Books: AE in the Irish Theosophist
G >>
George William Russell >> AE in the Irish Theosophist
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20
The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty
--A Dream
I would I could weave in
The colour, the wonder,
The song I conceive in
My heart while I ponder,
And show how it came like
The magi of old
Whose chant was a flame like
The dawn's voice of gold;
Who dreams followed near them
A murmur of birds,
And ear still could hear them
Unchanted in words.
In words I can only
Reveal thee my heart,
Oh, Light of the Lonely,
The shining impart.
Between the twilight and the dark
The lights danced up before my eyes:
I found no sleep or peace or rest,
But dreams of stars and burning skies.
I knew the faces of the day--
Dream faces, pale, with cloudy hair,
I know you not nor yet your home,
The Fount of Shadowy Beauty, where?
I passed a dream of gloomy ways
Where ne'er did human feet intrude:
It was the border of a wood,
A dreadful forest solitude.
With wondrous red and fairy gold
The clouds were woven o'er the ocean;
The stars in fiery aether swung
And danced with gay and glittering motion.
A fire leaped up within my heart
When first I saw the old sea shine;
As if a god were there revealed
I bowed my head in awe divine;
And long beside the dim sea marge
I mused until the gathering haze
Veiled from me where the silver tide
Ran in its thousand shadowy ways.
The black night dropped upon the sea:
The silent awe came down with it:
I saw fantastic vapours flit
As o'er the darkness of the pit.
When, lo! from out the furthest night
A speck of rose and silver light
Above a boat shaped wondrously
Came floating swiftly o'er the sea.
It was no human will that bore
The boat so fleetly to the shore
Without a sail spread or an oar.
The Pilot stood erect thereon
And lifted up his ancient face,
(Ancient with glad eternal youth
Like one who was of starry race.)
His face was rich with dusky bloom;
His eyes a bronze and golden fire;
His hair in streams of silver light
Hung flamelike on his strange attire
Which starred with many a mystic sign,
Fell as o'er sunlit ruby glowing:
His light flew o'er the waves afar
In ruddy ripples on each bar
Along the spiral pathways flowing.
It was a crystal boat that chased
The light along the watery waste,
Till caught amid the surges hoary
The Pilot stayed its jewelled glory.
Oh, never such a glory was:
The pale moon shot it through and through
With light of lilac, white and blue:
And there mid many a fairy hue
Of pearl and pink and amethyst,
Like lightning ran the rainbow gleams
And wove around a wonder-mist.
The Pilot lifted beckoning hands;
Silent I went with deep amaze
To know why came this Beam of Light
So far along the ocean ways
Out of the vast and shadowy night.
"Make haste, make haste!" he cried. "Away!
A thousand ages now are gone.
Yet thou and I ere night be sped
Will reck no more of eve or dawn."
Swift as the swallow to its nest
I leaped: my body dropt right down:
A silver star I rose and flew.
A flame burned golden at his breast:
I entered at the heart and knew
My Brother-Self who roams the deep,
Bird of the wonder-world of sleep.
The ruby body wrapped us round
As twain in one: we left behind
The league-long murmur of the shore
And fleeted swifter than the wind.
The distance rushed upon the bark:
We neared unto the mystic isles:
The heavenly city we could mark,
Its mountain light, its jewel dark,
Its pinnacles and starry piles.
The glory brightened: "Do not fear;
For we are real, though what seems
So proudly built above the waves
Is but one mighty spirit's dreams.
"Our Father's house hath many fanes;
Yet enter not and worship not,
For thought but follows after thought
Till last consuming self it wanes.
"The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings
Its glamour o'er the light of day:
A music in the sunlight sings
To call the dreamy hearts away
Their mighty hopes to ease awhile:
We will not go the way of them:
The chant makes drowsy those who seek
The sceptre and the diadem.
"The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws
Its magic round us all the night;
What things the heart would be, it sees
And chases them in endless flight.
Or coiled in phantom visions there
It builds within the halls of fire;
Its dreams flash like the peacock's wing
And glow with sun-hues of desire.
We will not follow in their ways
Nor heed the lure of fay or elf,
But in the ending of our days
Rest in the high Ancestral Self."
