While we live within four walls we half insensibly lose something of our naturalness and comport ourselves as creatures of the civilization we belong to. But we never really feel at home there, though childhood may have wreathed round with tender memories old rooms and the quaint garden-places of happy unthinking hours.

There is a house, a temple not built with hands; perhaps we thought it a mere cabin when we first formed it, and laid aside humbly many of our royal possessions as we entered, for the heavens and the heaven of heavens could not contain all of our glory. But now it seems vast enough, and we feel more at home there, and we find places which seem nearer of access to our first life. Such are the mountains. As I lie here on the monstrous mould of the hillside covered with such delicate fringes of tiny green leaves, I understand something of his longing who said: "I lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my aid." Oh, but the air is sweet, is sweet.

Earth-breath, what is it you whisper? As I listen, listen, I know it is no whisper but a chant from profoundest deeps, a voice hailing its great companions in the aether s.p.a.ces, but whose innumerable tones in their infinite modulations speak clear to us also in our littleness. Our lips are stilled with awe; we dare not repeat what here we think. These mountains are sacred in our Celtic traditions. Haunt of the mysteries, here the Tuatha de Danaans once had their home. We sigh, thinking of the vanished glory, but look with hope for the fulfilment of the prophecy which the seer of another line left on record, that once more the Druid fires should blaze on these mountains. As the purple amplitude of night enfold them, already the dark mounds seem to throw up their sheeny illuminations; great shadowy forms, the shepherds of our race, to throng and gather; the many-coloured winds to roll their aerial tides. .h.i.ther and thither. Eri, hearth and home of so many mystic races, Isle of Destiny, there shall yet return to thee the spiritual magic that thrilled thee long ago. As we descend and go back to a life, not the life we would will, not the life we will have, we think with sorrow of the pain, the pa.s.sion, the partings, through which our race will once more return to nature, spirit and freedom.

We turned back mad from the mystic mountains All foamed with red and with faery gold; Up from the heart of the twilight's fountains The fires enchanted were starward rolled.

We turned back mad--we thought of the morrow, The iron clang of the far-away town: We could not weep in our bitter sorrow But joy as an arctic sun went down.

--May 15, 1896

Works and Days

When we were boys with what anxiety we watched for the rare smile on the master's face ere we preferred a request for some favor, a holiday or early release. There was wisdom in that. As we grow up we act more or less consciously upon intuitions as to time and place. My companion, I shall not invite you to a merrymaking when a bitter moment befalls you and the flame of life sinks into ashes in your heart; nor yet, however true and trusted, will I confide to you what inward revelations of the mysteries I may have while I sense in you a momentary outwardness. The gifts of the heart are too sacred to be laid before a closed door. Your mood, I know, will pa.s.s, and tomorrow we shall have this bond between us. I wait, for it can be said but once: I cannot commune magically twice on the same theme with you. I do not propose we should be opportunists, nor lay down a formula; but to be skillful in action we must work with and comprehend the ebb and flow of power. Mystery and gloom, dark blue and starshine, doubt and feebleness alternate with the clear and shining, opal skies and sunglow, heroic ardor and the exultation of power. Ever varying, prismatic and fleeting, the days go by and the secret of change eludes us here. I bend the bow of thought at a mark and it is already gone. I lay the shaft aside and while unprepared the quarry again fleets by. We have to seek elsewhere for the source of that power which momentarily overflows into our world and transforms it with its enchantment.

On the motions of an inner sphere, we are told, all things here depend; on spheres of the less evanescent which, in their turn, are enclosed in spheres of the real, whose solemn chariot movements again are guided by the inflexible will of Fire. In all of these we have part.

This dim consciousness which burns in my brain is not all of myself.

Behind me it widens out and upward into G.o.d. I feel in some other world it shines with purer light: in some sphere more divine than this it has a larger day and a deeper rest. That day of the inner self illuminates many of our mortal days; its night leaves many of them dark. And so the One Ray expanding lives in many vestures.

