The Devil might act as moderator there,
And do mankind some service.
In his way.
But I care neither for men’s souls nor bodies.
What say you to the law? are you ambitious?
Nor do I mind for other people’s business.
I have no heart for their predicaments:
I am for myself. I measure ever thing
By, what is it to me? from which I find
I have but little in common with the mass,
Except my meals and so forth; dress and sleep.
I have that within me I can live upon:
Spider-like, spin my place out anywhere.
To none of all die arts and sciences—
Astronomy nor entomology,
Nor gunnery, for instance, then you feel
Attracted heartily and mentally?
Why no; there are so many rise and fall,
One knows not which to choose. As for the stars,
I never look on them without dismay.
Earth has outrun them in our modern mind,
By worlds of odds. Enough for us, it seems,
And our cold calculators to jot down
Their revolutions, distances, and squares;—
And the bright laws which stars and spirits rule,
Are all laid out and buried grave on grave.
The fourfold worlds and elemental spheres,
Which in concentric circles, like the ring
That the magician stands in, from on high
Give spiritual calling to our earth,
And lord it over her, yet in such wise,
That still by them we may conjoin our souls
Unto the starry spirits of all worlds;
Beyond the changed mansions of the moon,
Beyond the burning heart of heaven, where dwell
The governors of nature and the blest,
All knowing spirits and celestial,
And divine demons; are all gone—extinct.
There is no danger now of knowing aught
Which ought not to be known. No more of that!—
And you, ye planetary sons of light!
From him who hovereth, moth-like, round the sun
To six-mooned Uranus, Light’s loftiest round.
Tour aspects, dignities, ascendancies,
Tour partile quartiles, and your plastic trines,
And all your Heavenly houses and effects,
Shall meet no more devout expounders here.
You too, ye juried signs, earth’s sunny path
Upon her wheeling orbit, all farewell!
Your exaltations and triplicities,
Fiery, airy, and the rest; your falls,
And detriments, and governments, and gifts,
Are all abolished. Henceforth ye shall shine
In vain to man. Diurnal, cardinal,
Nocturnal, equinoctial, hot or dry,
Earthy, or moist, or feminine, or fixed,
Luxurious, violent, bicorporate,
Masculine, barren, and commanding, cold,
Fruitful or watery, or what not, now
It matters nothing. The joy of Jupiter,
The exaltation of the Dragon’s head,
The sun’s triplicity and glorious
Day house on high, the moon’s dim detriment,
And all the starry inclusions of all signs—
Shall rise, and rule, and pass, and no one know
That there are spirit-rulers of all worlds,
Which fraternise with earth, and, though unknown,
Hold in the shining voices of the stars
Communion on high, ever and everywhere.—
The mystic charm of numbers, and the sole
Oneness which is in all, of nature’s great
Triadic principle, in all things, seen;
In man thus, as composed of thrice three forms
Intrinsic; first, corporeally, blood,
Body, and bones; next, intellectively,
Imagination, judgment, memory;
And thirdly, spiritually, mind and soul,
And spirit, which unites with God the whole
Being, and comes from and returns to Him—
Allures no more man’s mind debased. Thus, too,
Of alchemy; the golden starry stone,
Invisible, the principle of life,
The quintessence of all the elements,
Is still unbought;—still flows the stream of pearl
Beneath the magic mountain; still the scent
As of a thousand amaranthine wreaths, which lures
All life unto its sweetness, floats around
Mistlike, the shining bath where Luna laves,
Or Sol, bright brother of that mooned maid,
Triumphs in light;—the spiritual sun,
The Heavenly Earth smaragdine, and the fire
Spirit of life, the live land still exist,
Immortally, internally unseen.—
Still breathes the Paradisal air around
The universal whole; the watery fire,
Destructive, yet impalpable to sense,
The initial and conclusion of the world,
Yea, the beginning and the end of Death,
The secret which is shared ’tween God and man,
And which is nature only, wholly, still
In Heavenly gloom incomprehensible
Wait the Deific will; yea, still the light
Whereto all elements contribute, burns
About us and within us, world and soul;—
The primal sperm and matter of the world,
Whose centre is the limit of all things—
The snowy gold, the star and spirit seed
Which is to render rich and deathless all—
The self-begot, self-wedded, and self-born,
Which the wind carries in its womb, all have,
And few receive; the spirit of the earth,
The water of immortal life still lives:—
The universal solvent of disease
Still bounds through nature’s veins; and still, in fine,
The secrets only to be told by fire
Starry or beamless, central and extreme,
Burn to be born. And other natures may
Use them, and do. In Demogorgon’s hall
Still sits the universal mystery
Throned in itself and ministered unto
By its own members:—Man, alas! alone,
The recreant spirit of the universe,
Contemns the operations of the light;
Loves surface-knowledge; calls the crimes of crowds
Virtue: adores the useful vices; licks
The gory dust from off the feet of war,
And swears it food for gods, though fit for fiends
Only:—reversing just the Devil’s state
When first he entered on this orb of man’s—
A fallen angel’s form, a reptile’s soul.
Oh! this is libellous to man and fiend
And brute together.
All are art and part
Of the same mystic treason. But enough;—
The most material, immaterial
Departments of pure wisdom are despised.
For well we know that, properly prepared,
Souls self-adapted knowledge to receive
Are by the truth desired, illumined; man’s
Spirit, extolled, dilated, clarified,
By holy meditation and divine
Lore, fits him to convene with purer powers
Which do unseen surround us aye and gladden
In human good and exaltation; thus
The face of Heaven is not more clear to one,
Than to another outwardly; but one
By strong intention of his soul perceives,
Attracts, unites himself to essences
And elemental spirits of wider range
And more beneficent nature, by whose aid
Occasion, circumstance, futurity
Impress on him their image, and impart
Their secrets to his soul; thus chance and lot
Are sacred things; thus dreams are verities.
But oh! alas for all earth’s loftier lore,
And spiritual sympathy of worlds!—
There shall be no more magic nor cabala,
Nor Rosicrucian nor Alchymic lore,
Nor fairy fantasies; no more hobgoblins,
Nor ghosts, nor imps, nor demons. Conjurors.
Enchanters, witches, wizards, shall all die
Hopeless and heirless; their divining arts
Supernal or infernal—dead with them.
And so ’twill doubtless be with other things
In time; therefore I will commit my brain
To none of them.
Perchance ’twere wiser not.
Man’s heart hath not half uttered itself yet,
And much remains to do as
