TWILIGHT VISIONS.
PART II.—THE CRESCENT.
“The Lord appeared of old unto me, saying, ‘Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.’”—Jer. xxxi., 3.
“In life, in death, O Lord! abide with me!”
Thou, Ruler o’er the Living Rosy Cross—
Great Master Mason of the mortal frame,
Which is the temple of the Holy Ghost—
Grand Power of all who through the secret sun
Dost hold the soul in tenement of clay
To guide it safely through the gloom of night
Into the golden morn, when all things then
In Light of Love—thine own Eternal Self—
Shall truly stand revealed to those that strive
In truth to know the Power which all mankind
Shall worship in the Universal King.
* * * * *
My children! saith the living God of Love,
Now “if with all your hearts ye truly seek,”[[153]]
Ye surely shall find me your King in Heaven,
And finding me shall know yourselves to be
Anointed Princes—Rulers of the Earth—
The Powers of Light sent by me in the flesh,
And named Michael! You are here to fight,
To hurl down Satan to his black abyss,
Where ignorance and error, sin and crime,
And hellish spirits dark for ever dwell
With all who in the bonds of slavery
Lead deathly lives as creatures of the world—
The wretched earth-worms of that bounden sphere,
Which is the only Hell mankind can know!
* * * * *
The night is now far spent, and in the sky
From out a dark blue setting there hath shone
In ages past, as now, full many a star
Proclaiming to mankind the Light of Heaven,
Each with its own peculiar brilliancy
Illumining the minds of men with rays
Which point to other realms beyond this world,
And ever tell of one star differing
In glory from its fellow star on high.
What great and hidden meaning lieth here!
Why are the stars above held forth to man
As entities which tell of other states?
The Stars of Heaven are never seen by man;
As man, he cannot know that glorious light
Sent forth—from States of Wisdom not in skies—
Through brilliant rays which meet not mortal gaze,
And are invisible save to the one
Who—seeing through perception—contacts light,
That Light of ancient days, since passed away
Into the sombre gloom of deepest night;
Because in ignorance and selfishness
Man willed to dwell in darkness on this earth.
And now behold the fallen Lucifer!—
Thou Morning Star of Truth—again arise—
To touch with thy bright rays the mind of man
And open to his gaze the Light of Love,
Reflected in the silv’ry Crescent now
About to crown the Living Cross of Truth.
* * * * *
Shine forth, fair Luna! Man hath waited long
For thee—O bringer of the Golden Light.
Surmount the Cross—thou Goddess of the Gods—
Which suff’ring mortals here in agony
Have borne along, desiring of their King—
Of whom thou art—those better things on earth,
Which He hath promised them in days of old,
Shall take the place of former things to pass—
With mourning, weeping, bitterness, and death—
Away for ever, as the first-born states
Of Heaven and earth and sea no more to be.[[154]]
* * * * *
Fair Keeper of the rays shed by the Sun!
Whilst feeble mortals now deny thy power,
We of the morn declare thee as thou art;
The mediate force to govern all mankind,
The force of love which mortals cannot know.
For that man holds as love is passion foul:
It hath transformed the earth into a hell,
And none save thou can mediately stand
To rid the earth—by Truth who comes from thee—
From that curs’d tyrant in the world or hell,
The devil—Satan—he that doth deceive,
Accuser of our brethren, soon to be
Bound hand and foot in heaven, then cast to earth,
When angels dark and all who fight for him
Shall fall with him through Michael’s power and might.[[155]]
* * * * *
The grandest vision seen in heaven from earth
Has burst upon the wond’ring mind of man,
For woman has appear’d with Sun array’d—
She stands on Luna, o’er her holy brow
A coronet of twelve bright golden stars:
She crieth out and travaileth in pain
To be delivered of the Child of Truth,
Which is, in love, to rule mankind as one,
The one great body in the Spirit Christ[[156]]
Who cometh now a second time to man
Through her who clothes him with a mortal form,
Our Holy Mother in the Living God.
And yet about the woman, as of old,
Damned Satan’s lurks, with seven diadems—
The dragon stands as knowledge of the World,
Which would devour the holy child of God.
But so-called knowledge is not ever true,
Frail mortals know not that the states of Heaven
Permit below themselves the states of Hell
To be—that mortals there may feel the Truth—
The everlasting fire, consuming Self—
Destroying all the former things in man
Through fiery sufferings induced by self,
Through freedom granted by a Loving God.
