That Plato, that the bright-hair'd Samian pass'd,
With trembling hope, to come to - what, at last?
Go, ask the dupes of Priestcraft; question him
Who, mid terrific sounds and spectres dim,
Walks at Eleusis; ask of those, who brave
The dazzling miracles of Mithra's Cave,
With its seven starry gates; ask all who keep
Those terrible night-myst'ries where they weep
And howl sad dirges to the answering breeze,
O'er their dead Gods, their mortal Deities
Amphibious, hybrid things, that died as men,
Drown'd, hang'd, empal'd, to rise, as gods, again ;
Ask them, what mighty secret lurks below
This sev'n-fold myst'ry — can they tell thee? No;
Gravely they keep that only secret, well
And fairly kept-that they have none to tell;
And, dup'd themselves, console their humbled pride
By duping thenceforth all mankind beside.
And such th' advance in fraud since Orpheus' time-
That earliest master of our craft sublime -
So many minor Myst'ries, imps of fraud,
From the great Orphic Egg have wing'd abroad,
That, still to' uphold our Temple's ancient boast,
And seem most holy, we must cheat the most;
Work the best miracles, wrap nonsense round
In pomp and darkness, till it seems profound;
Play on the hopes, the terrors of mankind,
"With changeful skill; and make the human mind
Like our own Sanctuary, where no ray,
But by the Priest's permission, wins its way
Where through the gloom as wave our wizard rods,
Monsters, at will, are conjured into Gods;
While Reason, like a grave-faced mummy, stands,
With her arms swathed in hieroglyphic bands.
But chiefly in that skill with which we use
Man's wildest passions for Religion's views,
Yoking them to her car like fiery steeds,
Lies the main art in which our craft succeeds.
And oh be blest, ye men of yore, whose toil
Hath, for our use, scoop'd out from Egypt's soil
This hidden Paradise, this mine of fanes,
Gardens, and palaces, where Pleasure reigns
In a rich, sunless empire of her own,
With all earth's luxuries lighting up her throne;
A realm for mystery made, which undermines
The Nile itself and, 'neath the Twelve Great Shrines
That keep Initiation's holy rite,
Spreads its long labyrinths of unearthly light,
A light that knows no change its brooks that run
Too deep for day, its gardens without sun,
Where soul and sense, by turns, are charm'd, surpris'd,
And all that bard or prophet e'er devis'd
For man's Elysium, priests have realiz❜d.
Here, at this moment - all his trials past,
And heart and nerve unshrinking to the last-
Our new Initiate roves -as yet left free
To wander through this realm of mystery;
Feeding on such illusions as prepare
The soul, like mist o'er waterfalls, to wear
All shapes and hues, at Fancy's varying will,
Through every shifting aspect, vapour still;-
Vague glimpses of the Future, vistas shown,
By scenic skill, into that world unknown,
Which saints and sinners claim alike their own;
And all those other witching, wildering arts,
Illusions, terrors, that make human hearts,
Ay, ev'n the wisest and the hardiest, quail
To any goblin thron'd behind a veil.
Yes
- such the spells shall haunt his eye, his
Mix with his night-dreams, form his atmosphere;
Till, if our Sage be not tam'd down, at length,
His wit, his wisdom, shorn of all their strength,
Like Phrygian priests, in honour of the shrine-
If he become not absolutely mine,
Body and soul, and, like the tame decoy
Which wary hunters of wild doves employ,
Draw converts also, lure his brother wits
To the dark cage where his own spirit flits,
And give us, if not saints, good hypocrites
If I effect not this, then be it said
The ancient spirit of our craft hath fled,
Gone with that serpent-god the Cross hath chas'd To hiss its soul out in the Theban waste.
The same in his halls below;
And the same he gives, to cool the lips Of the Dead who downward go.
"Drink of this cup-the water within Is fresh from Lethe's stream;
"T will make the past, with all its sin, And all its pain and sorrows, seem Like a long-forgotten dream!
"The pleasure, whose charms
Are steep'd in woe;
The knowledge, that harms
The soul to know;
"All that, of evil or false, by thee
Hath ever been known or seen, Shall melt away in this cup, and be Forgot, as it never had been!"
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