Book Two. The Book of the Traveller of the Worlds
| Music | Book Two. Canto One:The World-Stair |
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103 There walled apart by its own innerness 104 In a mystical barrage of dynamic light 105 He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile 106 Erect like a mountain-chariot of the Gods 107 Motionless under an inscrutable sky. |
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163 Once in the vigil of a deathless gaze 164 These grades had marked her giant downward plunge, 165 The wide and prone leap of a godhead’s fall. 166 Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme. 167 The great World-Mother by her sacrifice 168 Has made her soul the body of our state; |
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196 The divine intention suddenly shall be seen, 197 The end vindicate intuition’s sure technique. |
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202 This faint and fluid sketch of soul called man 203 Shall stand out on the background of long Time 204 A glowing epitome of eternity, 205 A little point reveal the infinitudes. |
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214 A slow reversal’s movement then took place: 215 A gas belched out from some invisible Fire, 216 Of its dense rings were formed these million stars; 217 Upon earth’s new-born soil God’s tread was heard. |
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234 A miracle of the Absolute was born; 235 Infinity put on a finite soul, 236 All ocean lived within a wandering drop, 237 A time-made body housed the Illimitable. 238 To live this Mystery out our souls came here. |
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254 A figure sole on Nature’s giant stair, 255 He mounted towards an indiscernible end 256 On the bare summit of created things. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Two:The Kingdom of Subtle Matter: |
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004 He came into a magic crystal air 005 And found a life that lived not by the flesh, 006 A light that made visible immaterial things. 007 A fine degree in wonder’s hierarchy, 008 The kingdom of subtle Matter’s faery craft 009 Outlined against a sky of vivid hues, 010 Leaping out of a splendour-trance and haze, 011 The wizard revelation of its front. |
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034 This brilliant roof of our descending plane, 035 Intercepting the free boon of heaven’s air, 036 Admits small inrushes of a mighty breath 037 Or fragrant circuits through gold lattices; . . . 041 And bright dews drip from the Immortal’s sky. |
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054 In rooms of the young divinity of power 055 And early play of the eternal Child 056 The embodiments of his outwinging thoughts 057 Laved in a bright everlasting wonder’s tints 058 And lulled by whispers of that lucid air 059 Take dream-hued rest like birds on timeless trees 060 Before they dive to float on earth-time’s sea. |
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115 This wonder-world with all its radiant boon 116 Of vision and inviolate happiness, 117 Only for expression cares and perfect form; . . . 120 It lends beauty to the terror of the gulfs 121 And fascinating eyes to perilous Gods, 122 Invests with grace the demon and the snake. |
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145 A heaven of creative truths above, 146 A cosmos of harmonious dreams between, 147 A chaos of dissolving forms below, 148 It plunges lost in our inconscient base. 149 Out of its fall our denser Matter came. |
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163 This mire must harbour the orchid and the rose, 164 From her blind unwilling substance must emerge 165 A beauty that belongs to happier spheres. |
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348 In us too the intuitive Fire can burn; 349 An agent Light, it is coiled in our folded hearts, 350 On the celestial levels is its home: 351 Descending, it can bring those heavens here. |
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408 Admired for the bright finality of its lines 409 A blue horizon limited the soul; |
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412 Life in its boundaries lingered satisfied . . . 421 The beautiful body of a soul at ease, 422 Like one who laughs in sweet and sunlit groves, 423 Childlike she swung in her gold cradle of joy. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Three:The Glory and the Fall of Life |
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046 In a gallop of thunder-hooved vicissitudes 047 She swept through the race-fields of Circumstance, 048 Or, swaying, she tossed between her heights and deeps, 049 Uplifted or broken on Time’s inconstant wheel. |
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104 Above him in a new celestial vault 105 Other than the heavens beheld by mortal eyes, 106 As on a fretted ceiling of the gods, 107 An archipelago of laughter and fire, 108 Swam stars apart in a rippled sea of sky. |
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150 In a swift eternal moment fixed there live 151 Or ever recalled come back to longing eyes 152 Calm heavens of imperishable Light, 153 Illumined continents of violet peace, 154 Oceans and rivers of the mirth of God 155 And griefless countries under purple suns. |
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378 The nude god-children in their play-fields ran 379 Smiting the winds with splendour and with speed; |