The Universal King in love ordains
That man shall ever reap the crop he sows,
And so the Woman clothed with the Sun,
Who sows the seed of love amongst mankind,
Shall reap the fruits of love in Heaven—her home—
Where happiness and peace eternal reign,
Wherein the dragon hath no place—no power.
All hail! thou glorious Bride, in Light array’d,
O, woman, clothed with the Bridegroom’s Power,[[157]]
Arise and shine! The time is now at hand
To change this earth into a heaven bright,
This hell into a paradise of Saints;
Through thee alone can mortals rise from earth
To soar into Eternity—God’s Peace;
Through thee alone can man perceive the light—
The Sun of Wisdom,[[158]] which shall soon appear
Acknowledged King supreme of all that is,
Which He hath made in love for all mankind.
Woman! behold a groaning world awaits
The crushing of the Serpent’s power through thee;
Look on the fairest cities of this globe,
In misery the love-starved of the earth
Now walk the streets; whilst degradation vile
Confronts them in their daily—hourly lives,
Because mankind will sell itself for gold
To one, who is the prince of hell; he rules
The States of falsehood in this mortal world
Wherein the moaning of tormented souls
Appeals to God[[159]] in mortal agony
To ease the burdens of their earthly lives
By teaching them of thee, O Queen of Heaven!
* * * * *
Woman, behold the sighing, wretchedness,
Depravity, disease and death on earth!
Pure life has left these mortals who transgress
The laws of God by being of the world;
They know not happiness and peace and thee.
Thou art of nations all, the Saving Health.
Stretch forth thine hands and save, O Queen of Heaven!
* * * * *
Woman! behold the man of war exists
Whose work it is to shed the blood of him
Who truly is a portion of thyself;
Nay more, thine ALL, within this weary state;
The Father of thy loved ones in the flesh!
How long wilt thou permit ungodly strife
To keep thee from thy lawful throne on earth,
The one great Empire that shall bow to thee,
That thou alone can’st rule, Queen of the South?[[160]]
O, Bride of Heaven, thou knowest well that He—
The Son of Man—thy bridegroom—came to save,
Not to destroy, the lives of men on earth![[161]]
* * * * *
Great Spirit Love! Bright Queen of Highest Heaven,
Send forth thy potent force, and let it fire
The hearts of all within this little sphere;
Show worldly rulers in their sinful states
That thou alone art Queen of all Mankind;
And in these petty princes of the earth
Destroy, we pray thee, all the mortal lusts
Of self, of gold, and praise, and feeble power,
Implanted in their natures by the one
Who rules them with their subjects in this hell
Created by themselves through ignorance
Of thee, O, Spirit Love, Blest Queen of Heaven!
Wm. C. Eldon Serjeant.
London, 28th January, 1888.
EDITORS’ NOTE.
This second part of the three which form the bulk of the poem called “Twilight Visions” by their author—from a purely Kabalistic standpoint of universal symbolical Esotericism, is most suggestive. Its literary value is apparent. But literary form in occultism counts for nothing in such mystic writing if its spirit is sectarian—if the symbolism fails in universal application or lacks correctness. In this, Part II., however (of the third to come we can yet say nothing), the Christian-Judæan names may be altered and replaced by their Sanskrit or Egyptian equivalents, and the ideas will remain the same. It seems written in the universal “mystery-language,” and may be readily understood by an occultist, of whatever school or nationality. Nor will any true mystic, versed in that international tongue, whose origin is lost in the dark night of pre-historic ages, fail to recognise a true Brother, who has adopted the phraseology of the Initiates of the ancient Judæan Tanaim—Daniel and St. John of the Apocalypse—and partially that of the Christian Gnostics, only to be the more readily understood by the profane of Christian lands. Yet the author means precisely the same thing that would be in the mind of any Brahminical or Buddhist Initiate, who, while deploring the present degenerated state of things, would place all his hope in the transient character of even the Kali Yuga, and trust in the speedy coming of the Kalki Avatar. We say again, the divine Science and Wisdom—Theosophia—is universal and common property, and the same under every sky. It is the physical type and the outward appearance in the dress, that make of one individual a Chinaman and of another a European, and of a third a red-skinned American. The inner man is one, and all are “Sons of God” by birth-right.
The editors regret that, by an over-sight, the sub-title, “The Cross,” that headed Part I. of “Twilight Visions,” published in our January number, should have been omitted.