University of Virginia Library

Whoso would Wisdom know, must learn her birth.

Never is Silence. Love with the Beloved
Still communes, in the Spirit uncreate:
Desire immortal for the Eternal One,
In One Immortal; Substance Infinite,
In one Unchanging Form; fruition, too.
Love, hid in light, self-mirroured, looks on Life;
When in the eyes of him on whom he looks,
Grows Likeness of his glory, and his grace;
The Lovelike, and the Godlike: speaking, straight,
He names her, ‘Wisdom, the Beloved One;’
—Whence she responds, ‘O Truth, my spouse thou art:’—
Thus he replies, ‘The Beautiful art thou.’
She, silent, then, in modesty submiss,
Bows to sublime perfection; cheered, anon,
And shielded by the shadow of his power.
—Offspring to them are born, fair progeny
Of intuition, Angel called, or Man;
Exhaustless Plenitude, and boundless Love,
Whose everlasting Blessedness delights
In the eternal Lovelike; of himself
The undecaying Wisdom, indistinct,
Inseparate from his essence; and in her
Creates, anew, perpetual Beauty's self,
Of her the Image, as herself of him,
Both in his Word summed up, the Word in them,
God all-in-all, and Man in his Idea,
The Lovelike object of creating Love.
One Being Man, of various characters,
Companion of the Angel, type to all
The hosts of heaven, well named the Sons of God,
As he to all the sons of men on earth;
Hence one called Adonai, Heaven's Lord,
First Adam, he, and second; one, Lucifer,
Star of its morning, regent of its dawn,
To whom is given of Paradise the charge.

Never is Silence. The Eternal Word
Bespeaks the Eternal Love for evermore.
‘As Thee I contemplate, so Man to me
Looks up, and by the Vision held, sees nought
Distinct, not even himself, and we but make
One age, one life, whereof each other flows.’
Hence are the Generations of the Heavens,
The Earths: such is the Principle unchanged,
Wherein subsists the changing Universe;
The Mystery wherein All lives, and moves,
And hath its being; One the Father—Love,
One Son, one Spirit, and the Wisdom one,
That springs from their communion, ever fair.
And thus revolve the Days in that One Day
Eternal, wherein He—the First, and Last—
Makes all the worlds, ere yet they roll in space,
And every plant, and herb, ere in the ground,
And Man, and sons of men, ere in the womb,
Ere space, seed, ground, or Man, or Woman is.
Such are the Words, and Works, and Days of God.

Increase, nor diminution suffering,
The sum of matter in the universe
Remains the same, each atom, force or power
Interdependent, needful to the whole;
No time could ever have been wanting one,
Else had at once entire Creation lapsed;
Wherefore, Creation's act is simultane,
The Whole coeval with its sundry Parts;
Presuming an Idea, wherein the Whole
Preceded them; in whose perception Time
Has his beginning; in whose interchange
Stormy, or calm, in progress, or at rest,
Not absolute, Time hath his history.
The Whole, withouten Parts, is the Eternal;
The Parts, contained Creation. Know, the Point
That is without or depth, or length, or breadth,
Is God; the prior Whole of substance, God:
And the Idea which contains the whole,
The Principle, Beginning absolute,
Eternity. Yet further to explain
What thy inquiry would demand, learn this:
“Withoutness” is the Bound extern; as 'twere
The circles' sphere infolding its contents—
“Withness” is just the sum of its contents,
Short of the limit. To the Universe
Such bound, and limit is the Infinite;
Such Infinite is God. Express it thus:
—In his Eternity, the Eternal One
Produces simultane his Universe,
And Infinitely bounds it; Heavens, and Earths.
Or thus:—In his Beginning, the Divine
Quickens, initiates, and comprehends
All other Being. Ask you, what is that
Beginning? I reply—his self-beholding.
—Divine Intelligence, by an eterne
Self-contemplation, from his being throws
The Intelligible, as his act, his image—
An absolute whole—one Work, or wondrous World,
All works, and worlds including—one great Word,
Or Affirmation, all the languages,
And modes of affirmation: whereupon
He looks for aye, whereto he ever lists.
Such act, the primal point in motion; thus
Its proper space, and sphere describing; grants
Enough to him who seeks such postulate,
Whereby to frame the Universe at will.

