BOOK 5. CALAMUS
In Paths Untrodden
In paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto publish'd, from the pleasures,
profits, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my soul,
Clear to me now standards not yet publish'd, clear to me that my
soul,
That the soul of the man I speak for rejoices in comrades,
Here by myself away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abash'd, (for in this secluded spot I can respond as I
would not dare elsewhere,)
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself, yet contains
all the rest,
Resolv'd to sing no songs to-day but those of manly attachment,
Projecting them along that substantial life,
Bequeathing hence types of athletic love,
Afternoon this delicious Ninth-month in my forty-first year,
I proceed for all who are or have been young men,
To tell the secret my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.
Scented Herbage of My Breast
Scented herbage of my breast,
Leaves from you I glean, I write, to be perused best afterwards,
Tomb-leaves, body-leaves growing up above me above death,
Perennial roots, tall leaves, O the winter shall not freeze you
delicate leaves,
Every year shall you bloom again, out from where you retired you
shall emerge again;
O I do not know whether many passing by will discover you or inhale
your faint odor, but I believe a few will;
O slender leaves! O blossoms of my blood! I permit you to tell in
your own way of the heart that is under you,
O I do not know what you mean there underneath yourselves, you are
not happiness,
You are often more bitter than I can bear, you burn and sting me,
Yet you are beautiful to me you faint tinged roots, you make me
think of death,
Death is beautiful from you, (what indeed is finally beautiful
except death and love?)
O I think it is not for life I am chanting here my chant of lovers,
I think it must be for death,
For how calm, how solemn it grows to ascend to the atmosphere of
lovers,
Death or life I am then indifferent, my soul declines to prefer,
(I am not sure but the high soul of lovers welcomes death most,)
Indeed O death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the same as
you mean,
Grow up taller sweet leaves that I may see! grow up out of my
breast!
Spring away from the conceal'd heart there!
Do not fold yourself so in your pink-tinged roots timid leaves!
Do not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of my breast!
Come I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine, I have
long enough stifled and choked;
Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve me not,
I will say what I have to say by itself,
I will sound myself and comrades only, I will never again utter a
call only their call,
I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the States,
I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape and will
through the States,
Through me shall the words be said to make death exhilarating,
Give me your tone therefore O death, that I may accord with it,
Give me yourself, for I see that you belong to me now above all, and
are folded inseparably together, you love and death are,
Nor will I allow you to balk me any more with what I was calling
life,
For now it is convey'd to me that you are the purports essential,
That you hide in these shifting forms of life, for reasons, and that
they are mainly for you,
That you beyond them come forth to remain, the real reality,
That behind the mask of materials you patiently wait, no matter how
long,
That you will one day perhaps take control of all,
That you will perhaps dissipate this entire show of appearance,
That may-be you are what it is all for, but it does not last so very
long,
But you will last very long.
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
Whoever you are holding me now in hand,
Without one thing all will be useless,
I give you fair warning before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.
Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?
The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive,
You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your
sole and exclusive standard,
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives
around you would have to be abandon'd,
Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further, let
go your hand from my shoulders,
Put me down and depart on your way.
Or else by stealth in some wood for trial,
Or back of a rock in the open air,
(For in any roof'd room of a house I emerge not, nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any
person for miles around approach unawares,
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or
some quiet island,
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade's long-dwelling kiss or the new husband's kiss,
For I am the new husband and I am the comrade.
Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus merely touching you is enough, is best,
And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried
eternally.
But these leaves conning you con at peril,
For these leaves and me you will not understand,
They will elude you at first and still more afterward, I will
certainly elude you.
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me,
behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you.
|
CONNING: 1. obsolete form of CUNNING; 2. Studying or
learning, esp. by repetition; poring over, scanning,
scrutinizing; 1814 Wordsw. Excursion VIII. From
infant-conning of the Christ-criss-row. 1840 Dickens Old
C. Shop xxv., The hum of conning over lessons; 1885
Illust. Lond. News 21 Mar. 307/1, Anxious conning of
household bills; 3. directing the helm.
-- Oxford English Dictionary
PERIL: L. periculum periclum, experiment, trial, risk,
danger. 1. The position or condition of being imminently
exposed to the chance of injury, loss or destruction;
risk, jeopardy, danger.
-- Oxford English Dictionary |
For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this
book,
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
Nor do those know me best who admire me and vauntingly praise me,
Nor will the candidates for my love (unless at most a very few)
prove victorious,
Nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil,
perhaps more,
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times
and not hit, that which I hinted at;
Therefore release me and depart on your way.
For You, O Democracy
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble,
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon,
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of
America,
and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies,
I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each other's
necks,
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you ma femme!
For you, for you I am trilling these songs.