The boat of crystal touched the shore,
Then melted flamelike from our eyes,
As in the twilight drops the sun
Withdrawing rays of paradise.
We hurried under arched aisles
That far above in heaven withdrawn
With cloudy pillars stormed the night,
Rich as the opal shafts of dawn.
I would have lingered then--but he--
"Oh, let us haste: the dream grows dim,
Another night, another day,
A thousand years will part from him
"Who is that Ancient One divine
From whom our phantom being born
Rolled with the wonder-light around
Had started in the fairy morn.
"A thousand of our years to him
Are but the night, are but the day,
Wherein he rests from cyclic toil
Or chants the song of starry sway.
"He falls asleep: the Shadowy Fount
Fills all our heart with dreams of light:
He wakes to ancient spheres, and we
Through iron ages mourn the night.
We will not wander in the night
But in a darkness more divine
Shall join the Father Light of Lights
And rule the long-descended line."
Even then a vasty twilight fell:
Wavered in air the shadowy towers:
The city like a gleaming shell,
Its azures, opals, silvers, blues,
Were melting in more dreamy hues.
We feared the falling of the night
And hurried more our headlong flight.
In one long line the towers went by;
The trembling radiance dropt behind,
As when some swift and radiant one
Flits by and flings upon the wind
The rainbow tresses of the sun.
And then they vanished from our gaze
Faded the magic lights, and all
Into a Starry Radiance fell
As waters in their fountain fall.
We knew our time-long journey o'er
And knew the end of all desire,
And saw within the emerald glow
Our Father like the white sun-fire.
We could not say if age or youth
Were on his face: we only burned
To pass the gateways of the Day,
The exiles to the heart returned.
He rose to greet us and his breath,
The tempest music of the spheres,
Dissolved the memory of earth,
The cyclic labour and our tears.
In him our dream of sorrow passed,
The spirit once again was free
And heard the song the Morning-Stars
Chant in eternal revelry.
This was the close of human story;
We saw the deep unmeasured shine,
And sank within the mystic glory
They called of old the Dark Divine.
Well it is gone now,
The dream that I chanted:
On this side the dawn now
I sit fate-implanted.
But though of my dreaming
The dawn has bereft me,
It all was not seeming
For something has left me.
I fell in some other
World far from this cold light
The Dream Bird, my brother,
Is rayed with the gold light.
I too in the Father
Would hide me, and so,
Bright Bird, to foregather
With thee now I go.
--December 15, 1896
A New Earth
"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims within his ken."
I who had sought afar from earth
The faery land to greet,
Now find content within its girth,
And wonder nigh my feet.
To-day a nearer love I choose
And seek no distant sphere,
For aureoled by faery dews
The dear brown breasts appear.
With rainbow radiance come and go
The airy breaths of day,
And eve is all a pearly glow
With moonlit winds a-play.
The lips of twilight burn my brow,
The arms of night caress:
Glimmer her white eyes drooping now
With grave old tenderness.
I close mine eyes from dream to be
The diamond-rayed again,
As in the ancient hours ere we
Forgot ourselves to men.
And all I thought of heaven before
I find in earth below,
A sunlight in the hidden core
To dim the noon-day glow.
And with the Earth my heart is glad,
I move as one of old,
With mists of silver I am clad
And bright with burning gold.
--February 1896
Duality
"From me spring good and evil."
Who gave thee such a ruby flaming heart,
And such a pure cold spirit? Side by side
I know these must eternally abide
In intimate war, and each to each impart
Life from their pain, with every joy a dart
To wound with grief or death the self-allied.
Red life within the spirit crucified,
The eyes eternal pity thee, thou art
Fated with deathless powers at war to be,
Not less the martyr of the world than he
Whose thorn-crowned brow usurps the due of tears
We would pay to thee, ever ruddy life,
Whose passionate peace is still to be at strife,
O'erthrown but in the unconflicting spheres.