Whilst I was sitting lonely in my tent,
Chewing the cud of thoughts abstruse as these,
Thoughts of our Father, Adam, thronged my mind.
And, ah, the dearness of his memory
Is very tender; how intense the love
Wherewith on it we dwell. ‘Yet death,’ said I,
‘Will make the loving mute, like the beloved.
Their forms, indeed, in lasting marble dure,
Or live awhile in colour; but their words
Die mostly with articulated air.
How few survive in signs—that want the flow
Of rapid speech, the continuity
Of sequent eloquence, of which they give
The meaning scarce, expression not at all—
Figures of things, and creatures visible,
By the peruser self-interpreted.
And love, and duty may wax cold in most,
As they have soon in many; and the lips
Of witnesses reluctantly repeat
The things that once they knew: and, at the best,
They mingle minds, and feelings in the tale.
O that a record might be found, which, like
The stars, might shine unaltered; like a moon,
Reflect the shadow of each absent sun.’
—Then on the Altar built by Seth I looked;
And on the holy Symbols there engraved,
The Sun, and Moon, and girdle of the Stars;
On Eve, and Adam, on those mystic Trees
Twined with the Serpent, and that Form Divine,
Who, more than Angel in serenity,
Spake to them all. Next, meditating deep,
Thus I rehearsed the meaning of the same,
My evening task, for better memory.

From Eden's wild, the Word of God brought Man,
Whom he had formed of dust, and into whom
Had breathed the breath of lives; and planted him,
Eastward of Eden, in a Paradise
Prepared for his reception. From the ground
Grew every tree, was pleasant to the sight,
And good for food:—also, the Tree of Lives,
Within the Garden's midst; and, near, the Tree
Of Knowledge, bearing fruit of good and ill.
From Eden, too, there went a River forth,
To water it. The new-made Man was placed,
To dress and keep his fair inheritance.
Of all the garden he might freely eat,
Save of the Tree of Knowledge—‘this the Law,
Which violated, thou shalt surely die.’
Man was alone; to cure his solitude,
Were brought to him the cattle of the field,
Beasts of the forest, and the birds of air;
And what he called them, that the name of each.
But this sufficed not. He was more alone,
They absent, than before. Then slept the Man;
And while he slumbered, from his opened side
The Word took substance; of it Woman formed;
And shewed her to him waking, saying then
To them—‘Your name is Adam.’ Naked both,
The Man and Wife, yet unashamed were they.
Visions had Adam in the creant sleep
That teemed with living Eve. ‘Methought,’ said he,
‘I was embraced, almost absorbed in God,
So strong divine attraction; when a shock
Repulsed me from his bosom, and I lay,
Confused with terrour, smitten on the earth;
Alone; and felt me Man. Nought else I felt,
Nought else distinctly; for the earth itself
Seemed only part of me: nor felt apart;
For all seemed felt at once. Each power, each act,
Law, principle, idea, thought, and thing,
Were present in the selfsame consciousness,
As if to prove me being; these I named,
In marvel at their number, then as one
Resumed, and called them all myself. But, soon,
I yearned for Otherness; and, as I yearned,
An Image of Myself formed in my heart,
And took the shape of Eve, whom then I loved,
Ere, with these eyes, I saw. She when beheld,
Earth was not, for her Beauty proved a veil
On nature; only sense for her I had,
And all created else was unperceived.
At length, the veil withdrawn, a little space,
I looked up to the heavens, then to the hills,
And gazed upon the slope, the winding streams,
The valleys, forests, and the flowered grass;
Then, turned again to her, saw only her.
Then her would I bespeak, and she reply,
And when I next looked forth, I spake to them,
And winds, and torrents answered—sounds, not words.
Then questioned I; if they, like us, had mind?
Till on a day they were revealed in glory,
For all whereon we looked became as water,
Wherein we might behold ourselves reflected.
There stood Two like Ourselves, more radiant they;
Female, and male: Divine humanities;
The Eternal Word, the Wisdom Infinite.
Brief while, they stayed; for then the sunset came,
Twilight, and darkness; prayer, and sleep, and dreams.’

Now, was the Serpent of more subtle kind,
Than any living creature of the field—
And he found voice, and to the Woman spake,
Of that same Tree of Knowledge. She replied,
‘We may not eat of it, or even touch,
Lest we should die.’ ‘Ye shall not surely die.’
The Serpent answered—‘but shall be as gods,
Knowing both good, and evil.’ Soon she saw,
How good for food, and pleasant to the eye
The Tree prohibited; desirable
To make the eater wise: she plucked, and ate;
And to her Husband with her gave of it.

