sun came in yellow and gay light:
They tumbled out of the cot,
And half of the dream went with daylight
And half was never forgot.
--July 15, 1896
The Chiefs of the Air
Their wise little heads with scorning
They laid the covers between:
"Do they think we stay here till morning?"
Said Rory and Aileen.
When out their bright eyes came peeping
The room was no longer there,
And they fled from the dark world creeping
Up a twilight cave of air.
They wore each one a gay dress,
In sleep, if you understand,
When earth puts off its grey dress
To robe it in faeryland.
Then loud o'erhead was a humming
As clear as the wood wind rings;
And here were the air-boats coming
And here the airy kings.
The magic barks were gleaming
And swift as the feathered throng:
With wonder-lights out-streaming
They blew themselves along.
And up on the night-wind swimming,
With pose and dart and rise,
Away went the air fleet skimming
Through a haze of jewel skies.
One boat above them drifted
Apart from the flying bands,
And an air-chief bent and lifted
The children with mighty hands.
The children wondered greatly,
Three air-chiefs met them there,
They were tall and grave and stately
With bodies of purple air.
A pearl light with misty shimmer
Went dancing about them all,
As the dyes of the moonbow glimmer
On a trembling waterfall.
The trail of the fleet to the far lands
Was wavy along the night,
And on through the sapphire starlands
They followed the wake of light.
"Look down, Aileen," said Rory,
"The earth's as thin as a dream."
It was lit by a sun-fire glory
Outraying gleam on gleam.
They saw through the dream-world under
Its heart of rainbow flame
Where the starry people wander;
Like gods they went and came.
The children looked without talking
Till Roray spoke again,
"Are those our folk who are walking
Like little shadow men?
"They don't see what is about them,
They look like pigmies small,
The world would be full without them
And they think themselves so tall!"
The magic bark went fleeting
Like an eagle on and on;
Till over its prow came beating
The foam-light of the dawn.
The children's dream grew fainter,
Three air-chiefs still were there,
But the sun the shadow painter
Drew five on the misty air.
The dream-light whirled bewild'ring,
An air-chief said, "You know.
You are living now, my children,
Ten thousand years ago."
They looked at themselves in the old light,
And mourned the days of the new
Where naught is but darkness or cold light,
Till a bell came striking through.
"We must go," said the wise young sages:
It was five at dawn by the chimes,
And they ran through a thousand ages
From the old De Danaan Times.
--August 15, 1896
The Palaces of the Sidhe
Two small sweet lives together
From dawn till the dew falls down,
They danced over rock and heather
Away from the dusty town.
Dark eyes like stars set in pansies,
Blue eyes like a hero's bold--
Their thoughts were all pearl-light fancies,
Their hearts in the age of gold.
They crooned o'er many a fable
And longed for the bright-capped elves,
The faery folk who are able
To make us faery ourselves.
A hush on the children stealing
They stood there hand in hand,
For the elfin chimes were pealing
Aloud in the underland.
And over the grey rock sliding,
A fiery colour ran,
And out of its thickness gliding
The twinkling mist of a man--
To-day for the children had fled to
An ancient yesterday,
And the rill from its tunnelled bed too
Had turned another way.
Then down through an open hollow
The old man led with a smile:
"Come, star-hearts, my children, follow
To the elfin land awhile."
The bells above them were hanging,
Whenever the earth-breath blew
It made them go clanging, clanging,
The vasty mountain through.
But louder yet than the ringing
Came the chant of the elfin choir,
Till the mountain was mad with singing
And dense with the forms of fire.
The kings of the faery races
Sat high on the thrones of might,
And infinite years from their faces
Looked out through eyes of light.
And one in a diamond splendour
Shone brightest of all that hour,
More lofty and pure and tender,
They called him the Flower of Power.
The palace walls were glowing
Like stars together drawn,
And a fountain of air was flowing
The primrose colour of dawn.
"Ah, see!" said Aileen sighing,
With a bend of her saddened head
Where a mighty hero was lying,
He looked like one who was dead.
"He will wake," said their guide, "'tis but seeming,
And, oh, what his eyes shall see
I will know of only in dreaming
Till I lie there still as he."
They chanted the song of waking,
They breathed on him with fire,
Till the hero-spirit outbreaking,
Shot radiant above the choir.
Like a pillar of opal glory
Lit through with many a gem--
"Why, look at him now," said Rory,
"He has turned to a faery like them!"
The elfin kings ascending
Leaped up from the thrones of might,
And one with another blending
They vanished in air and light.
