Trilogy (New Directions Classic)
Page 4
but my mind (yours)
has its peculiar ego-centric
personal approach
to the eternal realities,
and differs from every other
in minute particulars,
as the vein-paths on any leaf
differ from those of every other leaf
in the forest, as every snow-flake
has its particular star, coral or prism shape.
[39]
We have had too much consecration,
too little affirmation,
too much: but this, this, this
has been proved heretical,
too little: I know, I feel
the meaning that words hide;
they are anagrams, cryptograms,
little boxes, conditioned
to hatch butterflies …
[40]
For example:
Osiris equates O-sir-is or O-Sire-is;
Osiris,
the star Sirius,
relates resurrection myth
and resurrection reality
through the ages;
plasterer, crude mason,
not too well equipped, my thought
would cover deplorable gaps
in time, reveal the regrettable chasm,
bridge that before-and-after schism,
(before Abraham was I am)
uncover cankerous growths
in present-day philosophy,
in an endeavour to make ready,
as it were, the patient for the Healer;
correlate faith with faith,
recover the secret of Isis,
which is: there was One
in the beginning, Creator,
Fosterer, Begetter, the Same-forever
in the papyrus-swamp
in the Judean meadow.
[41]
Sirius:
what mystery is this?
you are seed,
corn near the sand,
enclosed in black-lead,
ploughed land.
Sirius:
what mystery is this?
you are drowned
in the river;
the spring freshets
push open the water-gates.
Sirius:
what mystery is this?
where heat breaks and cracks
the sand-waste,
you are a mist
of snow: white, little flowers.
[42]
O, Sire, is this the path?
over sedge, over dune-grass,
silently
sledge-runners pass.
O, Sire, is this the waste?
unbelievably,
sand glistens like ice,
cold, cold;
drawn to the temple-gate, O, Sire,
is this union at last?
[43]
Still the walls do not fall,
I do not know why;
there is zrr-hiss,
lightning in a not-known,
unregistered dimension;
we are powerless,
dust and powder fill our lungs
our bodies blunder
through doors twisted on hinges,
and the lintels slant
cross-wise;
we walk continually
on thin air
that thickens to a blind fog,
then step swiftly aside,
for even the air
is independable,
thick where it should be fine
and tenuous
where wings separate and open,
and the ether
is heavier than the floor,
and the floor sags
like a ship floundering ;
we know no rule
of procedure,
we are voyagers, discoverers
of the not-known,
the unrecorded;
we have no map;
possibly we will reach haven,
heaven.
TRIBUTE TO THE ANGELS
To Osbert Sitwell
… possibly we will reach haven,
heaven.
[1]
Hermes Trismegistus
is patron of alchemists;
his province is thought,
inventive, artful and curious;
his metal is quicksilver,
his clients, orators, thieves and poets;
steal then, O orator,
plunder, O poet,
take what the old-church
found in Mithra’s tomb,
candle and script and bell,
take what the new-church spat upon
and broke and shattered;
collect the fragments of the splintered glass
and of your fire and breath,
melt down and integrate,
re-invoke, re-create
opal, onyx, obsidian,
now scattered in the shards
men tread upon.
[2]
Your walls do not fall, he said,
because your walls are made of jasper;
but not four-square, I thought,
another shape (octahedron?)
slipped into the place
reserved by rule and rite
for the twelve foundations,
for the transparent glass,
for no need of the sun
nor moon to shine;
for the vision as we see
or have seen or imagined it
or in the past invoked
or conjured up or had conjured
by another, was usurped;
I saw the shape
which might have been of jasper,
but it was not four-square.
[3]
I John saw. I testify;
if any man shall add
God shall add unto him the plagues,
but he that sat upon the throne said,
I make all things new.
I John saw. I testify,
but I make all things new,
said He of the seven stars,
he of the seventy-times-seven
passionate, bitter wrongs,
He of the seventy-times-seven
bitter, unending wars.
[4]
Not in our time, O Lord,
the plowshare for the sword,
not in our time, the knife,
sated with life-blood and life,
to trim the barren vine;
no grape-leaf for the thorn,
no vine-flower for the crown;
not in our time, O King,
the voice to quell the re-gathering,
thundering storm.
[5]
Nay— peace be still—
lovest thou not Azrael,
the last and greatest, Death?
lovest not the sun,
the first who giveth life,
Raphael? lovest thou me?
lover of sand and shell,
know who withdraws the veil,
holds back the tide and shapes
shells to the wave-shapes? Gabriel:
Raphael, Gabriel, Azrael,
three of seven—what is War
to Birth, to Change, to Death?
yet he, red-fire is one of seven fires,
judgement and will of God,
God’s very breath—Uriel.
[6]
Never in Rome,
so many martyrs fell;
not in Jerusalem,
never in Thebes,
so many stood and watched
chariot-wheels turning,
saw with their very eyes,
the battle of the Titans,
saw Zeus’ thunderbolts in action
and how from giant hands,
the lightning shattered earth
and splintered sky, nor fled
to hide in caves,
but with unbroken will,
with unbowed head, watched
and though unaware, worshi
pped
and knew not that they worshipped
and that they were
that which they worshipped,
had they known the fire
of strength, endurance, anger
in their hearts,
was part of that same fire
that in a candle on a candle-stick
or in a star,
is known as one of seven,
is named among the seven Angels,
Uriel.
[7]
To Uriel, no shrine, no temple
where the red-death fell,
no image by the city-gate,
no torch to shine across the water,
no new fane in the market-place:
the lane is empty but the levelled wall
is purple as with purple spread
upon an altar,
this is the flowering of the rood,
this is the flowering of the reed,
where, Uriel, we pause to give
thanks that we rise again from death and live.