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464 When earth was built in the unconscious Void 465 And nothing was save a material scene, 466 Identified with sea and sky and stone 467 Her young gods yearned for the release of souls 468 Asleep in objects, vague, inanimate. |
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496 Life heard the call and left her native light. 497 Overflowing from her bright magnificent plane 498 On the rigid coil and sprawl of mortal Space, 499 Here too the gracious great-winged Angel poured 500 Her splendour and her swiftness and her bliss, 501 Hoping to fill a fair new world with joy. |
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515 But while the magic breath was on its way, 516 Before her gifts could reach our prisoned hearts, 517 A dark ambiguous Presence questioned all. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Four:The Kingdoms of the Little Life |
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082 Adorer of a joy without a name, 083 In her obscure cathedral of delight 084 To dim dwarf gods she offers secret rites. 085 But vain unending is the sacrifice, 086 The priest an ignorant mage who only makes 087 Futile mutations in the altar’s plan 088 And casts blind hopes into a powerless flame. |
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107 Ascending slowly with unconscious steps, 108 A foundling of the Gods she wanders here 109 Like a child-soul left near the gates of Hell 110 Fumbling through fog in search of Paradise. |
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290 The phantom of a dark and evil start 291 Ghostlike pursues all that we dream and do. . . . 297 This was the first cry of the awaking world. 298 It clings around us still and clamps the god. |
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313 In the enigma of the darkened Vasts, 314 In the passion and self-loss of the Infinite 315 When all was plunged in the negating Void, 316 Non-Being’s night could never have been saved 317 If Being had not plunged into the dark 318 Carrying with it its triple mystic cross. |
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332 A blindfold search and wrestle and fumbling clasp 333 Of a half-seen Nature and a hidden Soul, 334 A game of hide-and-seek in twilit rooms, 335 A play of love and hate and fear and hope 336 Continues in the nursery of mind 337 Its hard and heavy romp of self-born twins. |
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365 Huge armoured strengths shook a frail quaking ground, 366 Great puissant creatures with a dwarfish brain, 367 And pigmy tribes imposed their small life-drift. |
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396 Beings were there who wore a human form; 397 Absorbed they lived in the passion of the scene, 398 But knew not who they were or why they lived: . . . 446 Ardent from the sack of happy peaceful homes 447 And gorged with slaughter, plunder, rape and fire, 448 They made of human selves their helpless prey, 449 A drove of captives led to lifelong woe, |
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536 At first he saw a dim obscure mind-power 537 Moving concealed by Matter and dumb life. . . . 542 In the deep midst of an insentient world 543 Its huddled waves and foam of consciousness ran 544 Pressing and eddying through a narrow strait, 545 Carrying experience in its crowded pace. |
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669 A little light in a great darkness born, 670 Life knew not where it went nor whence it came. 671 Around all floated still the nescient haze. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Five:The Godheads of the Little Life |
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014 He plunged his gaze into the siege of mist . . . 018 As when a searchlight stabs the Night’s blind breast 019 And dwellings and trees and figures of men appear 020 As if revealed to an eye in Nothingness, 021 All lurking things were torn out of their veils 022 And held up in his vision’s sun-white blaze. |
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038 Astonished by the unaccustomed glow, 039 As if immanent in the shadows started up 040 Imps with wry limbs and carved beast visages, 041 Sprite-prompters goblin-wizened or faery-small, 042 And genii fairer but unsouled and poor 043 And fallen beings, their heavenly portion lost, 044 And errant divinities trapped in Time’s dust. |
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156 An ocean of electric Energy 157 Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles 158 Constructing by their dance this solid scheme, 159 Its mightiness in the atom shut to rest; . . . 164 Thus has been made this real impossible world, 165 An obvious miracle or convincing show. |
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231 At first she raised no voice, no motion dared: 232 Charged with world-power, instinct with living force, 233 Only she clung with her roots to the safe earth, 234 Thrilled dumbly to the shocks of ray and breeze 235 And put out tendril fingers of desire; |
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258 Then man was moulded from the original brute. 259 A thinking mind had come to lift life’s moods, 260 The keen-edged tool of a Nature mixed and vague, 261 An intelligence half-witness, half-machine. |
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296 A fragile human love that could not last, 297 Ego’s moth-wings to lift the seraph soul, 298 Appeared, a surface glamour of brief date 299 Extinguished by a scanty breath of Time; . . . 303 Hopes that soon fade to drab realities 304 And passions that crumble to ashes while they blaze 305 Kindled the common earth with their brief flame. |
