LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. y^rMf mp? ©tq^rtg]^ 1>J. ShelfAli\s7 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. "Why hast Thou created man ?" "I was a hidden treasure and I WISHED TO BECOME KNOWN." APOTIiEOSIS Pf/F 2^ IDEyiL. m i^TERioR-LiPE Dmm. Printed privately. Rights reserved. BOSTON : ^ \ 1887. .^^ ^<^' X ^v^^ /jit^ii oiM '^^'^^'^ tit? DEDICATED, IN BROTHERLY DEVOTION AND UNCOMPROMISING HONESTY, TO ALL AWAKENED SOULS. FOREWORD. ** What is that sea whose shore is speech? What is that pearl which in its depths is found ? " ( Giclshan I Raz.) The several contents of this little volume are to be looked upon as continuous parts of one ever-expanding whole — an Oratorio — in rhythmic speech in lieu of tune, whose trans- cendent theme, i.e. — the divine possibilities of life — is treated in 'five movements, having their sequence and purport as below. It seems fitting to remark that audible or rather Quphonic expression is as needful to a true and adequate interpretation of the theme (as treated) as syrxiphonic is to a theme in harmony. EVOCATION : The call to consider the import and scope of man's existence and the superior wisdom and power of the attainments possible to all truly high aspiration. THE SEEKING: Rationale of an individual practical pursuit of the highest ideal and its helps and hindrances. THE FINDING : The difficult way appears. It is a normal interior growth, as fast and certain as fitness is proved, from common sense up to uncommon. The imperfect can find no satisfaction short of its otv^i Perfect. EPITOME : The deductive refrain. APOSTROPHE : Universal amplification and application of the central truths elicited. Man's inherent potentialities. These are his all in all and all- sufficing. Exhortation unto transcendent puritj and largeness of life — the true spiritualitj — wherein is no place for sentimentality, superstition or idolatry. Personality to be outgrown, soul-individu- ality remaining. It is only within the innermost depths of man's own being that certitude, peace and the ideal Real are found. The Supreme is knowable but known only where consciously self-evoked. All other knowledge is as naught compared with this which, when really felt, is beyond all demonstration, the wish for it or need thereof. As to the authorship of this deliverance, if any are inclined to raise the subject, a thoughtful perusal of its contents it is earnestly hoped will persuade inquirers that this consideration as well as all concerns touching merely the letter are utterly foreign to the spirit. The authorship, at least, is a matter of no importance, and each and all are besought . to tacitly concede the point, looking only to the spirit. EYOC^ITION. Chorus of All-Life Devas. (Maestoso.) Of all that hath breath Or but promptings that hint not So much as a mute-note Of cosmos' grand symphony, Nor faintest suggest of the pulse-beat of nature Are we mover and sponsor. Thro' us doth the formless spire into form. Without us the uncreate knoweth not potencies ; Ne'er would transmute into flowers, into fruitage or least bud of promise The wealth without end Of the thought-germs implant in the bosom of Om ! 8 EVOCATION. Ours is the dispensation supreme Untutored man conceives as stern fate. Behold — if it favor — what homage ! Alas ! — when inconstant — what blasphemy ! What impious zeal to impeach the inscrutable Ends of our mission surpassingly meet ! Tho' to seek to discern them as seek the wise Were the sure path, toward wisdom, Man's heritage sovereign. When earnestly our genius is besought A clue to give— a secret to impart Whereby to make some tortuous pathway straight, Lighten some crushing burden of despair Or stay the withering blight of false philosophy, The sensate to uphold — the soul to desecrate. Its wanton blandishments engaging. There are upraised some pure, clear-seeing spirits Unerring in retrieve of precious wheat from cumbering chaff As they harvest the ideals of our sowing. The fervid tones of whose high-soaring accents prophet- voiced, I Swift, darting entrance unto human hearts command, EVOCATION, Pierce them to the quick ! Make them to quiver with the charge electric Of momentous messages truth-sublimed ! Asserting in transports not born of our red-heats But from the glowing aspire of our white-heats kindled, Man's dignity, dower, high, limitless estate And destiny awesome. Those grandific sanctities ! Towering majestical. With the stars seeking company Far above that dead-level in whose desert dust-heaps The world doth too much elect to lie prone, (Alas ! rueful ignorance, Marplotting pestilence!) Whose summits resplendent with light's apotheosis — Crown of the All-Life ! Cloud-wrapt remain — secrets unfathomed Save to our cloud-spurning illuminati At one with the All-Life — In the All-Life embosomed — Lost in its boundlessness — Sacred self -surrender ! Found in its unity — Self awoke to Self's great end! 10 EVOCATION. Unto the silent, consecrate Would-Bes — Tear-christened Would-Bes Our muse shall speak with no inconsequent