These I Singing in Spring
These I singing in spring collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers and all their sorrow and
joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting I traverse the garden the world, but soon I pass the
gates,
Now along the pond-side, now wading in a little, fearing not the
wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences where the old stones thrown there,
pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones and
partly cover them, beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, or sauntering later in summer, before I
think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the
silence,
Alone I had thought, yet soon a troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side and some behind, and some embrace my arms or
neck,
They the spirits of dear friends dead or alive, thicker they come, a
great crowd, and I in the middle,
Collecting, dispensing, singing, there I wander with them,
Plucking something for tokens, tossing toward whoever is near me,
Here, lilac, with a branch of pine,
Here, out of my pocket, some moss which I pull'd off a live-oak in
Florida as it hung trailing down,
Here, some pinks and laurel leaves, and a handful of sage,
And here what I now draw from the water, wading in the pondside,
(O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns again
never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades, this
calamus-root shall,
Interchange it youths with each other! let none render it back!)
And twigs of maple and a bunch of wild orange and chestnut,
And stems of currants and plum-blows, and the aromatic cedar,
These I compass'd around by a thick cloud of spirits,
Wandering, point to or touch as I pass, or throw them loosely from
me,
Indicating to each one what he shall have, giving something to each;
But what I drew from the water by the pond-side, that I reserve,
I will give of it, but only to them that love as I myself am capable
of loving.
Not Heaving from My Ribb'd Breast Only
Not heaving from my ribb'd breast only,
Not in sighs at night in rage dissatisfied with myself,
Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs,
Not in many an oath and promise broken,
Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition,
Not in the subtle nourishment of the air,
Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists,
Not in the curious systole and diastole within which will one day
cease,
Not in many a hungry wish told to the skies only,
Not in cries, laughter, defiancies, thrown from me when alone far in
the wilds,
Not in husky pantings through clinch'd teeth,
Not in sounded and resounded words, chattering words, echoes, dead
words,
Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,
Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day,
Nor in the limbs and senses of my body that take you and dismiss you
continually—not there,
Not in any or all of them O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
Need I that you exist and show yourself any more than in these
songs.
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills,
shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these
are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real
something has yet to be known,
(How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and mock
me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them,)
May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they indeed but
seem)
as from my present point of view, and might prove (as of course they
would) nought of what they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely
changed points of view;
To me these and the like of these are curiously answer'd by my
lovers, my dear friends,
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me
by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason
hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I
require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity
beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
The Base of All Metaphysics
And now gentlemen,
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds,
As base and finale too for all metaphysics.
(So to the students the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)
Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and Germanic systems,
Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated, Christ divine having
studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
|
Esoteric philosophy teaches that
everything lives and is conscious, but not that all life
and consciousness are similar to those of human or even
animal beings. Life we look upon as “the one form of
existence,” manifesting in what is called matter; or, as
in man, what, incorrectly separating them, we name
Spirit, Soul and Matter. Matter is the vehicle for the
manifestation of soul on this plane of existence, and
soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the
manifestation of spirit, and these three are a trinity
synthesized by Life, which pervades them all. The idea
of universal life is one of those ancient conceptions
which are returning to the human mind in this century,
as a consequence of its liberation from anthropomorphic
theology... But what is the
belief of the inner esoteric Schools? the reader may
ask. What are the doctrines taught on this subject by
the Esoteric “Buddhists”? With them “Alaya” has a double
and even a triple meaning. [Alaya is literally the “Soul
of the World” or Anima Mundi, the “Over-Soul” of
Emerson, and according to esoteric teaching it changes
periodically its nature.] In the Yogacharya system of
the contemplative Mahayana school, Alaya is both the
Universal Soul (Anima Mundi) and the Self of a
progressed adept. “He who is strong in the Yoga can
introduce at will his Alaya by means of meditation into
the true Nature of Existence.” The “Alaya has an
absolute eternal existence,” says Aryasanga — the rival
of Nagarjuna. In one sense it is Pradhana;
which is explained in Vishnu Purana as: “that which is
the unevolved cause, is emphatically called by the most
eminent sages Pradhana, original base, which is subtile
Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal, and which at once
is (or comprehends) what is and what is not, or is mere
process.” “Prakriti,” however, is an incorrect word, and
Alaya would explain it better; for Prakriti is not the
“uncognizable Brahma.” It is a mistake of those who know
nothing of the Universality of the Occult doctrines from
the very cradle of the human races, and especially so of
those scholars who reject the very idea of a “primordial
revelation,” to teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life
or “Universal Soul,” was made known only by Anaxagoras,
or during his age. This philosopher brought the teaching
forward simply to oppose the too materialistic
conceptions on Cosmogony of Democritus, based on his
exoteric theory of blindly driven atoms.
Anaxagoras of Clazomene was not its inventor but only
its propagator, as also was Plato. That which he called
Mundane Intelligence, the nous ([[nous]]), the
principle that according to his views is absolutely
separated and free from matter and acts on design, was
called Motion, the one life, or
Jivatma, ages before the year 500 B.C. in
India. Only the Aryan philosophers never endowed the
principle, which with them is infinite, with the finite
“attribute” of “thinking.”
