The Star in the West

4 THE STAR IN THE WEST depths of Hell , to sink into a dirge -like Niobe death chaunt ,bewailing the thirteen children of their beget ting , rising once more in the song of Ligeia , enticing men to her mire , and at length to die still -voiced as the daughter of Dis, whose ghostly fingers sinking clutch the frozen reeds of that slough in which she had so long wallowed . Long have we peered , crouching on the watch-tower of our minds , through the darkness of ignorance lit alone by the northern lights of folly , till our scorched eyes falling as slags upon our hearts , a light celestial hath arisen from out the eyeless sockets of Eternity . A day - star , to flash forth into the west , winged and wonderful . A Pharos of gleaming hope lighting our way across the boisterous ocean of life to our haven of eternal rest . The fools and the faulty , the wise and the wizened read and tremble before the might of its majesty , for into its flaming horrent hath it woven and braided the ashen locks of wisdom , the dyed curls of folly , and all the glittering circlets of golden youth . All is transcended , all is unified and transcendental ; neither is there joy nor laughter , sorrow nor weeping , for all is as a divine mastery of Truth and Knowledge to those who worship the new - born God , like the Magi of the East , with gold , and frankincense , and myrrh . Above whose heptagonal cradle flashes the magic star Lusanaher , that great star Cor Leonis , which heralds and directs our reverent pilgrimage . The Star has arisen ; let us like men drop the silly pretence of an ostrich - like self - delusion that the cindery asteroid still lights our way ; let us rather apply our mental spectroscope to the analysis of its rays . There shall we perchance discover the blending of allopposites