sound. Would-Bes uplift from the pits of despondency, Sense-spurning Would-Bes Self-raised from the death of complacency's squat and dulling contentedness, Yet heartened and heavenward sent in pyramids of flame Embracing the azure — Spirit-dyed azure ! By souls that contemn not the consort corporeous — Great means to greater ends ! While as between picture and pigments that body it. That grand, living picture macrocosmic — unframable Thro' the mute eons moving on the wheels of polarity, The eye of the seer artistic, unenthralled By the world's iridescence and glittering earth-mix Looking deep — looking sooth-fast Thro' illusion — thro' veil. Meets the all-seeing eye of the Artist consummate Who conceives .... and conceives .... While we enact and enact ! To the Would-Bes we speak. CHARACTERS, PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL, PARTICIPATING IN THE ACTION. Nameless, A tmth-seeker. (the composite individ- uality both personal and impersonal.) His Soul; (pure transcendental impersonality.) His Ego, (pure personality — the temporal indi- viduality.) ALTERIA, His indwelling Divine-v\romanly,. ETHERIA, A virgin. AD0N=AI, Son of Eternal Light. Fear, and Invisibles. TFIE SEEKING. (Serioso con spirito. Semplice vivace. Galore con moto. Quieto con grazia.) {Nameless seen wandering in solitude^ NAMELESS : I tire of my Present ; a stifling, earthy Present, The' laden sweet with joys heart of mortal should make glad. With me, they turn to ashes. Not all, — but what content my brothers — Serve to recreate and sate Lose their savor when I taste them — Loathings bring ; — I crave avoidance. 14 THE SEEKING. Beyond that anxious, frontward look And unremitting strain to hold A course, nor hope the helm to quit In the compelling earth-life's voyage, The Past for us hath planned occultly — Wise energies forsooth Self-centered to a fault. While from the tether to belittling wants freed rarely, — What beyond this their life infills ? What but a profitless din and whirl, A vapid seeming — a cozened pride. Surfeits of bric-a-brac quirks and cares. Round upon round of gewgaws and smirks — Honeyed detestables ! Nothings with names — High-acid vocables ! High-spiced delectables ! High-strung amenities held at a price and bartered for gain. What but a scramble of blistering conceits and corroding frivolities — Soul-killers all ! , True to the life speaks the mirror I hold, Howe'er they extenuate Or hotly repudiate. THE SEEKING. 15 In terms of downright earnestness we're told Such is Custom's stern decree, To break with which is in a rain Of stinging life-hurts to walk unshielded, Ever so calmly, discord-abhorringly tho' it be done. ** Better conformity. Who thinks to escape the strict law of recompense — " (The wo'n't-allow-you-to-know-more-than-we law) " Let him be disciplined " — still seems the cry. Echo the inquisitorial ages Amen and amen ! Away from such life, its zests and its condiments, Leads a lone path which beckons — allures With promise the fairest. 'Tis bordered with wild-flowers, defiles thro' the pine groves Now beside the still waters, anon thro' a glen, And tho' I seem lonely as wandering I muse, A sad recluse perchance Or hapless dupe of wizard, mania or dream. To number my friends is to count all the stars, Yea, all that hath breath and breathes it in purity, Nay, — seems is not trustworthy. I walk not alone. 16 THE SEEKING. [A distant, plaintive call causes him to pause^ I hear a voice calling. How familiar — how suppliant ! It floats down a vista that leads to bright yesterdays — Rose-scented yesterdays. '* Return to the garden of Eden, mad wanderer, Nor forfeit thine heirship and stewardship dutiful Portioned to thee without right of release Or retreat from community and the world's common service, Howe'er they harass thee and prey on thy sanctities " It beseeching adviseth. Tho' unheeded its warnings, Heart-sent are its pleadings And heart-moved I follow in the wake of its urge. [Some time transpires^ [Nameless returned to former habitudes^ [Despairingly^ Once again in the vortex ! 'Mid the swirl and the din — the froth and the foam — Harsh jostling of churls and vaporings noxious. The voice has immured me. To buffet the waves that rush to engulf or cajole me to seaward I nothing am daunted. But what bodes it all .? THE SEEKING. 17 This voice that would make me its vassal, retainer, Is it stern Duty's own or that of some zealot World-wise and under-taught Screaming utility and the gospel of real ? If Duty so speak, strange that befriender should know me so futilely. I crave closer acquaintance. \Inexoradly^ From out this fell sway of the sense-world I haste — This puppet-show life— this harlequin dance- — this con- tract with Pleasure — These wiles that becloud tho' they may not begrime. I cannot but sever these toys for man's childhood — These rude signs and tutors — a bane when outgrown. From the cordials — elixirs — that quicken — infuse — Restore the soul's birthright and flash its sublimity Afar in the darkness ! The black gloom freezing in rigors of dread At its omnific might ! \_TMrns his footsteps to his favorite peaceful haunis^ Again my woodland solitudes I trace, deliv'rance finding In the calm, reposeful haunts of rustling trees. 