ILLUMINATION
I
With native ease the serpent sloughs his skin,
But cannot change his old snake-heart within;
Man does not lay his outward form aside,
Yet can his old life from his new divide.
II
The simple words which follow shall direct
Right well and pleasantly all hearts elect,
And little children of the world to come;
But unto others be in meaning dumb—
Vague voices which delight on inward seas—
All storm and wrath—in cryptic images:
May hearts that read these maxims sweetly reach—
Late, if not soon—the truths exceeding speech!
III
What makes us say that underneath the sun
The toil we call our own is toil undone—
Finds work, when others sleep, for hand and heart,
And from repose shapes obstacles to art?
It is the sense of trust which burdens thought:
In these wild ways, ungovern'd and untaught,
We came some solemn purpose to fulfil,
But till encompass'd in its whole extent
We cannot prove that we indeed were sent,
Nor yet be sure we do the Master's will.
IV
Something has gone before us in the past,
And something more must follow at the last.
V
Man enters life expectant, and departs
With expectation in his heart of hearts.
VI
He dwelt in darkness ere his birth occurr'd
And oft in darkness still his strife is heard,
Toiling a higher title to attain:
His throes are those of being born again.
VII
The universe he enters here bestows
Such earthly lights on him as Nature knows,
And sustenance is his from brimming wells
Of its white sacraments and parables;
Through all its veils the presages are brought
Of greater orders—passing human thought—
Which interpenetrate at times our own:
In Grace and Nature nothing stands alone.
VIII
When souls come down into this world they take
The letter of the books, their thirst to slake;
The spirit in the Temple's place conferr'd
Is in the inmost Temple only heard;
And that which darkness doth from dawn divide
Renders it always night, the soul outside.
IX
As every witness in the heart avers,
No dispensation of the light occurs,
Save in that shrine which earth's eye never sees,
The place withdrawn of the Great Mysteries.
Subject and object there Plotinus found
United truly on a common ground.
What place is that? Ye neophytes—it lurks
Deep in the heart of these external works!
X
High rites in all their stages can dispense
Only the sanctuary's secret sense,
And can at most in empty hearts arouse
The hunger for the beauty of the House.
XI
Now, last, remember that which none deny—
Clean life can enter into sanctity,
And yet no mere morality shall gain
That vision which the pure in heart attain.
XII
But what is raised magnetically draws
All things to reach it: this is law of laws.
XIII
A golden ring unites such scatter'd Keys,
Which open portals to the Mysteries.