Straight were their eyes enlightened, and they knew
That they were naked; sought themselves to clothe
With fig leaves sewed.

'Twas in the cool of day,
When walked the Word of God in Paradise—
They heard his voice, and 'mong the garden trees
Concealed them from his presence. ‘Where art thou?’
Thus spake the Voice—and Man responded thus.
‘I heard thy voice; being naked, was afraid,
And hid myself.’ ‘Who told thee,’ spake the Voice,
‘That thou wert naked—hast thou broke the Law
And eaten of the Tree?’ The Man replied,
‘The Woman gave to me, and I did eat.’
The Woman said—‘The Serpent me beguiled.’
Then to the Serpent thus—‘For this thou art
Otherwise doomed than any creature else;
To crawl upon thy womb, and dust to eat:
Between thee, and the Woman; and between
Thy seed, and hers; is henceforth Enmity.
For he shall bruise thy head, and thou his heel.’

Thus spake the Voice; next to the Woman said,
‘Thy travail, and conception multiply;
In sorrow shalt thou bring thy children forth;
Desire thy husband, and be swayed by him.’

Last to the Man. ‘Appointed is the ground,
Because of thee, in sorrow to be reaped—
For thorns, and thistles shall grow up therein,
Though of the herb permitted thee to eat.
The sweating of thy brow shall earn thee bread,
Till to the ground, whence thou wert formed, restored—
For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.’

His doom thus heard; the Man his Wife addressed,
‘Thy name be Eve; Mother of all art thou.’

Then Death was known. For He who spake to them
From the slain Lamb bereft the woolly skin,
And covered Adam, and his Wife withal—
Saying, ‘Behold, the Man has now become
As one of Us, of evil, and of good
Intelligent. Lest he his hand put forth,
And pluck the fruitage from the Tree of Lives,
And eat, and live for ever, fit he go
Forth from this paradise, to till the ground
Whence he was taken.’

So he drave him forth,
Eve following; and placed his Cherubim
East of the Garden, templed in the flame,
A fiery pillar, turning on itself,
Irradiant, guarding thus the Tree of Lives.

So meditating, lost in deepest thoughts,
My heart burned. Then forth issued I, to fall,
Adoring, in the presence of my God,
Before the Cherubim that guard the gate
Of Eden. There I came. How gloriously
The fiery pillar, self-involved, revealed
Its glory, from the glory inshrining it,
Its tabernacle. Ever as it rose
Sublimer, in pyramid majesty,
Back on itself in wrath divine it rolled,
Averting from the sinner penal death,
In act reflex, and terrours merciful.
So thick the terrours, I nought else discerned;
Yet thus I prayed to Him whose name is Love.
‘Creatour, thou hast made thy universe
A pattern of thy power, a mirrour gross
Of things divine, invisible. And all
Thy works are words: and every word of man
Embodies, in created thing, the thought
Thus only understood. Even as himself
Was in thine image made, and only there
Finds image of himself, in what of thee
Inferiour image is. And thou hast set
Thy Cherubim, the representatives
Of majesty divine, thy witnesses;
And gloriously they testify of thee,
When from the bosom of the thunder-cloud
The lightning flashes, and the choral peals
Reverberate thy holiness, and shake
The mercy-seat whereon thou sitst enthroned.
And human thought than lightning swifter, words
Impetuous as the thunder, ill reports
Aught foreign from the spirit whence they came.
Thine is that spirit, and its skill is thine;
Thou taughtest language to our father: now
Teach wisdom to his sons; and, of the same,
Perpetual register for memory,
An adequate memorial for the mind,
Surer than speech, and ampler than what eye,
Albeit excursive, comprehends alone.’

Thus prayed I, and was silent. From the Cone,
The Living Spirit audibly pronounced
My name. I lifted up my eyes, and lo,
Michael before me stood; his glory veiled,
As man with man, in majesty subdued.
‘Thy prayer is heard,’ . . he said. ‘The Lord, who gives
All understanding, and intelligence,
Hath heard thy prayer, and answered it by me.
—This Tablet take, and deeply contemplate,
Which God shall teach thee rightly to peruse.’
'Tis of the Six Days' Work, and Seventh's rest.
What there thou findst transcribe; and add thereto,
What thou hast learned of Providence, and God.’

With grateful heart, I took the precious gift;
Nor left me then the Angel, but, with kind,
And affable attention, me beside
Stood, while I read, and helped me to the sense;
And, after I had read, departed pleased.