This leads the reader naturally to
the “Supreme
Spirit” of Hegel and the German Transcendentalists
as a contrast that it may be useful to point out. The
schools of Schelling and Fichte have diverged widely
from the primitive archaic conception of an
absolute principle, and have
mirrored only an aspect of the basic idea of the
Vedanta. Even the “Absoluter Geist” shadowed forth by
von Hartman in his pessimistic philosophy of the
Unconscious, while it is, perhaps, the closest
approximation made by European speculation to the Hindu
Adwaitee Doctrines, similarly falls far short of the
reality. According to Hegel, the “Unconscious” would
never have undertaken the vast and laborious task of
evolving the Universe, except in the hope of attaining
clear Self-consciousness. In this connection it is to be
borne in mind that in designating Spirit, which the
European Pantheists use as equivalent to Parabrahm, as
unconscious, they do not attach to that expression of
“Spirit” — one employed in the absence of a better to
symbolise a profound mystery — the connotation it
usually bears.
The “Absolute Consciousness,” they
tell us, “behind” phenomena, which is only termed
unconsciousness in the absence of any element of
personality, transcends human conception. Man, unable to
form one concept except in terms of empirical phenomena,
is powerless from the very constitution of his being to
raise the veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute.
Only the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realise the
nature of the source whence it sprung and whither it
must eventually return. . . . As the highest Dhyan
Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before the
awful mystery of Absolute Being; and since, even in that
culmination of conscious existence — “the merging of the
individual in the universal consciousness” — to use a
phrase of Fichte’s — the Finite cannot conceive the
Infinite, nor can it apply to it its own standard of
mental experiences, how can it be said that the
“Unconscious” and the Absolute can have even an
instinctive impulse or hope of attaining clear
self-consciousness? A Vedantin would never admit
this Hegelian idea; and the Occultist would say that it
applies perfectly to the awakened mahat,
the Universal Mind already projected into the phenomenal
world as the first aspect of the changeless
absolute, but never to the
latter. “Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are
but the two primeval aspects of the One and Secondless,”
we are taught.
The matter-moving Nous, the animating
Soul, immanent in every atom, manifested in man, latent
in the stone, has different degrees of power; and this
pantheistic idea of a general Spirit-Soul pervading all
Nature is the oldest of all the philosophical notions.
Nor was the Archaeus a discovery of Paracelsus nor of
his pupil Van Helmont; for it is again the same Archaeus
or “Father-Ether,” — the manifested basis and source of
the innumerable phenomena of life — localised. The whole
series of the numberless speculations of this kind are
but variations on this theme, the key-note of which was
struck in this primeval Revelation. (See Part II.,
“Primordial Substance.”)
(b) The term Anupadaka,
“parentless,” or without progenitors, is a mystical
designation having several meanings in the philosophy.
By this name celestial beings, the Dhyan-Chohans or
Dhyani-Buddhas, are generally meant. But as these
correspond mystically to the human Buddhas and
Bodhisattwas, known as the “Manushi (or human) Buddhas,”
the latter are also designated “Anupadaka,” once that
their whole personality is merged in their compound
sixth and seventh principles — or Atma-Buddhi, and that
they have become the “diamond-souled” (Vajra-sattvas),
the full Mahatmas. The “Concealed Lord” (Sangbai Dag-po),
“the one merged with the absolute,” can have no parents
since he is Self-existent, and one with the Universal
Spirit (Svayambhu), the Svabhavat in the highest aspect.
The mystery in the hierarchy of the Anupadaka is great,
its apex being the universal Spirit-Soul, and the lower
rung the Manushi-Buddha; and even every Soul-endowed man
is an Anupadaka in a latent state. Hence, when speaking
of the Universe in its formless, eternal, or absolute
condition, before it was fashioned by the “Builders” —
the expression, “the Universe was Anupadaka.” (See Part
II., “Primordial Substance.”)
--
The Secret
Doctrine -- The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and
Philosophy, by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
The book began
with an anonymous donation to the author of an 8-inch
package of documents in the early 1980s. Nothing less
than the membership list and supporting documents for a
truly secret society, the Yale Skull and Bones. The late
Johnny Johnson, of Phoenix Arizona, was the spark that
moved me to write first a four-part series and later, a
jumbo volume based on this material. This volume went to
several editions with several publishers, even a Russian
edition of 12,000 copies. Probably in the past few
years, as many copies have been sold in Russia as in the
United States. America's Secret Establishment has had
little publicity, few reviews ignored by mainline
distributors yet, has sold steadily for the past 16
years at a rate of several hundred copies a month. This
activity, in turn, has generated other articles and
books by other authors. But my real intent, to generate
an exploration of Hegelian influence in modern America,
has not been fulfilled. In great part, this can be
attributed to an educational system based on a
statist-Hegelian philosophy, and which has already
achieved the "dumbing down" of America. This disastrous,
destructive philosophy, the source of both Naziism and
Marxism, has infected and corrupted our constitutional
republic. Much of the blame for this corruption is with
an elitist group of Yalie "Bonesmen." Their symbol of
Skull and Bones, and their Hegelian philosophy, says it
all, although with typical duplicity, they would have
you believe otherwise. Hegelianism glorifies the State,
the vehicle for the dissemination of statist and
materialist ideas and policies in education, science,
politics and economics. Wonder why we have a "dumbed-down"
society? Look no further than the Bonesman troika who
imported the Prussian education system into the U.S. in
the 19th Century. A political philosophy in direct
opposition to the classical liberalism nurtured in 19th
Century British and American history. In classical
liberalism, the State is always subordinate to the
individual. In Hegelian Statism, as we see in Naziism
and Marxism, the State is supreme, and the individual
exists only to serve the State. Our two-party
Republican-Democrat (= one Hegelian party, no one else
welcome or allowed) system is a reflection of this
Hegelianism. A small group -- a very small group -- by
using Hegel, can manipulate, and to some extent, control
society for its own purposes. More than that, reflect on
their pirate flag. An emblem found on poison bottles,
the symbol of the Nazi Death Head Division in World War
Two. Not only did Skull and Bones become a major force
in drug smuggling (the Bush and Prescott families in the
1860s), but in true Hegelian fashion, generated the
antithesis, the so-called "war on drugs." This
hypocritical policy maintains the price of drugs,
controls supply, and puts millions in jail while the
gainers, in great part, are none other than the same "Bonesmen"
who pass the laws to prohibit (Bonesman Taft, 1904).