--March 15, 1896 (This is unsigned, but in AE's "Collected Poems")
The Element Language
In a chapter in the Secret Doctrine dealing with the origin of
language, H.P. Blavatsky makes some statements which are quoted
here and which should be borne well in mind in considering what
follows. "The Second Race had a 'Sound Language,' to wit, chant-like
sounds composed of vowels alone." From this developed "monosyllabic
speech which was the vowel parent, so to speak, of the monosyllabic
languages mixed with hard consonants still in use among the yellow
races which are known to the anthropologist. The linguistic
characteristics developed into the agglutinative languages....
The inflectional speech, the root of the Sanskrit, was the first
language (now the mystery tongue of the Initiates) of the Fifth Race."
The nature of that language has not been disclosed along with other
teaching concerning the evolution of the race, but like many other
secrets the details of which are still preserved by the Initiates,
it is implied in what has already been revealed. The application
to speech of the abstract formula of evolution which they have put
forward should result in its discovery, for the clue lies in
correspondences; know the nature of any one thing perfectly, learn
its genesis, development and consummation, and you have the key to
all the mysteries of nature. The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm.
But, before applying this key, it is well to glean whatever hints
have been given, so that there may be less chance of going astray
in our application. First, we gather from the Secret Doctrine that
the sounds of the human voice are correlated with the forces, colours,
numbers and forms. "Every letter has its occult meaning, the vowels
especially contain the most occult and formidable potencies."
(S.D., I, 94) and again it is said "The magic of the ancient priests
consisted in those days in addressing their gods in their own language.
The speech of the men of earth cannot reach the Lords, each must
be addressed in the language of his respective element"---is a
sentence which will be shown pregnant with meaning. "The book of
rules" cited adds as an explanation of the nature of that element-
language: "It is composed of Sounds, not words; of sounds, numbers
and figures. He who knows how to blend the three, will call forth
the response of the superintending Power" (the regent-god of the
specific element needed). Thus this "language is that of incantations
or of Mantras, as they are called in India, sound being the most
potent and effectual magic agent, and the first of the keys which
opens the door of communication between mortals and immortals."
(S.D. I, 464)
From these quotations it will be seen that the occult teachings
as to speech are directly at variance with the theories of many
philologists and evolutionists. A first speech which was like song--
another and more developed speech which is held sacred--an esoteric
side to speech in which the elements of our conventional languages
(i.e. the letters) are so arranged that speech becomes potent enough
to guide the elements, and human speech becomes the speech of the
gods--there is no kinship between this ideal language and the
ejaculations and mimicry which so many hold to be the root and
beginning of it. Yet those who wish to defend their right to hold
the occult teaching have little to fear from the champions of these
theories; they need not at all possess any deep scholarship or
linguistic attainment; the most cursory view of the roots of
primitive speech, so far as they have been collected, will show
that they contain few or no sounds of a character which would bear
out either the onomatopoetic or interjectional theories. The vast
majority of the roots of the Aryan language express abstract ideas,
they rarely indicate the particular actions which would be capable
of being suggested by any mimicry possible to the human voice.
I have selected at random from a list of roots their English
equivalents, in order to show the character of the roots and to
make clearer the difficulty of holding such views. The abstract
nature of the ideas, relating to actions and things which often
have no attendant sound in nature, will indicate what I mean.
What possible sounds could mimic the sense of "to move, to shine,
to gain, to flow, to burn, to blow, to live, to possess, to cover,
to fall, to praise, to think"? In fact the most abstract of all
seem the most primitive for we find them most fruitful in combination
to for other words. I hope to show this clearly later on. It is
unnecessary to discuss the claims of the interjectional theory,
as it is only a theory, and there are few roots for which we could
infer even a remote origin of this nature. The great objection
to the theory that speech was originally a matter of convention
and mutual agreement, is the scarcity of words among the roots
which express the wants of primitive man. As it is, a wisdom
within or beyond the Aryan led him to construct in these roots
with their abstract significance an ideal foundation from which a
great language could be developed. However as the exponents of
rival theories have demolished each other's arguments, without
anyone having established a clear case for himself, it is not
necessary here to do more than indicate these theories and how
they may be met.
In putting forward a hypothesis more in accord with the doctrine
of the spiritual origin of man, and in harmony with those occult
ideas concerning speech already quoted, I stand in a rather unusual
position, as I have to confess my ignorance of any of these primitive
languages. I am rather inclined however, to regard this on the
whole as an advantage for the following reasons. I think primitive
man (the early Aryan) chose his words by a certain intuition which
recognised an innate correspondence between the thought and the symbol.
