Collected Works (Vol. I)

JEPHTHAH. 1899. sie) GERALD KELLY, POET AND PAINTER, I DEDICATE THIS TRAGEDY. CAMBRIDGE, November, 18098. JEPHTHAH. ‘*Let my Lamp, at midnight hour, Be seen in some high lonely Tower, Where I may oft outwatch the Bear, With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphear The spirit of Plato, to unfold What Worlds, or what vast Regions hold The immortal mind that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshly nook; And of those Dzemons that are found In fire, air, flood, or under ground, Whose power hath a true consent With Planet, or with Element. Some time let Gorgeous Tragedy In Sceptr’d Pall come sweeping by.” It Penseroso. Tdde viv éralpats Tats tua répmva Kddws aelow. | SAPPILO, ‘It need not appear strange unto you that this Book is not at all like unto so many others which I have, and which are composed in a lofty and subtle style.”— The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Mtelin the Mage. PRELIMINARY INVOCATION. TO A. C. S. In the blind hour of madness, in its might, When the red star of tyranny was highest; When baleful watchfires scared the witless night, And kings mocked Freedom, as she wept : ‘¢ Thou diest !”’ When priestcraft snarled at Thought: ‘‘I crush thee quite!” Then rose the splendid song of thee, ‘© Thou liest !”’ Out of the darkness, in the death of hope, Thy white star flamed in Europe’s horoscope. The coffin-nails were driven home: the curse Of mockery’s blessing flung the dust upon her: The horses of Destruction dragged the hearse Over besmirchéd roads of Truth and Honour : The obscene God spat on the universe: The sods of Destiny were spattered on her:— Then rose thy spirit through the shaken skies: ‘* Child of the Dawn, I say to thee, arise !” Through the ancestral shame and feudal gloom, Through medieval blackness rung thy peean : Let there be light !—the desecrated tomb Gaped as thy fury smote the Galilean. Let there be light ! and there was light : the womb Of arth resounded, and the empyréan Roared : and the thunder of the seas averred The presence of thy recreating word. The stone rolls back : the charioted night, Stricken, swings backwards on her broken pinions : Faith sickens, drunken tyranny reels, the spite Of monarchs, ruinous of their chained dominions : 64