18 THE SEEKING. With floating, scented cadences And murm'ring, eerie silences I hold a converse sweet and free as any fairy or sylph. Their tender, soothing welcoming The inner wind-harp softly thrills, I listen well — I listen tense. 'Tis then the soul spreads its illume, Expands from bud to snowy-petaled flower And laves me in a virgin spray Holier than breath of gloried morn in May. \_Falls into a dreamy siesta under the trees.'] [Starts up, — rudely aroused'^ Alas ! 'tis a harsh and discordant reminder — - The bray of the senses — it shrills at my ears. I go with them far as I must but no further. Go with me my soul. \Retraces his steps dejectedly — after going some distance, he hears soft music-^ wanders off from the path and comes to a beautiful hillside covered with wild-flowers which he discovers exhale the music — sits 'mid the thick of the flowers and gives play to the entrancing influences surrounding — a glow comes over him as he feels the approach of a magic influeiice — his mood becomes buoyant, and as the music of the flowers grows 7nore distinct he joins in, softly singing : Of beauteous flowers — Earth's comeliest dowers. Pain-redeeming, In gladness teeming, ' THE SEEKING. 19 The which are seraph-smiles, they say. Blooming in perpetual May, Breathing out in incense-prayer Gratitude for life so fair, Shapes conformed in Beauty's matrix. Sprinkled quick with rainbow-aura, Scattered, then, in myriad places. Mark their upturned, puresome faces Sensate man 1 Their meanings scan. Ah, yes, — of petals' lovely guise Looking from deeps with spirit-eyes A sun-christened maid is archetype. [A form steps forth out of the invisible^ ETHERIA: I am the glad, golden glister that drowns thee. Daphne's aroma and attar of rose I scatter in mist 'round thy comings and goings.. If I should chide thee when thou look'st sad What canst thou say 1 What wilt thou do to me } Ever so tenderly now do I dare thee To cobweb thy brow — conjure a sigh Or cast thy glad eyes away into vacancy. 20 THE SEEKING. Fm a sweeper of cobwebs. That thou canst not deny. One wave of my wand charms away any sigh. Look . . . me . . . straight i' the eye. [He looks and smiles^ Dost thou know my real name ? It is Starbeam — I came from that bright, gleaming star That peers out of the west at the glad, rosy sunset. I'm always at sunsets ; I never yet missed one, But thou hast missed many on bleak, cloudy days \Tearfiiiiy:\ When I've been away. And ah, — that reminds me {Brightening up agam:\ I've a sccret to tell thee. .Come near while I whisper. Whene'er thy day 's cloudy. Instead of repining Go under our tryst-tree — Our heart-song breathe warmly. Then, toward the west facing. Thine eye-balls press gently Till thou hast spelt Starbeam. I'll be with thee straight And stay for the day. THE SEEKING. 21 [ With an arch smile?[ Mine is a fixed star, A sun, — you see — that never sets, And so thou'lt know I'm always there Behind the clouds, however they frown And empty their buckets of dreariness down. Thank your stars ! thro' a strainer. \SeriouslyI\ But O, be thou happy each day as it o'ertakes thee. Never can I bear to 'speak to a day that brings thee grief. Thou 'rt born for rarest happiness. So says my star. It ought to know. Besides, its signs lurk in thy face. I hold the key. They're meant for me. This world is fair. How passing fair ! Just back of yon hill is our Arcady. Hand in hand with thy Starbeam walk In the sunshine and truth of the ideal life. On May-day, at even, I'm with thee again. \She culls a handful of the fiowers at one reach and bears them away with her into the invisible after tokening him with a spray ^ 22 THE SEEKING. NAMELESS: Ah ! Vision of loveliness — Sun-christened sprite ! Lily-white bloom of my hearths tendVest wish. Go not so soon. I languish without thee — Crave thy sweet lingering, O, my beatitude ! Wave but thy wand. Bring May-day at even Or Knight-of-the-Starbeam must sink in despair ! £ Gazes, in a tremor — no reappearance — lapses into a fit of melancholy^ [After a time, Nameless wanders pensively back to the path^ Alas ! my bright fairy knows not what she is to me. Can she e'er know ? [Pauses, reflectively^ The ideal life — ^ah, 'tis that which I seek. But what if my Arcady differ from hers — Be further away— to her strange and unknown, High up on a mountain-crest steep of approach, To humans unparadised ! Of the reach of the life transcendent, unprofane My thought would adequate descant : — THE SEEKING. 