It is last of all the King-Self who wakes at the dawn of ages, whose day is the day of Brahma, whose rest is his rest. Here is the clue to cyclic change, to the individual feebleness and power, the gloom of one epoch and the glory of another. The Bright Fortnight, the Northern Sun, Light and Flame name the days of other spheres, and wandering on from day to day man may at last reach the end of his journey. You would pa.s.s from rapidly revolving day and night to where the mystical sunlight streams. The way lies through yourself and the portals open as the inner day expands. Who is there who has not felt in some way or other the rhythmic recurrence of light within? We were weary of life, baffled, ready to forswear endeavor, when half insensibly a change comes over us; we doubt no more but do joyfully our work; we renew the sweet magical affinities with nature: out of a heart more laden with love we think and act; our meditations prolong themselves into the shining wonderful life of soul; we tremble on the verge of the vast halls of the G.o.ds where their mighty speech may be heard, their message of radiant will be seen. They speak a universal language not for themselves only but for all. What is poetry but a mingling of some tone of theirs with the sounds that below we utter? What is love but a breath of their very being? Their every mood has colors beyond the rainbow; every thought rings in far-heard melody. So the G.o.ds speak to each other across the expanses of ethereal light, breaking the divine silences with words which are deeds. So, too, they speak to the soul. Mystics of all time have tried to express it, likening it to peals of faery bells, the singing of enchanted birds, the clanging of silver cymbals, the organ voices of wind and water bent together--but in vain, in vain. Perhaps in this there is a danger, for the true is realized in being and not in perception. The G.o.ds are ourselves beyond the changes of time which hara.s.s and vex us here. They do not demand adoration but an equal will to bind us consciously in unity with themselves. The heresy of separateness cuts us asunder in these enraptured moments; but when thrilled by the deepest breath, when the silent, unseen, uncomprehended takes possession of thee, think "Thou art That,"

and something of thee will abide for ever in It. All thought not based on this is a weaving of new bonds, of illusions more difficult to break; it begets only more pa.s.sionate longing and pain.

Still we must learn to know the hidden ways, to use the luminous rivers for the commerce of thought. Our Druid forefathers began their magical operations on the sixth day of the new moon, taking the Bright Fortnight at its flood-time. In these hours of expansion what we think has more force, more freedom, more electric and penetrating power. We find too, if we have co-workers, that we draw from a common fountain, the same impulse visits us and them.

What one possess all become possessed of; and something of the same unity and harmony arises between us here as exists for all time between us in the worlds above. While the currents circulate we are to see to it that they part from us no less pure than they came.

To this dawn of an inner day may in some measure be traced the sudden inspirations of movements, such as we lately feel, not all due to the abrupt descent into our midst of a new messenger, for the elder Brothers work with law and foresee when nature, time, and the awakening souls of men will aid them. Much may now be done. On whosoever accepts, acknowledges and does the will of the Light in these awakenings the die and image of divinity is more firmly set, his thought grows more consciously into the being of the presiding G.o.d. Yet not while seeking for ourselves can we lay hold of final truths, for then what we perceive we retain but in thought and memory.

The Highest is a motion, a breath. We become it only in the imparting.

It is in all, for all and goes out to all. It will not be restrained in a narrow basin, but through the free-giver it freely flows.

There are throngs innumerable who await this gift. Can we let this most ancient light which again returns to us be felt by them only as a vague emotion, a little peace of uncertain duration, a pa.s.sing sweetness of the heart? Can we not do something to allay the sorrow of the world? My brothers, the time of opportunity has come. One day in the long-marshaled line of endless days has dawned for our race, and the buried treasure-houses in the bosom of the deep have been opened to endow it with more light, to fill it with more power.

The divine ascetics stand with torches lit before the temple of wisdom.

Those who are nigh them have caught the fire and offer to us in turn to light the torch, the blazing torch of soul. Let us accept the gift and pa.s.s it on, pointing out the prime givers. We shall see in time the eager races of men starting on their pilgrimage of return and facing the light. So in the mystical past the call of light was seen on the sacred hills; the rays were spread and gathered; and returning with them the initiate-children were buried in the Father-Flame.

--June 15, 1896

The Childhood of Apollo

It was long ago, so long that only the spirit of earth remembers truly. The old shepherd t.i.thonius sat before the door of his hut waiting for his grandson to return. He watched with drowsy eyes the eve gather, and the woods and mountains grow dark over the isles-- the isles of ancient Greece. It was Greece before its day of beauty, and day was never lovelier. The cloudy blossoms of smoke curling upward from the valley sparkled a while high up in the sunlit air, a vague memorial of the world of men below. From that too the colour vanished, and those other lights began to shine which to some are the only lights of day. The skies dropped close upon the mountains and the silver seas, like a vast face brooding with intentness; there was enchantment, mystery, and a living motion in its depths, the presence of all-pervading Zeus enfolding his starry children with the dark radiance of aether.

"Ah!" murmured the old man, looking upward, "once it was living; once it spoke to me. It speaks not now, but it speaks to others I know--to the child who looks and longs and trembles in the dewy night. Why does he linger now? He is beyond his hour. Ah, there now are his footsteps!"