For Hegelians,
the State is almighty, and seen as "the march of God on
earth." Indeed, a State religion. Progress in the
Hegelian State is through contrived conflict: the clash
of opposites makes for progress. If you can control the
opposites, you dominate the nature of the outcome. We
trace the extraordinary Skull and Bones influence in a
major Hegelian conflict: Naziism vs. Communism. Skull
and Bones members were in the dominant decision-making
positions -- Bush, Harriman, Stimson, Lovett, and so on
-- all Bonesmen, and instrumental in guiding the
conflict through use of "right" and "left." They
financed and encouraged the growths of both philosophies
and controlled the outcome to a significant extent. This
was aided by the "reductionist" division in science, the
opposite of historical "wholeness." By dividing science
and learning into narrower and narrower segments, it
became easier to control the whole through the parts. In
education, the Dewey system was initiated and promoted
by Skull and Bones members. Dewey was an ardent statist,
and a believer in the Hegelian idea that the child
exists to be trained to serve the State. This requires
suppression of individualist tendencies and a careful
spoon-feeding of approved knowledge. This "dumbing down"
of American education is not easily apparent unless you
have studied in both foreign and domestic U.S.
universities -- then the contrast becomes crystal clear.
This dumbing down is now receiving attention. Two
excellent books are The Deliberate Dumbing Down of
America, by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt (Conscience Press,
Revenna Ohio, 2001), and The Dumbing Down of America, by
John Taylor Gotta. Both books trace this process to the
impact of education, and both give remarkable detail of
the process. We go further, in that we trace the import
of the system to three Yalies members of Skull & Bones.
For Iserbyt, in The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America,
the American education system begins with Rockefeller
and Gates. But in fact, this statist system is a
reflection of the Hegelian ideas brought to the United
States by the Skull and Bones "troika" of Gilman, White
and Dwight, and then financed by Rockefeller.
--
America's Secret Establishment, by Antony C. Sutton
|
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the
divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to
friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
Of city for city and land for land.
|
The German Volk Is an Interlacing of Families, by LUDWIG
LEONHARDT Deeply
perceiving the source of the renewal of the Volk,
National Socialism considers the family to be the
foundation of the state. In order to grasp the
importance of this statement and to evaluate it
properly, we must look more closely at the concept of
"family." By family we must not understand only parents
and children. To a family, in our sense of the word,
belong not only those who bear the name or who possess a
piece of land or some other property. Neither do legal
relationships alone encompass the concept. Rather, the
family embraces everything that existed spiritually and
psychically as a living patrimony in a definite circle
of persons. What we are, what we accomplish, is not due
to our own merit; in the last analysis we owe it to our
parents and grandparents, our whole line of ancestors,
whose heritage we carry within ourselves. In short, we
owe it to the spiritual values which have been
transmitted to us and which we are to pass on to our
children and the children of our children. All this
belongs to the family, whose importance in the life of
the nation the new state is ready to acknowledge in the
fullest sense. And we must always keep in mind that we
are not the last configuration of these multiple
endowments, that we are destined to pass them on pure
and unspoiled in order to continue what we call the
family, and to push our heritage ever forward, so that a
German Volk may emerge out of an ever-repeated
interlacing of families.
In this goal, however, it is clear
that each of us bears an enormous responsibility. Just
as we cannot let such a precious heritage go to ruin,
just as we cannot allow ourselves to be guilty of
harming it, so must we strive to extirpate, to overcome,
or to destroy the bad and the inferior. How can the
individual get a clear idea of just how he represents
this responsibility toward the Volk? Can he do this
without a precise knowledge of his whole hereditary and
physical picture, hence without an exact knowledge of
his own being and of the being of his ancestors? No! He
who loves only for the day, who is indifferent to the
roots from which he sprang, who does not realize the
importance of the words "forefathers" and "posterity" in
their deepest sense, cannot be regarded as a
responsibility-conscious member of the Volk community.
Therefore let us begin by studying our
own family picture! It will require a good deal of work
in the case of those families where no records of any
kind have been made or kept, but it must be done. If we
wish to be honest, we must confess that in only the
fewest instances is our information adequate for
providing even a moderately clear picture.
Unfortunately, many people hardly know the color of the
eyes of their parents and of their brothers and sisters,
much less their grandparents, not to speak of the more
important characteristics of mind and disposition. Thus
each one of us has the duty to inform himself in the
greatest possible detail on this, to find out from which
stock he springs....