Para passu with the growing complexity of civilization language lost
it spiritual character, "it fell into matter," to use H.P. Blavatsky's
expression; as the conventional words necessary to define artificial
products grew in number, in the memory of these words the spontaneity
of speech was lost, and that faculty became atrophied which enable
man to arrange with psychic rapidity ever new combinations of sounds
to express emotion and thought. Believing then that speech was
originally intuitive, and that it only need introspection and a
careful analysis of the sounds of the human voice, to recover the
faculty and correspondences between these sounds and forces, colours,
forms, etc., it will be seen why I do not regard my ignorance of
these languages as altogether a drawback. The correspondences
necessarily had to be evolved out of my inner consciousness, and
in doing this no aid could be derived from the Aryan roots as they
now stand. In the meaning attached to each letter is to be found
the key to the meaning and origin of roots; but the value of each
sound separately could never be discovered by an examination of
them in their combinations, though their value and purpose in
combination to form words might be evident enough once the
significance of the letters is shewn. Any lack of knowledge then
is only a disadvantage in this, that it limits the area from which
to choose illustrations. I have felt it necessary to preface what
I have to say with this confession, to show exactly the position
in which I stand. The correspondences between sounds and forces
were first evolved, and an examination of the Aryan roots proved
the key capable of application.
--------
Note:--In an article which appeared in the Theosophist, Dec. 1887,
I had attempted, with the assistance of my friend Mr. Chas. Johnston,
to put forward some of the ideas which form the subject matter of
this paper. Owing to the numerous misprints which rendered it
unintelligible I have felt it necessary to altogether re-write it.
---G.W.R.
--------
It is advisable at this point to consider how correspondences arose
between things seeming so diverse as sounds, forms, colors and forces.
It is evident that they could only come about through the existence
of a common and primal cause reflecting itself everywhere in different
elements and various forms of life. This primal unity lies at the
root of all occult philosophy and science; the One becomes Many; the
ideas latent in Universal Mind are thrown outwards into manifestation.
In the Bhagavad-Gita (chap. IV) Krishna declares: "even though myself
unborn, of changeless essence, and the lord of all existence, yet
in presiding over nature--which is mine--I am born but through my
own maya, the mystic power of self-ideation, the eternal thought
in the eternal mind." "I establish the universe with a single
portion of myself and remain separate;" he says later on, and in
so presiding he becomes the cause of the appearance of the different
qualities. "I am in the taste in water, the light in the sun and moon,
the mystic syllable OM in all the Vedas, sound in space, the masculine
essence in men, the sweet smell in the earth, the brightness in the
fire" etc. Pouring forth then from one fountain we should expect
to find correspondences running everywhere throughout nature; we
should expect to find all these things capable of correlation.
Coexistent with manifestation arise the ideas of time and space,
and these qualities, attributes or forces, which are latent and
unified in the germinal thought, undergo a dual transformation;
they appear successively in time, and what we call evolution
progresses through Kalpa after Kalpa and Manvantara after Manvantara:
the moods which dominate these periods incarnate in matter, which
undergoes endless transformations and takes upon itself all forms
in embodying these sates of consciousness.
The order in which these powers manifest is declared in the Puranas,
Upanishads and Tantric works. It is that abstract formula of
evolution which we can apply alike to the great and little things
in nature. This may be stated in many ways, but to put it briefly,
there is at first one divine Substance-Principle, Flame, Motion or
the Great Breath; from this emanate the elements Akasa, ether, fire,
air, water and earth; the spiritual quality becoming gradually
lessened in these as they are further removed from their divine
source; this is the descent into matter, the lowest rung of
manifestation. "Having consolidated itself in its last principle
as gross matter, it revolves around itself and informs with the
seventh emanation of the last, the first and lowest element."
(S.D. I, p. 297) This involution of the higher into the lower
urges life upwards through the mineral, vegetable, animal and human
kingdoms, until it culminates in spiritually and self consciousness.