The rill to its bed came splashing
With rocks on the top of that:
The children awoke with a flashing
Of wonder, "What were we at?"
They groped through the reeds and clover--
"What funny old markings: look here,
They have scrawled the rocks all over:
It's just where the door was: how queer!"
--September 15, 1896
The Voice of the Wise
They sat with hearts untroubled,
The clear sky sparkled above,
And an ancient wisdom bubbled
From the lips of a youthful love.
They read in a coloured history
Of Egypt and of the Nile,
And half it seemed a mystery,
Familiar, half, the while.
Till living out of the story
Grew old Egyptian men,
And a shadow looked forth Rory
And said, "We meet again!"
And over Aileen a maiden
Looked back through the ages dim:
She laughed, and her eyes were laden
With an old-time love for him.
In a mist came temples thronging
With sphinxes seen in a row,
And the rest of the day was a longing
For their homes of long ago.
"We'd go there if they'd let us,"
They said with wounded pride:
"They never think when they pet us
We are old like that inside."
There was some one round them straying
The whole of the long day through,
Who seemed to say, "I am playing
At hide-and-seek with you."
And one thing after another
Was whispered out of the air,
How God was a big kind brother
Whose home was in everywhere.
His light like a smile come glancing
From the cool, cool winds as they pass;
From the flowers in heaven dancing
And the stars that shine in the grass,
And the clouds in deep blue wreathing,
And most from the mountains tall,
But God like a wind goes breathing
A heart-light of gold in all.
It grows like a tree and pushes
Its way through the inner gloom,
And flowers in quick little rushes
Of love to a magic bloom.
And no one need sigh now or sorrow
Whenever the heart-light flies,
For it comes again on some morrow
And nobody ever dies.
The heart of the Wise was beating
In the children's heart that day,
And many a thought came fleeting,
And fancies solemn and gay.
They were grave in a way divining
How childhood was taking wings,
And the wonder world was shining
With vast eternal things.
The solemn twilight fluttered
Like the plumes of seraphim,
And they felt what things were uttered
In the sunset voice of Him.
They lingered long, for dearer
Than home were the mountain places
Where God from the stars dropt nearer
Their pale, dreamy faces.
Their very hearts from beating
They stilled in awed delight.
For Spirit and children were meeting
In the purple, ample night.
Dusk its ash-grey blossoms sheds on violet skies
Over twilight mountains where the heart-songs rise,
Rise and fall and fade again from earth to air:
Earth renews the music sweeter. Oh, come there.
Come, ma cushla, come, as in ancient times
Rings aloud and the underland with faery chimes.
Down the unseen ways as strays each tinkling fleece
Winding ever onward to a fold of peace,
So my dreams go straying in a land more fair;
Half I tread the dew-wet grasses, half wander there.
Fade your glimmering eyes in a world grown cold:
Come, ma cushla, with me to the mountain's fold,
Where the bright ones call us waving to and fro:
Come, my children, with me to the Ancient go.
--October 15, 1896
A Dawn Song
While the earth is dark and grey
How I laugh within: I know
In my breast what ardours gay
From the morning overflow.
Though the cheek be white and wet
In my heart no fear may fall:
There my chieftain leads, and yet
Ancient battle-trumpets call.
Bend on me no hasty frown
If my spirit slight your cares:
Sunlike still my joy looks down
Changing tears to beamy airs.
Think me not of fickle heart
If with joy my bosom swells
Though your ways from mine depart:
In the true are no farewells.
What I love in you I find
Everywhere. A friend I greet
In each flower and tree and wind--
Oh, but life is sweet, is sweet.
What to you are bolts and bars
Are to me the hands that guide
To the freedom of the stars
Where my golden kinsmen bide.
From my mountain top I view:
Twilight's purple flower is gone,
And I send my song to you
On the level light of dawn.
--November 15, 1896
--An Ancient Eden
Our legends tell of aery fountains upspringing in Eri, and
how the people of long ago saw them not but only the Tuatha de Danaan.
Some deem it was the natural outflow of water at these places which
was held to be sacred; but above fountain, rill and river rose up
the enchanted froth and foam of invisible rills and rivers breaking
forth from Tir-na-noge, the soul of the island, and glittering in
the sunlight of its mystic day. What we see here is imaged forth
from that invisible soul and is a path thereto. In the heroic
Epic of Cuculain Standish O'Grady writes of such a fountain, and
prefixes his chapter with the verse from Genesis, "And four rivers
went forth from Eden to water the garden," and what follows in
reference thereto.
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