From Ludwig Leonhardt, Heirat und
Rassenpflege: Ein Berater fur Eheanwarter (Munich:
J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1934), pp. 7-8.
--
Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in
the Third Reich, by George L. Mosse
|
Recorders Ages Hence
Recorders ages hence,
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior, I
will tell you what to say of me,
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest
lover,
The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was
fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love
within him, and freely pour'd it forth,
Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his
lovers,
Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless and
dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd might
secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on
hills,
he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other
men,
Who oft as he saunter'd the streets curv'd with his arm the shoulder
of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
When I Heard at the Close of the Day
When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd
with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for
me that follow'd,
And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still
I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,
refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the
morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way
coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food
nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came
my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me
whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in
the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined
toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—and that night I was happy.
Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with take warning, I am surely far different from what you
suppose;
Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant
manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real
heroic man?
Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion?
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
Roots and leaves themselves alone are these,
Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods and pond-side,
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love, fingers that wind around tighter
than vines,
Gushes from the throats of birds hid in the foliage of trees as the
sun is risen,
Breezes of land and love set from living shores to you on the living
sea, to you O sailors!
Frost-mellow'd berries and Third-month twigs offer'd fresh to young
persons wandering out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
Love-buds put before you and within you whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms,
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them they will open and bring
form, color, perfume, to you,
If you become the aliment and the wet they will become flowers,
fruits, tall branches and trees.
Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes
Not heat flames up and consumes,
Not sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air delicious and dry, the air of ripe summer, bears lightly
along white down-balls of myriads of seeds,
Waited, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;
Not these, O none of these more than the flames of me, consuming,
burning for his love whom I love,
O none more than I hurrying in and out;
Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the
same,
O nor down-balls nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds,
are borne through the open air,
Any more than my soul is borne through the open air,
Wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you.
Trickle Drops
Trickle drops! my blue veins leaving!
O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
Candid from me falling, drip, bleeding drops,
From wounds made to free you whence you were prison'd,
From my face, from my forehead and lips,
From my breast, from within where I was conceal'd, press forth red
drops, confession drops,
Stain every page, stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody
drops,
Let them know your scarlet heat, let them glisten,
Saturate them with yourself all ashamed and wet,
Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.
City of Orgies
City of orgies, walks and joys,
City whom that I have lived and sung in your midst will one day make
Not the pageants of you, not your shifting tableaus, your
spectacles, repay me,
Not the interminable rows of your houses, nor the ships at the
wharves,
Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows with
goods in them,
Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my share in the soiree
or feast;
Not those, but as I pass O Manhattan, your frequent and swift flash
of eyes offering me love,
Offering response to my own—these repay me,
Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.
Behold This Swarthy Face
Behold this swarthy face, these gray eyes,
This beard, the white wool unclipt upon my neck,
My brown hands and the silent manner of me without charm;
Yet comes one a Manhattanese and ever at parting kisses me lightly
on the lips with robust love,
And I on the crossing of the street or on the ship's deck give a
kiss in return,
We observe that salute of American comrades land and sea,
We are those two natural and nonchalant persons.
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there
without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it and
twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly
love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana
solitary in a wide in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
To a Stranger
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me
as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate,
chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours
only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you
take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or
wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful
This moment yearning and thoughtful sitting alone,
It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and
thoughtful,
It seems to me I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy,
France, Spain,
Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or talking other dialects,
And it seems to me if I could know those men I should become
attached to them as I do to men in my own lands,
O I know we should be brethren and lovers,
I know I should be happy with them.
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy
institutions,
But really I am neither for nor against institutions,
(What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the
destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta and in every city of these
States inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel little or large
that dents the water,
Without edifices or rules or trustees or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.
The Prairie-Grass Dividing
The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and
command, leading not following,
Those with a never-quell'd audacity, those with sweet and lusty
flesh clear of taint,
Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and governors,
as to say Who are you?
Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain'd, never
obedient,
Those of inland America.
When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame
When I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes and the victories of
mighty generals, I do not envy the generals,
Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great
house,
But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,
How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long
and long,
Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how
affectionate and faithful they were,
Then I am pensive—I hastily walk away fill'd with the bitterest
envy.
We Two Boys Together Clinging
We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,
threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on
the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness
chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.
A Promise to California
A promise to California,
Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and
Oregon;
Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain,
to teach robust American love,
For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you,
inland, and along the Western sea;
For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and I will
also.
|
Colonel Ethan
Allen Hitchcock, a professional soldier, graduate of the Military Academy, commander of the 3rd Infantry Regiment, a reader of
Shakespeare,
Chaucer,
Hegel,
Spinoza, wrote in his diary:
Fort Jesup, La., June 30, 1845. Orders came last evening by express from Washington City directing General Taylor to move without any delay to some point on the coast near the Sabine or elsewhere, and as soon as he
shall hear of the acceptance by the Texas convention of the annexation
resolutions of our Congress he is immediately to proceed with his whole command to the extreme western border of Texas and take up a position on the banks of or near the Rio Grande, and he is to expel any armed force of Mexicans who may cross that river. Bliss read the orders to me last
evening hastily at tattoo. I have scarcely slept a wink, thinking of the needful
preparations. I am now noting at reveille by candlelight and waiting the signal for muster.... Violence leads to violence, and if this movement of ours does not lead to others and to bloodshed, I am much mistaken.