23 A soothfastness volitioned and single-eyed, A love earth-free, spirit-pure, nor stayed by unrequite, In silent, shoreless rivers spontaneous outpoured, Whelming all sharers of the mystic throb of life In one unfathomed, surging flow Of sympathy kind as sunshine's glow Broadly, benignly spreading ; A self-law unselfed, Outer ruled-^-inner ruling, The realm of the known By its thought-wielding knower — Reflect in the doer Full royally sceptered. No dissonance hearing In the harmonied rhythm Of law all-compassing-— Wisdom-blended; . Like the lustral calm outbreathing — Calm of the hill-top at summer dawning — Matins for the fuller light — Virgin airs the white Light seeking, Like the restful calm of eve — 24 THE SEEKING, Gloried stillness tenderly star-dropt — In meekness yielding irradiant joys To joyless night When lowers heart's oppress. \^His thoughts grow more exalted — he cannot preserve his wonted calmnsss — he is unable to mentally delineate his fuller aspiration,— presently there breaks upon the stilhiess a choiring of voices in unison of superhuman ptcrity and grace — in throbbing expectancy, he listens .•] CHORUS OF INVISIBLES. (Adagio nobile tranquillo.) Far far .... at unmeasured remove from the life of frail humans Nor earthy, nor fleshly distraint and defile there gaining intrusion, On hights of resplendence suffused with the Love- Light ineffable — Hearts in the great Heart immersed — Minds touching Mind in white thought-flow — Souls quaffing deep of the space-flooding True ! Form and the sense-world in vapory nothings — pigmy abstractions — dissolving ; There there ..... tho' vestured- yet in vest- ment of mortals, * THE SEEKING. 25 Life superhuman Truth's denizen liveth In works of great moment co-worker. Thitherward turn the immortals— Victoried strivers with darkness — Statures of mortals amplificate — Grandly unmoved by the tumults of humans — Banishing plaint for the life that now is. Verily they that seek do find. Life in all states hath a perfect. Purely sees who purity is. In the pure life of spirit bounds are not. Only the pureless are bounden. Wisely their eyes are holden. Gaze, O, gaze ! As we highten our rays And limn the orient haunts of Peace. [ The vision appears.'] NAMELESS; \Startled and breathless?^ It rises before me in phantom superlative. Its peaks touch the heavens — they are livid with glory ! 26 THE SEEKING. See ! — it looks back in sadness at Earth's dusky present. Ah, no, 'tis no fatal mirage that would lead me To cravings fanatic or pit-falls self-harmful. [ The intense light dazzles him and he must needs turn away — looks again but the vision has vanished— given up to his emotions, he cries out imploringly ;] O, Soul ! is it meet or unmeet to pursue it } SOUL: \Benignly^ I am thy mentor — Thy true magnetic needle. Unerring do I point thee to the pole-star. Rectitude — Sovereign star of all — The North — whereby all mariners Must steer their course o'er life's vast sea. I charge thee live the life ideal. Not merely think it. Nay, — nor live it haply in some future But now — where thou art placed. Neither thy law expect to stand To others equally confessed Ere yet their souls are trustingly enthroned. Ponder these things. THE SEEKING. 27 Let charity — love — -flow from thee in rivers. Pour self into not-self and Self universal. How to suit means to ends comes not in my province. I know not conventions — conditions — appliances. Thyself is the joiner. Raise thine own structure and leave in the basement fit place for the senses Till thou hast outlived them. More than this it behooveth me not to disclose. Look for that in the time thou art quit of thy Present, Then, I shall be thou and thou shalt be one. As thou dost fit thyself wisdom to covet The Sphinx must confide it. It rests with thyself ! Ideals deceive not, tho* strangely elusive, Live the ideal Now and still now. As thou dost see it. [Significantly i\ Ever have courage to go where it leadeth. EGO \ Yes, the ideal. But how to reach that dangered hight } 28 THE SEEKIISG. No stairway beckons. Heaven no ladder proffereth Round upon round to mount. Wings to cleave the airy main .-* Never so surely fadeth the flower of new-born wish Ere yet 'tis all abloom — as this : To soar as soars the dove. How rend the chains of environment } How build a wall 'round aspiration To stay the profane of infantile minds } What peace is found 'mid a crass unrest ? How yoke with idolaters' Juggernaut — Mammon-enslaving — Babylon-ruling ! And fend an unholy self-sacrifice } Ah, vain is the hope for a sheer unattainable. How speaketh the Soul So calmly confiding — So mystic-instilling — So reason-transcending .-* What is life — by its law But death — by the prevalent ? THE SEEKING. 29 SOUL: [ With transcendent tenderness.'] Ever the star-lit eyes Shall gaze on the unattained. Ever the rainbow's ahead Subtly elusive its shifting. Think' St thou arrival comes never, Or hides it — dissolving in endless endeavor ? THE FIUDIPIG. CTimoi-oso. — -Tremendo diminuendo.-^ — Poco a poco largo.— Larghissimo.) [Nameless, arriving at the edge of the wood, sits upon a grassy knoll and gazes Meditatively into the deep, still water of the lake at his feet — it is a cloudless day and in the water is vividly reflected the sky — suddenly appears mirrored in the azured lake, by some invisible agency above, these words, in aureolic letters .