The Book of the Holy Graal By Arthur Edward Waite |
 |
|
| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
| VIII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
| XI. |
| XII. |
| XIII. |
| XIV. |
| XV. |
| XVI. |
| XVII. |
| XVII. |
 | The Book of the Holy Graal |  |
“Yet must I speak: so only man shall know
That one unaided, voluntary act
Has taken to my heart the whole world's shame,
Even the unrepented yoke thereof,
For evermore. Who deems I err herein?
Nay, God in fine is mercy and would send
Some envoy surely of his hierarch-host
To turn my path, if I deceived myself—
To scourge me, were I blinded with my pride.
The unassisted agony wherein
This soul must keep shall over quickly quench
All shining spectacles of sacrifice;
Yet should I madden past the second death—
World—could I save thee not. And Thou, O Lord,
Make this self-ruin grateful in Thy sight,
But do not let one wrathful shaft of flame,
From Thine eyes scorch, but for a moment's space,
One fibre of man's being.
That one unaided, voluntary act
Has taken to my heart the whole world's shame,
Even the unrepented yoke thereof,
For evermore. Who deems I err herein?
Nay, God in fine is mercy and would send
Some envoy surely of his hierarch-host
To turn my path, if I deceived myself—
To scourge me, were I blinded with my pride.
The unassisted agony wherein
This soul must keep shall over quickly quench
All shining spectacles of sacrifice;
Yet should I madden past the second death—
World—could I save thee not. And Thou, O Lord,
Make this self-ruin grateful in Thy sight,
But do not let one wrathful shaft of flame,
From Thine eyes scorch, but for a moment's space,
One fibre of man's being.
“Man, forgive
This unskill'd harping on the creaking strings
Of my worn thought. Behold, I pass through life
Anonymous, unknown, who might have seal'd
Such mission with a gorgeous ministry,
Sending apostles and disciples forth
Through all the world, to conquer every heart,
To bid them cease from evil and so make
My stripes perchance the fewer. Through pleasant paths
Of rose-leaf creed, for all in truth but one,
Hereafter, haply I had led the earth
To temple me, so taking full delight
Of pomp and splendour from the peak of doom,
Self-poised o'er all in god-pre-eminence.
I might have met Diana the divine—
High love—upon a golden night of nights—
Yea, on some marriage-night of main and sky—
And in a silent, passion-haunted place,
On which the stars shed influence benign,
Where stars and moon concur, have known her grand
And holy secret. So for this, for all
Foregone, acquit me when my weakness calls
On distant pulse of love from those I love
To travel towards me through the sable voids.
Trust me, in fine, to hold thee freed. Spare all
Thou canst of all that hurts me. On my part
I do repent me not. With heart aflame,
Here I renew, a meek but stedfast man,
My godly sacrifice.
This unskill'd harping on the creaking strings
Of my worn thought. Behold, I pass through life
Anonymous, unknown, who might have seal'd
43
Sending apostles and disciples forth
Through all the world, to conquer every heart,
To bid them cease from evil and so make
My stripes perchance the fewer. Through pleasant paths
Of rose-leaf creed, for all in truth but one,
Hereafter, haply I had led the earth
To temple me, so taking full delight
Of pomp and splendour from the peak of doom,
Self-poised o'er all in god-pre-eminence.
I might have met Diana the divine—
High love—upon a golden night of nights—
Yea, on some marriage-night of main and sky—
And in a silent, passion-haunted place,
On which the stars shed influence benign,
Where stars and moon concur, have known her grand
And holy secret. So for this, for all
Foregone, acquit me when my weakness calls
On distant pulse of love from those I love
To travel towards me through the sable voids.
Trust me, in fine, to hold thee freed. Spare all
Thou canst of all that hurts me. On my part
I do repent me not. With heart aflame,
Here I renew, a meek but stedfast man,
My godly sacrifice.
“Refulgent light
Bared in the stormy West—fire-fill'd abyss—
A conscious life assume and hear my pledge.”
44
A conscious life assume and hear my pledge.”
| The Book of the Holy Graal | |