Hitchcock was not mistaken. Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase had doubled the territory of the United States, extending it to the Rocky Mountains. To the southwest was Mexico, which had won its independence in a revolutionary war against Spain in 1821 -- a large country which included Texas and what are now New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, and part of Colorado. After agitation, and aid from the United States, Texas broke off from Mexico in 1836 and declared itself the "Lone Star Republic." In 1845, the U.S. Congress brought it into the Union as a state.
In
the White House now was James Polk, a Democrat, an expansionist, who, on the night of his inauguration, confided to his Secretary of the Navy that one of his main objectives was the acquisition of California. His order to General Taylor to move troops to the Rio Grande was a challenge to the Mexicans. It was not at all clear that the Rio Grande was the southern boundary of Texas, although Texas had forced the defeated Mexican general Santa Anna to say so when he was a prisoner. The traditional border between Texas and Mexico had been the Nueces River, about 150 miles to the north, and both Mexico and the United States had recognized that as the border. However, Polk, encouraging the Texans to accept annexation, had assured them he would uphold their claims to the Rio Grande.
Ordering troops to the Rio Grande, into territory inhabited by Mexicans, was clearly a provocation. Taylor had once denounced the idea of the annexation of Texas. But now that he had his marching orders, his attitude seemed to change. His visit to the tent of his aide Hitchcock to discuss the move is described in Hitchcock's diary:
He seems to have lost all respect for Mexican rights and is willing to
be an instrument of Mr. Polk for pushing our boundary as far west as possible. When I told him that, if he suggested a movement (which he told me he intended), Mr. Polk would seize upon it and throw the responsibility on him, he at once said he would take it, and added that if the President instructed him to use his discretion, he would ask no orders, but would
go upon the Rio Grande as soon as he could get transportation. I think the General wants an additional brevet, and would strain a point to get it.
Taylor moved his troops to Corpus Christi, Texas, just across the Nueces River, and waited further instructions. They came in February 1846 -- to go down the Gulf Coast to the Rio Grande. Taylor's army marched in parallel columns across the open prairie, scouts far ahead
and on the flanks, a train of supplies following. Then, along a narrow road, through a belt of thick chaparral, they arrived, March 28, 1846, in
cultivated fields and thatched-roof huts hurriedly abandoned by the Mexican occupants, who had fled across the river to the city of Matamoros.
Taylor set up camp, began construction of a fort, and implanted his cannons facing the white houses of Matamoros, whose inhabitants stared curiously at
the sight of an army on the banks of a quiet river.
The Washington
Union, a newspaper expressing the position of President Polk and the Democratic party, had spoken early in 1845 on the meaning of Texas annexation:
Let the great measure of annexation be accomplished, and with it the
questions of boundary and claims. For who can arrest the torrent that will pour onward to the West? The road to California will
be open to us. Who will stay the march of our western people?
They could have meant a peaceful march westward, except for other words, in the same newspaper: "A corps of properly organized volunteers ... would invade, overrun, and occupy Mexico. They would enable us not only to take California, but to keep it." It was shortly after
that, in the summer of 1845, that John O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review, used the phrase that became famous, saying it was "Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."
Yes, manifest destiny.
Congress then
rushed to approve the war message. Schroeder comments: "The disciplined
Democratic majority in the House responded with alacrity and high-handed
efficiency to Polk's May 11 war recommendations." The bundles of
official documents accompanying the war message, supposed to be evidence
for Polk's statement, were not examined, but were tabled immediately by
the House. Debate on the bill providing volunteers and money for the war
was limited to two hours, and most of this was used up reading selected
portions of the tabled documents, so that barely a half-hour was left
for discussion of the issues.
The Whig party
was presumably against the war in Mexico, but it was not against
expansion. The Whigs wanted California, but preferred to do it without
war. As Schroeder puts it, "theirs was a commercially .oriented
expansionism designed to secure frontage on the Pacific without recourse
to war." Also, they were not so powerfully against the military action
that they would stop it by denying men and money for the operation. They
did not want to risk the accusation that they were putting American
soldiers in peril by depriving them of the materials necessary to fight.
The result was that Whigs joined Democrats in voting overwhelmingly for
the war resolution, 174 to 14. The opposition was a small group of
strongly antislavery Whigs, or "a little knot of ultraists," as one
Massachusetts Congressman who voted for the war measure put it.
In the Senate,
there was debate, but it was limited to one day, and "the tactics of
stampede were there repeated," according to historian Frederick Merk.
The war measure passed, 40 to 2, Whigs joining Democrats. Throughout the
war, as Schroeder says, "the politically sensitive Whig minority could
only harry the administration with a barrage of verbiage while voting
for every appropriation which the military campaigns required." The
newspaper of the Whigs, the National Intelligencer of Washington,
took this position. John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, who originally
voted with "the stubborn 14," later voted for war appropriations.