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310 A spirit that perished not with the body and breath 311 Was there like a shadow of the Unmanifest 312 And stood behind the little personal form 313 But claimed not yet this earthly embodiment. |
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400 A thinking puppet is the mind of life: 401 Its choice is the work of elemental strengths 402 That know not their own birth and end and cause . . . 421 Into the actions mortals think their own 422 They bring the incoherencies of Fate, 423 Or make a doom of Time’s slipshod caprice 424 And toss the lives of men from hand to hand 425 In an inconsequent and devious game. |
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540 In a narrow plot he has pitched his tent of life 541 Beneath the wide gaze of the starry Vast. |
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624 Our seekings are short-lived experiments 625 Made by a wordless and inscrutable Power 626 Testing its issues from inconscient Night 627 To meet its luminous self of Truth and Bliss. . . . 630 Amid the figures of the Ignorance, 631 In the symbol pictures drawn by word and thought, 632 It seeks the truth to which all figures point; 633 It looks for the source of Light with vision’s lamp; |
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634 It works to find the Doer of all works, 635 The unfelt Self within who is the guide, 636 The unknown Self above who is the goal. |
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651 Across the cosmic field through narrow lanes 652 Asking a scanty dole from Fortune’s hands 653 And garbed in beggar’s robes there walks the One. |
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677 A door is cut in the mud wall of self; 678 Across the lowly threshold with bowed heads 679 Angels of ecstasy and self-giving pass, 680 And lodged in an inner sanctuary of dream 681 The makers of the image of deity live. |
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721 This little being of Time, this shadow soul, 722 This living dwarf-figurehead of darkened spirit 723 Out of its traffic in petty dreams shall rise. . . . 726 Like a clay troll kneaded into a god 727 New-made in the image of the eternal Guest, 728 It shall be caught to the breast of a white Force |
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740 But first the spirit’s ascent we must achieve 741 Out of the chasm from which our nature rose. . . . 746 Then kindling the gold tongue of sacrifice, 747 Calling the powers of a bright hemisphere, 748 We shall shed the discredit of our mortal state, 749 Make the abysm a road for Heaven’s descent, 750 Acquaint our depths with the supernal Ray 751 And cleave the darkness with the mystic Fire. |
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754 He through the astral chaos shore a way 755 Mid the grey faces of its demon gods, . . . 767 The watching opacity multiplied as he moved 768 Its hostile mass of dead and staring eyes; 769 The darkness glimmered like a dying torch. 770 Around him an extinguished phantom glow 771 Peopled with shadowy and misleading shapes 772 The vague Inconscient’s dark and measureless cave. 773 His only sunlight was his spirit’s flame. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Six:The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life |
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010 Above there gleamed a pondering brow of sky 011 Tormented, crossed by wings of doubtful haze . . . 047 A magic flowed as if of moving scenes 048 That kept awhile their fugitive delicacy 049 Of sparing lines limned by an abstract art 050 In a rare scanted light with faint dream-brush 051 On a silver background of incertitude. |
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087 A spirit was there that sought for its own deep self, 088 Yet was content with fragments pushed in front 089 And parts of living that belied the whole 090 But, pieced together, might one day be true. |
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136 An Energy of perpetual transience makes 137 The journey from which no return is sure, 138 The pilgrimage of Nature to the Unknown. . . . 205 A world she made touched by truth’s fleeing hem, . . . 213 It seized in imagination and confined 214 A painted bird of paradise in a cage. |
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278 She fashions godlike marvels out of mud; 279 In the plasm she sets her dumb immortal urge, 280 Helps the live tissue to think, the closed sense to feel, 281 Flashes through the frail nerves poignant messages, 282 In a heart of flesh miraculously loves, |
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299 Her eternal Lover is her action’s cause; . . . 310 Only to attract her veiled companion 311 And keep him close to her breast in her world-cloak 312 Lest from her arms he turn to his formless peace, 313 Is her heart’s business and her clinging care. |
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385 In all who have risen to a greater Life, 386 A voice of unborn things whispers to the ear, 387 To their eyes visited by some high sunlight 388 Aspiration shows the image of a crown: |
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441 All powers of Life towards their godhead tend . . . 453 A mastering virtue statuesques the pose, 454 Or a Titan passion goads to a proud unrest: 455 At Wisdom’s altar they are kings and priests 456 Or their life a sacrifice to an idol of Power. |
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671 A Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun. |
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866 Our souls are dragged as with a hidden leash, 867 Carried from birth to birth, from world to world, |