••— ] ADON-AI: There is — that in secret transports Every consecrate Would-Be to the haven of surety. Thence speeds it forth to the Now and Here Swiftly as thought — the magnific of motion—^ Scepter and soul of it ! Circuits the map of the cosmic immensities Drawing the eons — all space — to a point. What most is called real 32 THE FINDING. Is naught but Real's mask. Follow Ideal ! {The vision vanishes:\ Up to me if thou darest. \The last line has vanished just before he' gets to it, along with the rest, as he reads — he retains no further impression of it than the first toord and part of the last: UP aw(? DARE.] [A new and strange excitemetit comes over him — he is seized with a rigor — it grows upon him — a malignant preseiice confronts him — he bids it speak its worst.] FEAR: {Ominously — rising to frantic realism of what is portrayed.} Yet hearken well, bold aspirant ! I, tho' a stranger, but quondam friend. Hold the odds against thee now. Now art thou adjured, witling :— Blackened and scarred by the wrath of Elementals, Blasted and chasmed by the fury of Gorgon — Demoniac shrieks ! — The hiss and the venom of tempters malign Writhing to clutch for their own horrid uses Powers might loose accursed Chaos — ghastly Ruin To torture and rack into gibbering frenzy The souls of the many ! {Nameless, dazed and tremulous, covers his face.} THE FINDING. 33 Gaped at and fumed against by these horrors dire, The mad, reeling wield of Apollyon enthroned — Perils unspeakable ! Seductions unnerving ! Is the desolate pass leading up thro' the steeps — The dread realm of Awe ! Frail man stuns senseless, Yea, bends him in homage — From his lowlands of ignorance To the hights of the God-man ! {Sneeringlt/.} These for thy portents — Best of all solaces. This very night will I sweeten thy dreams with them, Thou would-be fool when thou mights't be a wise-one And pet of the world ! NAMELESS: Avaunt, prating craven ! Impostor ! I've nothing with thee. Ply thine arts and thy sorceries — Thy hobgoblin tales — Where cringes poltroonery. 34 THE FINDING. FEAR: Grim philosoph I, Outdone by no simpleton. Have seen wiselings like thee Bring up in a mad-house For spurning mine offices. Much have I with thee, Albeit "nothing" with me, In a tremble thou 'rt gibbering. A friend of rare value In ultra emergencies I am minded to summon. Woulds't thou look upon beauty — Beauty's own doweress Fair Medusa will charm thee. Ay — mend thy cracked brain. Tie up thy wits in a knot of hard sense- Do thee in art — Thine own sculptor make thee — Eke — thyself thine own idol ! Since that seems thy bent. , THE FINDING. 35 NAMELESS: Arch deluder ! Pretender ! Undoer ! Forger of shackles that make men to crawl ! Thralldom's Black Prince ! I am thy master. I serve another. Take thyself hence. {Fear slinks of .1 [Nameless, having recovered composure, begins to think deeply of the words of the Planetary Spirit, Adon—ai, the last two especially lohich he barely caught, viz — Up and Dare.] Those words and their import — How they thrill my whole being ! In the boundless immerse me ! My vast empire unroll ! What were limits .... are none. I expand .... expand they And ideal Without end ! But that it behooved not my soul to communicate ; What of that, mighty potentate — Sense-world's annuller ? SOUL: [Austerely.] Daring idealist ! For that which might unman and rend thee 36 THE FINDING. Still dost thou thirst ? More than sufficeth for needs of the present Is thine to command. Thyself 's to command unto purposive action For work in thy vineyard. Think thy knowledge in crystals — Deeds — that ennoble, uplift and emancipate. True, — sense is a cipher But joined to a quantum described in ideal Tenfold will enhance it. But think more in crystals And thou 'It think less in star-dust That scatt'reth efficiencies — Drives from thee thy kind. I solemnly charge thee : Tempt not the future. Forsake not the present ! [Nameless cannot he quieted — starts hack convulsively at what seems to stand out before him in flaming letters :"] ADON=AI: . Follow Ideal ! I THE FINDING. 37 NAMELESS: How follow ? — where follow If not toward man's future — My true, mystic heirship ? SOUL: (Aside.) Ah ! the rim of the Self-Law— The Auto-deific ! Great secret of secrets — The key of my power — Unlocks the arcanum ! He fearless approacheth. \_Piercing Nameless with a searching looh.l Has he aught of desire Unquenchable — masterful To the earth-life to bind him ? Has he courage sublime ? [After complete penetration, Soul appears dubious of unequivocal answers.] NAMELESS: The gift of divining think' st thou I have not When thyself hast vouchsafed it me ? The thought in thy whisper — Think 'st thou it germeth not yet in mine augury ? 38 THE FINDING. What thou dost descry — What gives thee disquiet- I fain would unravel. It burdens my solitude. SOUL: Yet will I compass it. It rests with thyself ! NAMELESS: [l7itrospectively.'\ What of desire .-* Let me adjudge it. A precept cardinal Of this star-lit path I follow In this wise hath it : "Quench desire !" Ah ! is it not of Purity the diadem } What, in the glowing constellation Of gem-thoughts studding all high aspire throughout the ages More truly is the lamp Lit in the illume of the empyrean THE FINDING. 