[8]
Now polish the crucible
and in the bowl distill
a word most bitter, marah,
a word bitterer still, mar,
sea, brine, breaker, seducer,
giver of life, giver of tears;
Now polish the crucible
and set the jet of flame
under, till marah-mar
are melted, fuse and join
and change and alter,
mer, mere, mère, mater, Maia, Mary,
Star of the Sea,
Mother.
[9]
Bitter, bitter jewel
in the heart of the bowl,
what is your colour?
what do you offer
to us who rebel?
what were we had you loved other?
what is this mother-father
to tear at our entrails?
what is this unsatisfied duality
which you can not satisfy?
[10]
In the field-furrow
the rain-water
showed splintered edge
as of a broken mirror,
and in the glass
as in a polished spear,
glowed the star Hesperus,
white, far and luminous,
incandescent and near,
Venus, Aphrodite, Astarte,
star of the east,
star of the west,
Phosphorus at sun-rise,
Hesperus at sun-set.
[11]
O swiftly, re-light the flame
before the substance cool,
for suddenly we saw your name
desecrated; knaves and fools
have done you impious wrong,
Venus, for venery stands for impurity
and Venus as desire
is venereous, lascivious,
while the very root of the word shrieks
like a mandrake when foul witches pull
its stem at midnight,
and rare mandragora itself
is full, they say, of poison,
food for the witches’ den.
[12]
Swiftly re-light the flame,
Aphrodite, holy name,
Astarte, hull and spar
of wrecked ships lost your star,
forgot the light at dusk,
forgot the prayer at dawn;
return, O holiest one,
Venus whose name is kin
to venerate,
venerator.
[13]
“What is the jewel colour?”
green-white, opalescent,
with under-layer of changing blue,
with rose-vein; a white agate
with a pulse uncooled that beats yet,
faint blue-violet;
it lives, it breathes,
it gives off—fragrance?
I do not know what it gives,
a vibration that we can not name
for there is no name for it;
my patron said, “name it”;
I said, I can not name it,
there is no name;
he said,
“invent it”.
[14]
I can not invent it,
I said it was agate,
I said, it lived, it gave—
fragrance—was near enough
to explain that quality
for which there is no name;
I do not want to name it,
I want to watch its faint
heart-beat, pulse-beat
as it quivers, I do not want
to talk about it,
I want to minimize thought,
concentrate on it
till I shrink,
dematerialize
and am drawn into it.
[15]
Annael—this was another voice,
hardly a voice, a breath, a whisper,
and I remembered bell-notes,
Azrael, Gabriel, Raphael,
as when in Venice, one of the campanili
speaks and another answers,
until it seems the whole city (Venice-Venus)
will be covered with gold pollen shaken
from the bell-towers, lilies plundered
with the weight of massive bees …
[16]
Annael—and I remembered the sea-shell
and I remembered the empty lane
and I thought again of people,
daring the blinding rage
of the lightning, and I thought,
there is no shrine, no temple
in the city for that other, Uriel,
and I knew his companion,
companion of the fire-to-endure
was another fire, another candle,
was another of seven,
named among the seven Angels,
Annael,
peace of God.
[17]
So we hail them together,
one to contrast the other,
two of the seven Spirits,
set before God
as lamps on the high-altar,
for one must inexorably
take fire from the other
as spring from winter,
and surely never, never
was a spring more bountiful
than this; never, never
was a season more beautiful,
richer in leaf and colour;
tell me, in what other place
will you find the may flowering
mulberry and rose-purple?
tell me, in what other city
will you find the may-tree
so delicate, green-white, opalescent
like our jewel in the crucible?
[18]
For Uriel, no temple
but everywhere,
the outer precincts and the squares
are fragrant;
the festival opens as before
with the dove’s murmuring;
for Uriel, no temple
but Love’s sacred groves,
withered in Thebes and Tyre,
flower elsewhere.
[19]
We see her visible and actual,
beauty incarnate,
as no high-priest of Astoroth
could compel her
with incense
and potent spell;
we asked for no sign
but she gave a sign unto us;
sealed with the seal of death,
we thought not to entreat her
but prepared us for burial;
then she set a charred tree before us,
burnt and stricken to the heart;
was it may-tree or apple?
[20]
Invisible, indivisible Spirit,
how is it you come so near,
how is it that we dare
approach the high-altar?
we crossed the charred
portico,
passed through a frame—doorless—
entered a shrine; like a ghost,
we entered a house through a wall;
then still not knowing
whether (like the wall)
we were there or not-there,
we saw the tree flowering;
it was an ordinary tree
in an old garden-square.
[21]
This is no rune nor riddle,
it is happening everywhere;
what I mean is—it is so simple
yet no trick of the pen or brush
could capture that impression;
music could do nothing with it,
nothing whatever; what I mean is—
but you have seen for yourself
that burnt-out wood crumbling …
you have seen for yourself.
[22]
A new sensation
is not granted to everyone,
not to everyone everywhere,
but to us here, a new sensation
strikes paralysing,
strikes dumb,
strikes the senses numb,
sets the nerves quivering;
I am sure you see
what I mean;
it was an old tree
such as we see everywhere,
anywhere here—and some barrel staves
and some bricks
and an edge of the wall
uncovered and the naked ugliness
and then … music? O, what I meant
by music when I said music, was—
music sets up ladders,
it makes us invisible,
it sets us apart,
it lets us escape;
but from the visible
there is no escape;
there is no escape from the spear
that pierces the heart.
[23]
We are part of it;
we admit the transubstantiation,
not God merely in bread
but God in the other-half of the tree
that looked dead—
did I bow my head?
did I weep? my eyes saw,
it was not a dream