A boy came up the valley driving the grey flocks which tumbled before him in the darkness. He lifted his young face for the shepherd to kiss. It was alight with ecstasy. t.i.thonius looked at him with wonder. A light golden and silvery rayed all about the him so that his delicate ethereal beauty seemed set in a star which followed his dancing footsteps.

"How bright your eyes!" the old man said, faltering with sudden awe.

"Why do your white limbs shine with moonfire light?"

"Oh, father," said the boy Apollo, "I am glad, for everything is living tonight. The evening is all a voice and many voices. While the flocks were browsing night gathered about me: I saw within it and it was living everywhere; and all together, the wind with dim- blown tresses, odour, incense and secret-falling dew, mingled in one warm breath. They whispered to me and called me 'Child of the Stars,' 'Dew Heart,' and 'Soul of Fire.' Oh, father, as I came up the valley the voices followed me with song; everything murmured love; even the daffodils, nodding in the olive gloom, grew golden at my feet, and a flower within my heart knew of the still sweet secret of the flowers. Listen, listen!"

There were voices in the night, voices as of star-rays descending.

"Now the roof-tree of the midnight spreading Buds in citron, green, and blue: From afar its mystic odors shedding, Child, on you."

Then other sweet speakers from beneath the earth, and from the distant waters and air followed in benediction, and a last voice like a murmur from universal Nature:

"Now the buried stars beneath the mountains And the vales their life renew, Jetting rainbow blooms from tiny fountains, Child, for you.

"As within our quiet waters pa.s.sing Sun and moon and stars we view, So the loveliness of life is gla.s.sing, Child, in you.

"In the diamond air the sun-star glowing Up its feathered radiance threw; All the jewel glory there was flowing, Child, for you.

"And the fire divine in all things burning Yearns for home and rest anew, From its wanderings far again returning, Child, to you."

"Oh, voices, voices," cried the child, "what you say I know not, but I ray back love for love. Father, what is it they tell me?

They embosom me in light and I am far away even though I hold your hand."

"The G.o.ds are about us. Heaven mingles with the earth," said t.i.thonius trembling. "Let us go to Diotima. She has grown wise brooding for many a year where the great caves lead to the underworld.

She sees the bright ones as they pa.s.s by where she sits with shut eyes, her drowsy lips murmuring as nature's self."

That night the island seemed no more earth set in sea, but a music encircled by the silence. The trees long rooted in antique slumber were throbbing with rich life; through glimmering bark and drooping leaf a light fell on the old man and boy as they pa.s.sed, and vague figures nodded at them. These were the hamadryad souls of the wood.

They were bathed in tender colours and shimmering lights draping them from root to leaf. A murmur came from the heart of every one, a low enchantment breathing joy and peace. It grew and swelled until at last it seemed as if through a myriad pipes that Pan the earth spirit was fluting his magical creative song.

They found the cave of Diotima covered by vines and tangled strailers at the end of the island where the dark-green woodland rose up from the waters. t.i.thonius paused, for he dreaded this mystic prophetess; but a voice from within called them: "Come in, child of light; come in, old shepherd, I know why you seek me!" They entered, t.i.thonius trembling with more fear than before. A fire was blazing in a recess of the cavern and by it sat a majestic figure robed in purple. She was bent forward, her hand supporting her face, her burning eyes turned on the intruders.

"Come hither, child," she said, taking the boy by the hands and gazing into his face. "So this frail form is to be the home of the G.o.d. The G.o.ds choose wisely. They take no warrior wild, no mighty hero to be their messenger to men, but crown this gentle head. Tell me--you dream--have you ever seen a light from the sun falling upon you in your slumber? No, but look now; look upward."

As she spoke she waved her hands over him, and the cavern with its dusky roof seemed to melt away, and beyond the heavens the heaven of heavens lay dark in pure tranquillity, a quiet which was the very hush of being. In an instant it vanished and over the zenith broke a wonderful light. "See now," cried Diotima, "the Ancient Beauty! Look how its petals expand and what comes forth from its heart!" A vast and glowing breath, mutable and opalescent, spread itself between heaven and earth, and out of it slowly descended a radiant form like a G.o.d's. It drew nigh radiating lights, pure, beautiful, and starlike. It stood for a moment by the child and placed its hand on his head, and then it was gone. The old shepherd fell upon his face in awe, while the boy stood breathless and entranced.

"Go now," said the Sybil, "I can teach thee naught. Nature herself will adore you and sing through you her loveliest song. But, ah, the light you hail in joy you shall impart in tears. So from age to age the eternal Beauty bows itself down amid sorrows that the children of men may not forget it, that their anguish may be transformed smitten through by its fire."

--November 15, 1896

The Awakening of the Fires