39 That brightest gleams Athwart the darksome way of every questor Intent upon the holy mount of Truth ? To essay the ascent The watchword never can be else or less. Quench — yea, without stint or sparing Whate'er betrays alloy with mere indulgence For with much stealth the inner sense it clogs. Well do I know and truly The genius of this counsel — Grave ...... profound! Yet oft decried as folly. Where the quickened spirit is Naught gainsays this wisdom lofty. Where it is not Wisdom yet slumbereth. But when amid this earth-maze intricate, The while to grope its devious ways We are constrained — without appeal, There entereth the sacred cloister Of our inmost thought divine By secret portal ne'er yet opened 40 THE FINDING. A pulsing stream of sympathy That knoweth well its true, eternal home At last is found ! And kindleth there a very altar-flame Of life exalted ! When — in such course Burst open wide the magic gates Bent with weight of mighty secrets, Blazing forth the destiny magnific That points man to the godhood He but willeth to attain ! Then is desire transfigured ! Then is it a thirsting for the living God ! Then does soul-flowed sympathy work miracles And I may quaff purely of its waters. A LT E R I A : [interiorly and occultly^ Blest are the spirit -pure — my pure Who into the soul-life hath entrance gained. Face to face with the Indweller have I brought him — Soul of my soul ! — life of my life ! Seeking in Etheria the transcendent, Me hath he found, unknowing. In the sweet virgin mirrored. ' THE FINDING, 41 NAMELESS: {^Continuing — not aware of the mystic undertonesI\ Ah, pure — pure essence of the All-Life spiritual ! How shineth forth thy mystic aureole supernal For the eyes that can receive its rayless light ! ALTERIA: Ah ! truly doth he know the love divine— the ecstasy of it. Early hath he sought — early found me. Of the holy twice-born of water and the spirit is he. Why in this earth-land alien longer tarrieth he ? Ah, know I not Etheria it is he awaiteth. NAMELESS: \_After another hushed pause, seemingly involuntary with him."} And from this wondrous holy, immaculate soul-union Shall be create no scion of earth Whereby in outlived soil of earth to painfully involve it, For what is earthly pain and woe But a no-escaping prod to work its cure .'* And what the cure Unless the grand-intended, will-unbended uplift from the temporal ? The which I see fulfilled. 42 THE FINDING. A L T E R I A : \I71wardly — to Etheria^ O, Etheria, thou virgin mild and lily-guised : Art thou of the inner-eyed — the immaculate-minded ? Seest thou the virgin's apocalypse dawning — The dawn divine for blessed woman In the east of her new mission breaking ? Mission which in the conceiving More than woman maketh her- — higher enthroneth her Until she becometh arch-angeled, Spiritward pointing the earth-children ! O, virgin, thou crowning thought of the Ineffable ! Breath of the holy Love-Breather ere by the earth-mists tinctured ! Thine heart — in the white-heats sublime it. Heart's desire ! — let it prayerful dissolve and flow In love-rills seraphic Back thro' the spirit-inlets Unto the font baptismal Where welleth up quint essent joys To memory lost since thine earth-flights — Lost since thy being's estranging From habitudes stayed in the supercelestial. Life that is whiteness induing. THE FINDING. 43 Life that is love's deificate ! Love that is human-transcendiag ! In a glad-and-sad symphony blending Wake thee from soul-slumber dulling 'mid mute surprise, Wake thee to thrills and the ravishment Of consecrate yearnings and prayer-dropping tears, Whelming thine heart-deeps with hopes that tremble for such hoping And pangs of joy beatific ! Thou that sleepest, awake ! True paradise waits thee. Ensouled in thee shall be Alteria. NAMELESS: \_With calm penetration — no longer unaware of Alteria' s presence^ O, verity that crowneth all ! Now is this darksome earth-sphere become a very morn- ing-land ! Where for laws primeval of existence are exchanged Laws preeminent, eternal — of pure being. And there shall be create that which is born for the life eterne — An ideal ! 44 THE FINDING. That shall take the very potence of a god ! For now .... now upon' the hights do I see truly The shining goal of mine aspirings. The secret of the ever-shifting unattained Its crystal glisten now distills. O, Etheria — my soul's own ! — come ! [Etkeria has been impressed by AltericCs mystic call, in spite of herself— advances unnoticed to the side of Nameless^ Thy vision clear And this behold : My — our — ideal of all ideals no other is Than our own divinely-natived love and wisdom full- supremed ! Known — only as our very self becometh that we seek — Even our God ! Which to know is to make ! ! So alone is ever the Unnamed imaged and declared. ETHERIA: Now in the white Light doth it appear how unspeakably sacred 'tis to live. THE FINDING. 