Abraham Lincoln
of Illinois was not yet in Congress when the war began, but after his
election in 1846 he had occasion to vote and speak on the war. His "spot
resolutions" became famous -- he challenged Polk to specify the exact
spot where American blood was shed "on the American soil." But he would
not try to end the war by stopping funds for men and supplies. Speaking
in the House on July 27, 1848, in support of the candidacy of General
Zachary Taylor for President, he said:
But, as
General Taylor is, par excellence, the hero of the Mexican War, and
as you Democrats say we Whigs have always opposed the war, you think
it must be very awkward and embarrassing for us to go for General
Taylor. The declaration that we have always opposed the war is true
or false, according as one may understand the term "oppose the war."
If to say lithe war was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally
commenced by the President" be opposing the war, then the Whigs have
very generally opposed it.... The marching an army into the midst of
a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away,
leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to
you may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoking procedure;
but it does not appear so to us.. .. But if, when the war had begun,
and had become the cause of the country, the giving of our money and
our blood, in common with yours, was support of the war, then it is
not true that we have always opposed the war. With few individual
exceptions, you have constantly had our votes here for all the
necessary supplies....
A handful of
antislavery Congressmen voted against all war measures, seeing the
Mexican campaign as a means of extending the southern slave territory.
One of these was Joshua Giddings of Ohio, a fiery speaker, physically
powerful, who called it "an aggressive, unholy, and unjust war." He
explained his vote against supplying arms and men: "In the murder of
Mexicans upon their own soil, or in robbing them of their country, I can
take no part either now or hereafter. The guilt of these crimes must
rest on others -- I will not participate in them...." Giddings pointed
to the British Whigs who, during the American Revolution, announced in
Parliament in 1776 that they would not vote supplies for a war to
oppress Americans.
After Congress
acted in May of 1846, there were rallies and demonstrations for the war
in New York, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, and many other
places. Thousands rushed to volunteer for the army. The poet Walt
Whitman wrote in the Brooklyn Eagle in the early days of the war:
''Yes: Mexico must be thoroughly chastised' ... Let our arms now be
carried with a spirit which shall teach the world that, while we are not
forward for a quarrel, America knows how to crush, as well as how to
expand!"
Accompanying all
this aggressiveness was the idea that the United States would be giving
the blessings of liberty and democracy to more people. This was
intermingled with ideas of racial superiority, longings for the
beautiful lands of New Mexico and California, and thoughts of commercial
enterprise across the Pacific.
Speaking of
California, the Illinois State Register asked: "Shall this garden
of beauty be suffered to lie dormant in its wild and useless luxuriance?
... myriads of enterprising Americans would flock to its rich and
inviting prairies; the hum of Anglo-American industry would be heard in
its valleys; cities would rise upon its plains and sea-coast; and the
resources and wealth of the nation be increased in an incalculable
degree." The American Review talked of Mexicans yielding to "a
superior population, insensibly oozing into her territories, changing
her customs, and out-living, out-trading, exterminating her weaker
blood...." The New York Herald was saying, by 1847: "The
universal Yankee nation can regenerate and disenthrall the people of
Mexico in a few years; and we believe it is a part of our destiny to
civilize that beautiful country."
A letter
appeared in the New York Journal of Commerce introducing God into
the situation: "The supreme Ruler of the universe seems to interpose,
and aid the energy of man towards benefiting mankind. His interposition
.... seems to me to be identified with the success of our arms.... That
the redemption of 7,000,000 of souls from all the vices that infest the
human race, is the ostensible object ... appears manifest."
Senator H. V.
Johnson said:
I believe we
should be recreant to our noble mission, if we refused acquiescence
in the high purposes of a wise Providence. War has its evils. In all
ages it has been the minister of wholesale death and appalling
desolation; but however inscrutable to us, it has also been made, by
the Allwise Dispenser of events, the instrumentality of
accomplishing the great end of human elevation and human happiness..
.. It is in this view, that I subscribe to the doctrine of "manifest
destiny."
The
Congressional Globe of February 11, 1847, reported:
Mr. Giles, of
Maryland -- I take it for granted, that we shall gain territory, and
must gain territory, before we shut the gates of the temple of
Janus.... We must march from ocean to ocean.... We must march from
Texas straight to the Pacific ocean, and be bounded only by its
roaring wave.... It is the destiny of the white race, it is the
destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race....
The American Anti-Slavery Society, on the other hand, said the war was "waged solely for the detestable and horrible purpose of extending and perpetuating American slavery throughout the vast territory of Mexico." A twenty-seven-year-old Boston poet and abolitionist, James Russell Lowell, began writing satirical poems in the Boston Courier (they were later collected as the Biglow Papers). In them, a New England farmer, Hosea Biglow, spoke, in his own dialect, on the war:
Ez fer war, I call it murder,
-- There
you hev it plain an' flat;
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that....
They may talk
o' Freedom's airy
Tell they'er pupple in the face, -- It's
a grand gret cemetary
Fer the barthrights of our race;
They jest want this Californy
So's to lug new slave-states in
To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye,
An' to plunder ye like sin.
-- A People's
History of the United States: 1492-Present, by Howard
Zinn |
Here the Frailest Leaves of Me
Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting,
Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
No Labor-Saving Machine
No labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made,
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found
hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America,
Nor literary success nor intellect; nor book for the book-shelf,
But a few carols vibrating through the air I leave,
For comrades and lovers.