It is not necessary here to go more into detail, it is enough to
say that the elements in nature begin as passive qualities, their
ethereal nature becomes gross, then positive and finally spiritual,
and this abstract formula holds good for everything in nature.
These changes which take place in the universe are repeated in man
its microcosm, the cosmic force which acts upon matter and builds
up systems of suns and planets, working in him repeats itself and
builds up a complex organism which corresponds and is correlated
with its cosmic counterpart. The individual spirit Purusha dwells
in the heart of every creature, its powers ray forth everywhere;
they pervade the different principles or vehicles; they act through
the organs of sense; they play upon the different plexuses;
every principle and organ being specialised as the vehicle for a
particular force or state of consciousness. All the sounds we can
utter have their significance; they express moods; they create forms;
they arouse to active life within ourselves spiritual and psychic
forces which are centered in various parts of the body. Hence the
whole organism of man is woven through and through with such
correspondences; our thoughts, emotions, sensations, the forces
we use, colours and sounds acting on different planes are all
correlated among themselves, and are also connected with the forces
evolving present about us, in which we live and move. We find
such correspondences form the subject matter of many Upanishads
and other occult treatises; for example in Yajnavalkyasamhita,
a treatise on Yoga philosophy, we find the sound "Ra" associated
with the element of fire, Tejas Tatwa, with the God Rudra, with a
centre in the body just below the heart. Other books add, as
correspondences of Tejas Tatwa, that its colour is red, its taste
is hot, its form is a triangle and its force is expansion. The
correspondences given in different treatises often vary; but what
we can gather with certainty is that there must have existed a
complete science of the subject; the correlation of sound with
such things, once understood, is the key which explains, not only
the magic potency of sound, but also the constuction of those roots
which remain as relics of the primitive Aryan speech.
The thinking principle in man, having experiences of nature through
its vehicles, the subtle, astral and gross physical bodies, translates
these sensations into its own set of correspondences: this principle
in man, called the Manas, is associated with the element of akasa,
whose property is sound; the Manas moves about in akasa, and so
all ideas which enter into the mind awaken their correspondences
and are immediately mirrored in sound. Let us take as an instance
the perception of the colour red; this communicated to the mind
would set up a vibration, causing a sound to be thrown outwards in
mental manifestation, and in this way the impulse would arise to
utter the letter R, the correspondence of this colour. This Manasic
principle in man, the real Ego, is eternal in its nature; it exists
before and after the body, something accruing to it from each
incarnation; and so, because there is present in the body of man
this long-traveled soul, bearing with it traces of its eternal past,
these letters which are the elements of its speech have impressed
on them a correspondence, not only with the forces natural to its
transitory surroundings, but also with that vaster evolution of
nature in which it has taken part. These correspondences next
claim our attention.
The correspondences here suggested do not I think at all exhaust
the possible significance of any of the letters. Every sound ought
to have a septenary relation to the planes of consciousness, and
the differentiations of life, force and matter on each. Complete
mastery of these would enable the knower to guide the various
currents of force, and to control the elemental knower to guide
the various currents of force, and to control the elemental beings
who live on the astral planes, for these respond, we are told,
"when the exact scale of being to which they belong is vibrated,
whether it be that of colour, form, sound or whatever else,"
(Path, May, 1886) These higher interpretations I am unable to give;
it requires the deeper being to know the deeper meaning. Those
here appended may prove suggestive; I do not claim any finality
or authority for them, but they may be interesting to students of
the occult Upanishads where the mystic power of sound is continually
dwelt upon.
The best method of arranging the letters is to begin with A and
conclude with M or OO: between these lie all the other letters,
and their successive order is determined by their spiritual or
material quality. Following A we get letters with an ethereal or
liquid sound, such as R, H, L or Y; they become gradually harsher
as they pass from the A, following the order of nature in this.
Half way we get letters like K, J, TCHAY, S, or ISH; then they
become softer, and the labials, like F, B and M, have something
of the musical quality of the earlier sounds. If we arrange them
in this manner, it will be found to approximate very closely to the
actual order in which the sounds arise in the process of formation.
We begin then with
A--This represents God, creative force, the Self, the I, the
beginning or first cause. "Among letters I am the vowel A," says
Krishna in the Bagavad. It is without colour, number or form.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20