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960 These long far files of forward-striving hopes 961 Lift worshipping eyes to the blue Void called heaven |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Seven:The Descent into Night |
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137 A charm and sweetness sudden and formidable, 138 Faces that raised alluring lips and eyes 139 Approached him armed with beauty like a snare, 140 But hid a fatal meaning in each line 141 And could in a moment dangerously change. 142 But he alone discerned that screened attack. |
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179 A Power that laughed at the mischiefs of the world, 180 An irony that joined the world’s contraries 181 And flung them into each other’s arms to strive, 182 Put a sardonic rictus on God’s face. |
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320 Only were safe who kept God in their hearts: 321 Courage their armour, faith their sword, they must walk, 322 The hand ready to smite, the eye to scout, 323 Casting a javelin regard in front, 324 Heroes and soldiers of the army of Light. |
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575 Haled by a serpent-force from its warm home 576 And dragged to extinction in bleak vacancy 577 Life clung to its seat with cords of gasping breath; 578 Lapped was his body by a tenebrous tongue. |
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608 He mastered the tides of Nature with a look: 609 He met with his bare spirit naked Hell. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Nine:The Paradise of the Life-Gods |
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056 A summit and core of all that marvellous world, 057 Apart stood high Elysian nameless hills, 058 Burning like sunsets in a trance of eve. . . . 061 Their slopes through a hurry of laughter and voices sank, 062 Crossed by a throng of singing rivulets, 063 Adoring blue heaven with their happy hymn, 064 Down into woods of shadowy secrecy: |
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109 A scale of sense that climbed with fiery feet 110 To heights of unimagined happiness, 111 Recast his being’s aura in joy-glow, 112 His body glimmered like a skiey shell; |
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150 A giant drop of the Bliss unknowable 151 Overwhelmed his limbs and round his soul became 152 A fiery ocean of felicity; . . . 155 The rapture that the gods sustain he bore. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Ten:The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind |
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042 But first he met a silver-grey expanse 043 Where Day and Night had wedded and were one: . . . 104 Escaping over a wide and shimmering bridge, 105 He came into a realm of early Light 106 And the regency of a half-risen sun. 107 Out of its rays our mind’s full orb was born. |
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185 Thus streamed down from the realm of early Light 186 Ethereal thinkings into Matter’s world; 187 Its gold-horned herds trooped into earth’s cave-heart. 188 Its morning rays illume our twilight’s eyes, 189 Its young formations move the mind of earth 190 To labour and to dream and new-create, 191 To feel beauty’s touch and know the world and self: 192 The Golden Child began to think and see. |
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207 A small keen instrument the great Puissance chose, . . . 259 A dwarf three-bodied trinity was her serf. 260 First, smallest of the three, but strong of limb, 261 A low-brow with a square and heavy jowl, 262 A pigmy Thought needing to live in bounds 263 For ever stooped to hammer fact and form. 264 Absorbed and cabined in external sight, 265 It takes its stand on Nature’s solid base. |
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330 A fiery spirit came, next of the three. 331 A hunchback rider of the red Wild-Ass, 332 A rash Intelligence leaped down lion-maned 333 From the great mystic Flame that rings the worlds 334 And with its dire edge eats at being’s heart. 335 Thence sprang the burning vision of Desire. |
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407 Of all these Powers the greatest was the last. . . . 412 Came Reason, the squat godhead artisan, 413 To her narrow house upon a ridge in Time. . . . 418 Armed with her lens and measuring-rod and probe, 419 She looked upon an object universe |
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735 Above in a high breathless stratosphere, 736 Overshadowing the dwarfish trinity, 737 Lived, aspirants to a limitless Beyond, . . . 742 Two sun-gaze Daemons witnessing all that is. 743 A power to uplift the laggard world, 744 Imperious rode a huge high-winged Life-Thought . . . 760 Beyond in wideness where no footing is, . . . 763 A pure Thought-Mind surveyed the cosmic act. 764 Archangel of a white transcending realm, 765 It saw the world from solitary heights |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Eleven:The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind |
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134 His privilege regained of shadowless sight 135 The Thinker entered the immortals’ air 136 And drank again his pure and mighty source. |
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154 In gleaming clarities of amethyst air 155 The chainless and omnipotent Spirit of Mind 156 Brooded on the blue lotus of the Idea. |
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166 A triple realm of ordered thought came first, 167 A small beginning of immense ascent: . . . 185 The mighty wardens of the ascending stair 186 Who intercede with the all-creating Word, 187 There waited for the pilgrim heaven-bound soul; 188 Holding the thousand keys of the Beyond 189 They proffered their knowledge to the climbing mind 190 And filled the life with Thought’s immensities. |