45 NAMELESS: Yet hallowed and evidenced only as the life ceaseless advanceth spiritward. Let us dare to think upon That we shall be ! [Tkeir eyes are upturned— their faces are illumiMd^ EPITOME. ETHERIA: Clamber as the clinging vine should the life-ideal, Rearing self-reliance — thine oak-tree — ^for support. NAMELESS: Earth the budding Would-Be raiseth, Mayhap sees- its richest flowering. SOUL: But the golden Nows^ — ^the fruitage ? ALTERIA: Blest to-days that ever linger — Life stepped forth from cherished pictures Hung by Faith in spiring stairways up the past ; NAMELESS: Earth must consume in such white-heats of fervor. 48 EPITOME, EGO; Ah, truly ! My days and my mission — they haste to their end! NAMELESS; Since Being is selfless. Wisely we follow ideal where it leadeth. EGO: To the end I resign me. Survive, O, ye that are most fitted for the larger life ! NAMELESS, SOUL, ALTERIA; To be as one emancipate — This alone doth show things as they are And attune the understanding unto that mirific Voice Which to hear is to live by ! APOSTROPHE TO THE "Realist." By the Auto-Deifier. (Grave e grandiose.) O, thou human ephemeral ! Whose thought is as the fleeting day and to a day's breadth shriveled, — Royalty in exile drooping ! Shorn of the fruits of the royal : — Count it no marvel, no ungrace for that thou thus art plaintless charactered; My throneless realm — kingdom not of thy world — abode of the Gnosis Deep in the silence-haunted crypt of the temple of Wis- dom gated, 52 APOSTROPHE. Wherein doth magical, entheal hymn the silences Peace and the Pure doth sentry well, Dread-black folds of darkness thick and gross, Dark of the nether — the outer — the rank spurious — Maya's dense veil close woven, closer drawn # Over the face of the Formless Down . . . down ... into finitude fulgently darting sapient, vivific glances ! There's to pierce to apprehend ; There's to rive with venture magnifical To perceive mine identity — Face the arcanum 1 Dweller in the void ! Earth-child unwitting entombed in the earth-mold of semblance : — Thick, choking, soul-blighting sense-dark Exhaling intoxicant fumes that in sense-pleasures torpor thee Thy walk in high places — thy shining goal 'mid their cloud-piercing summits, Thine, of a truth, thro' vast reaches of time-distance Stretching far out from inscrutable Alphas APOSTROPHE. 53 Shrouds and oblivions — Thou the arch-darkener 1 As in chasm dread, floorless, insatiate The pride of thy sun-sphere its glory forgetteth, Its etherous brightness profundity-fronted into leaden gloom condensing, So rayless — flung awry into impotence opaque — the gleams of the earth-mind coruscate On lighting the indeeps of wisdom proud-bent Fatefully become, Vantaged naught by subtlest astute In puissant strive and arts of sage intent Vacuous earth-mind ! Vanity-breeder i Thine be the odium — thou, the soul's duress \ Palsied shalt thou ever be in the hissing stare of dire negation ! ! (Molto elevato.) O, thou universe-possessor! : — Why settest thou enrigored limits to man's right of em- inent domain? Why raisest thou the prison-walls of little self and want imbruting 54 APOSTROPHE. The while to inveigh and chafe as vehement chafes the freedom-denied 'Gainst what but the mad infliction of captive unwary self -captivate ? Wouldst thou the changeless, the permanent inhabit — ^the vast surveys — amplitude traverse ? Poised at the inmost centric of circles on circles of being, Omnist wouldst thou artless be — Rectitude';S geometer Out in the illimit stretching Compasses joined at Truth's evanishing-point And in the all-knowing fulcrumed Where the knowers unhumaned that shall be With it .common cause doth make ? If to so magnify and exalt thy viewless powers That do but wait upon intrepid summons, If to consort and lofty converse hold with sempiternal verities — Life-throbs of the space-imbuing aura of th' immutate Real wherein the gods do habit — Thoughts that to the .soul are volant couriers from purer spheres ' APOSTBOPHE. 55 Winging electric their imperate, time-nulling courses Far from purblind ken of mortals distanced, If to such attain thou e'er shouldst mighty-purposed be — - scornful of dolor — calm amid stress, Mark, — O, alien from thy summited prerogative ! How tongues th'enwisdomed Oracle of the humanless Within In accents keen-searching to prurient heart as caustic is to proud-flesh : " Utterly cast forth self. And whether there be joy, hope, fear, vantage or renown From the great sumless — all-oneness of life-breathers — covetous-parted. Count it but dross — dust in the eyes — the all-view filming And thyself in thine own light standing ! " (Lamentoso.) Alas for the self ly! That doth pervert and jeopard, yea, in mode and temper of the brute Opulent bestowments fit for kingliest adorn From fontal plenitudes of spotless grace and pulsing virtue lavish dropt. 