A Glimpse
A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove
late of a winter night, and I unremark'd seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and
seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and
oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.
A Leaf for Hand in Hand
A leaf for hand in hand;
You natural persons old and young!
You on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of
the Mississippi!
You friendly boatmen and mechanics! you roughs!
You twain! and all processions moving along the streets!
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to
walk hand in hand.
Earth, My Likeness
Earth, my likeness,
Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,
I now suspect that is not all;
I now suspect there is something fierce in you eligible to burst
forth,
For an athlete is enamour'd of me, and I of him,
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me eligible
to burst forth,
I dare not tell it in words, not even in these songs.
I Dream'd in a Dream
I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the
whole of the rest of the earth,
I dream'd that was the new city of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led
the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.
What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?
What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the
offing to-day under full sail?
The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that
envelops me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?
—no;
But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in the midst
of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends,
The one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kiss'd
him,
While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.
To the East and to the West
To the East and to the West,
To the man of the Seaside State and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the north, to the Southerner I love,
These with perfect trust to depict you as myself, the germs are in
all men,
I believe the main purport of these States is to found a superb
friendship, exalte, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in
all men.
|
[B]y repeated efforts
during the first Revolution, the Lords of the Flame
succeeded in implanting in the evolving life the germ
which has developed our present dense body. This germ
was somewhat developed during the remainder of the first
six Revolutions, being given the capacity for developing
the senses organs, particularly the ear. Therefore, the
ear is the most highly developed organ we possess. It is
the instrument which carries with the greatest accuracy
the impressions of outside conditions to the
consciousness. It is less subject to the illusions of
the Physical World than the other sense organs.
The
consciousness of the evolving life of that Period was
like that of the mineral of today -- a state of
unconsciousness similar to that attained by mediums in
the deepest trance -- yet during the first six
Revolutions, the evolving life worked on the germ of the
dense body under the direction and with the help of the
different creative Hierarchies. In the middle of the
seventh Revolution, the Lords of the Flame, Who had been
inactive since They gave the germ of the dense body in
the first Revolution, again become active, this time to
awaken the highest spiritual principle. They aroused the
initial activity of the divine spirit in man.
Thus, man owes his highest and lowest vehicles --
the divine spirit and the dense body, to the evolution
of the Saturn Period. These, the Lords of the Flame of
their own free will helped him to manifest, not being
under the slightest compulsion to do so.
The
work of the various creative Hierarchies is not started
on Globe A, at the commencement of a Period or a
Revolution. It commences in the middle of one
Revolution, growing in strength and reaching its highest
efficiency in the middle of the Cosmic Night -- which is
between Revolutions, as well as between Periods. Then it
gradually declines, as the life wave sweeps on to the
middle of the next Revolution.
Thus
the work of the Lords of the Flame in awakening the
germinal consciousness, was most active and efficient
during the rest Period between the Saturn and Sun
Periods.
We
reiterate that a Cosmic Night is not to be regarded as a
time of inactivity. It is not inert existence, as we saw
in the case of the individual passing from death to a
new birth. So with the great death of all the Globes of
a Period. It is a cessation of active manifestation,
that a proportionately keener subjective activity may be
unfolded.
Perhaps the best idea of the nature of this
subjective activity may be gained by observing what
happens when a ripe fruit is buried in the ground.
Fermentation and decay of the flesh sets in, but out of
that chaos comes the new plant, sprouting forth into the
air and sunshine. So, when a Period is past, all is
resolved into conglomerate chaos, apparently incapable
of being reduced to order. At the proper time, however,
the Globes of a new period are formed and made ready for
occupancy as man-bearing Worlds. Hither the evolving
life is transferred from five dark Globes which it
traverses during the Cosmic Night, to commence the
activities of a new creative day in an altered
environment, prepared and externalized during the
activities of the Cosmic Night. As the forces of
fermentation in the fruit stimulate the seed and
fertilize the soil in which it grows, so the Lords of
the Flame stimulated the germ of divine spirit,
particularly during the Cosmic Night between the Saturn
and Sun Periods, continuing their activities until the
middle of the first Revolution of the Sun Period.
--
The Rosicrucian
Cosmo-Conception, by Max Heindel |
Sometimes with One I Love
Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse
unreturn'd love,
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is certain one
way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)
To a Western Boy
Many things to absorb I teach to help you become eleve of mine;
Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins,
If you be not silently selected by lovers and do not silently select
lovers,
Of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine?
Fast Anchor'd Eternal O Love!
Fast-anchor'd eternal O love! O woman I love!
O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of
you!
Then separate, as disembodied or another born,
Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,
I ascend, I float in the regions of your love O man,
O sharer of my roving life.
Among the Multitude
Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.
Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.
O You Whom I Often and Silently Come
O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be
with you,
As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room with
you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is
playing within me.
That Shadow My Likeness
That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood,
chattering, chaffering,
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits,
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
But among my lovers and caroling these songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me.
Full of Life Now
Full of life now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,
To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,
To you yet unborn these, seeking you.
When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,
Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your
comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with
you.)
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