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212 In front of the ascending epiphany 213 World-Time’s enjoyers, favourites of World-Bliss, . . . 216 Creators of Matter by hid stress of Mind 217 Whose subtle thoughts support unconscious Life 218 And guide the fantasy of brute events, 219 Stood there, a race of young keen-visioned gods, 220 King-children born on Wisdom’s early plane, 221 Taught in her school world-making’s mystic play. |
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399 In a sublimer and more daring soar 400 To the wide summit of the triple stairs 401 Bare steps climbed up like flaming rocks of gold 402 Burning their way to a pure absolute sky. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Twelve:The Heavens of the Ideal |
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011 At each pace of the journey marvellous 012 A new degree of wonder and of bliss, 013 A new rung formed in Being’s mighty stair, 014 A great wide step trembling with jewelled fire 015 As if a burning spirit quivered there 016 Upholding with his flame the immortal hope, |
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024 On one side glimmered hue on floating hue, 025 A glory of sunrise breaking on the soul, 026 In a tremulous rapture of the heart’s insight 027 And the spontaneous bliss that beauty gives, 028 The lovely kingdoms of the deathless Rose. |
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092 On the other side of the eternal stairs 093 The mighty kingdoms of the deathless Flame 094 Aspired to reach the Being’s absolutes. 095 Out of the sorrow and darkness of the world, 096 Out of the depths where life and thought are tombed, 097 Lonely mounts up to heaven the deathless Flame. |
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152 He through the Ideal’s kingdoms moved at will, . . . 167 A glorious shining Angel of the Way 168 Presented to the seeking of the soul 169 The sweetness and the might of an idea, 170 Each deemed Truth’s intimate fount and summit force, 171 The heart of the meaning of the universe, 172 Perfection’s key, passport to Paradise. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Thirteen:In the Self of Mind |
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010 He stood on a wide arc of summit Space 011 Alone with an enormous Self of Mind 012 Which held all life in a corner of its vasts. |
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052 There he could stay, the Self, the Silence won: 053 His soul had peace, it knew the cosmic Whole. 054 Then suddenly a luminous finger fell 055 On all things seen or touched or heard or felt 056 And showed his mind that nothing could be known; 057 That must be reached from which all knowledge comes. 058 The sceptic Ray disrupted all that seems 059 And smote at the very roots of thought and sense. |
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158 A rumour and a movement and a call, 159 A foaming mass, a cry innumerable 160 Rolled ever upon the ocean surge of Life . . . 168 A huge creator Death, a mystic Void, 169 For ever sustaining the irrational cry, 170 For ever excluding the supernal Word, 171 Motionless, refusing question and response, 172 Reposed beneath the voices and the march 173 The dim Inconscient’s dumb incertitude. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Fourteen:The World-Soul |
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002 In a far shimmering background of Mind-Space 003 A glowing mouth was seen, a luminous shaft; 004 A recluse gate it seemed, musing on joy, 005 A veiled retreat and escape to mystery. . . . 018 As if a message from the world’s deep soul, 019 An intimation of a lurking joy 020 That flowed out from a cup of brooding bliss, 021 There shimmered stealing out into the Mind 022 A mute and quivering ecstasy of light, 023 A passion and delicacy of roseate fire. |
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209 Along a road of pure interior light, 210 Alone between tremendous Presences, 211 Under the watching eyes of nameless Gods, 212 His soul passed on, a single conscious power, . . . 215 To the source of all things human and divine. 216 There he beheld in their mighty union’s poise 217 The figure of the deathless Two-in-One, 218 A single being in two bodies clasped, 219 A diarchy of two united souls, 220 Seated absorbed in deep creative joy; . . . 222 Behind them in a morning dusk One stood 223 Who brought them forth from the Unknowable. |
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238 His spirit was made a vessel of her force; 239 Mute in the fathomless passion of his will 240 He outstretched to her his folded hands of prayer. |
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258 He fell down at her feet unconscious, prone. |
| Music | Book Two. Canto Fifteen:The Kingdoms of the Greater Knowledge |
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103 On the last step to the supernal birth 104 He trod along extinction’s narrow edge 105 Near the high verges of eternity, 106 And mounted the gold ridge of the world-dream 107 Between the slayer and the saviour fires; |
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120 He had reached the top of all that can be known: . . . 134 All flowed immeasurably to one sea: 135 All living forms became its atom homes. 136 A Panergy that harmonised all life 137 Held now existence in its vast control; 138 A portion of that majesty he was made. 139 At will he lived in the unoblivious Ray. |