56 APOSTROPHE. Lo ! hence is the great commonalty sightless for views firmamental. Hence is man unmanned and suicided ! Hence are potentials frustrate And, to and fro' across the speculum of time Thou seest a surging thick of dwarfish shadows' glide, Your mundane chosen ones and strong, force-dealing po- tentates A clearer outline showing, yet naught above the common level do they loom. Since that which greatness was to them, 'mid loud acclaim And is, of need, to earth-esteem profane where'er 'tis theatered. Hath value none and sanction slight in the immortal code. But mark — as 'mid the spectered press is vivid cast upon the omniform reflect A shadow of mien majestic — giantesque, While lowly-garbed, unsought and uncompanioned. (Nobilimente.) Rising serene above the rest Behold the soul-magian ! Destined not for epic's touch nor yet for history's dress, Whose form, with head uplift, doth solemn pass, inviting fixed scrutiny. APOSTROPHE. 67 O, thou, who with thine Inmost lackest free acquaint — contemplate ! 'Tis one of the nobility-at-large, Acknowledged not — for knowledge meet there scarce is found save with th' unseen. Nay — draw not admonish — make not obeisance unless 'twere void of surface-manifest For outward hath no standing with the inward it so oft doth think to simulate And elsewise, of a truth, all offertory is but unction laid unto the hearts that crave And needs must image ample somewhat howsoe'er ta lean upon. Presentment of knower and magister is here ; Yea, and prescient dweller in the all-embracing — the im- personal, For that the inner lenses a wondrous clarity hath taken on And with exceeding nicety full unto the all-sight hath freely found adjust. e (Con impeto doloroso.) The human contrariant In lieu thereof doth every power strain to poignant tension Avowed to compass what 1 68 APOSTROPHE. Of a surety what availeth it, this that hath been wrought ? A mixtured hoard of quasi-knowledges and values jealous- prized is garnered up, Here and there a lustrous grain of verity its worth betray- ing, The while, with strained assume, knowledge, unless glib- named and human-catalogued Is reckoned void — as tho' 'twere not th' eternal circum- ambient free dispensed unto the apt But somewhat creature-made and fashioned standing in need of sponsors. Enough it doth suffice withal, — The higher use ignored, that it be widely known this worth's possessed ; Enough ! — to eager crib the all-emoluments And to the gross — the evanescent — ^froward make them ministers. Albeit, — what of the fated end } Selfdom is betrayed! — head-and-heart pseudos insidious beset, — The king is his own usurper ! Wherefore, to think in all things divest of sense of self Is steadfast to approach high ingress arduous to Wisdom's outer courts — APOSTROPHE, 59 Steadfast to ascend from dwarfdom Unto the great arch-regnancy ! (Grave grave devoto al fine.) O, . . . . . thou heir to the Absolute ! : — Unto thee hath it been declared what things are per- manent and what shall pass away. Unto thee in sagas hath been shown the substance of things hoped for. Fiat is thine — range is thine — and the divine plenipotence that maketh . . is . . oi was-not. Self eliminate — else were wrought thy disinherit — arriveth the sage Bearing thy titles. But inward, still inward urge thy tremulous attent For that th'enwisdomed Oracle a sequel hath eluding Reason's plummet To lack which were with sealed grants of worth inestimate to be invest Their hushed, full-fraught intent the while estopt from slenderest interpret. There remaineth the super-essential : 60 APOSTROPHE. (Devotissimo.) " Soothfast evoke the Self! This, thy Centrality, bespeak : — SHINE, O, Sun incomparable ! ! This, thy Secondless Reality : — THY REALDOM COME ! ! ". Thus only is fulfilled the promise, sum of promises. Thus alone 'tis suretied who seeing, loseth all Gaineth the all-dominant. O, being with the name ever coupled with the infinite ! O, dweller in the birthless, timeless Now ! : — ■ Marvel not that wherefore thou art, thou art alway. Neither marvel of thy wherefore aught Siace unto thy Whither the mystic traceries would guide. Spiritward lies thy heritage. Thence doth ever beckon with soul-intensing plead The hidden, periled course mounting upward — ever upward Thro' storm-clouds raged and lightning-shattered — On on .... in rapturous rhythmic, * Vivid and more vivid spiraling Thro' the grandeur-wrought surprises of thy higher being's plenum doth it track) APOSTROPHE. 61 Soft ! — its tracing disappeareth in the star-maze- in the peace-haunts — 'Mid the symphonies of white Light — But 'tis endless as the starry maze itself. O, thou, thine own and only architect — establisher — ruler — perfecter ! O, thou, thine own and only sower and reaper — preserver or destroyer ! O, thou, thine own and only breaker of the seals — right to the emancipate — master-key to the arcanum — solvent Word ! : — Whoso, looking calmly out upon Entirety's face Can straightway introvert the ampliate gaze And find both seer and the seen interior-sphered As self -same One inseparate; — > Making no litanies, nor for dispensations Nor aught of recompense for duty done A thought bestowed ; — Harboring no choice apart from the One all-excellent — all-pervasive 62 APOSTROPHE, Ensamples and autotypes the Real immaculate — immu- table — consummate — the one and only Real And shall be called S uf f ic er .