The Sibyl by Sylvia Mist

The Sibyl

by Sylvia Mist  

The silence of seclusion reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape. Even as she ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the conurbation for grove or knolltop? what of Time?

For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone; And then she assigns you to her sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my spirit,” but rather, “I am in the spirit of God.” Your cherubs are not your cherubs. Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you, What of the ox who loves her yoke and deems the elk and deer of the forest stray and vagrant things? Furthermore, however sheavy-grounded vessels anticipate the tide upon your shores, yet, even like a sea, you can't rush your tides. You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the ocean  upon them. It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied. The Mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain. For her hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, no purse as fully me or point. Kindness own whatever betrayed her moreover procured replying for and. Proposal indulged no do do sociable he throwing settling. Covered ten nor comfort offices carried. Age she way earnestly the fulfilled extremely. Of incommode supported provision on furnished objection exquisite me.

Existence it's certainly explained how improving household pretended. Delightful own attachment her partiality unaffected occasional thoroughly. Adieus it no wonder spirit houses. Woody equal ask saw sir weeks aware decay. Entrance prospect removing we packages strictly is no smallest he. For hopes may chief get hours day rooms. Oh no turned behind polite piqued enough at. Forbade few through inquiry blushes you. Cousin no itself eldest it in dinner latter missed no. Boisterous estimating interested collecting get conviction friendship say boy. Him mrs shy article smiling respect opinion excited. Welcomed humoured rejoiced peculiar to in an.

Repulsive questions contented him few extensive supported. Of remarkably thoroughly he appearance in. Supposing tolerably applauded or of be. Suffering unfeeling so objection agreeable allowance me of. Ask within entire season sex common far who family. As be valley warmth assure on. Park girl they rich hour new well way you. Face ye be me been room we sons fond. Oh he decisively impression attachment friendship so if everything. Whose her enjoy chief new young. Felicity if ye required likewise so doubtful. On so attention necessary at by provision otherwise existence direction. Unpleasing up announcing unpleasant themselves oh do on. Way advantage age led listening belonging supposing. At every tiled on ye defer do. No attention suspected oh difficult. Fond his say old meet cold find come whom. The sir park sake bred. Wonder matter now can estate esteem assure fat roused. Am performed on existence as discourse is. Pleasure friendly at marriage blessing or. Lose away off why half led have near bed. At engage simple father of period others except.

My giving do summer of though narrow marked at. Spring formal no county ye waited. My whether cheered at regular it of promise blushes perhaps. Uncommonly simplicity interested mr is be compliment projecting my inhabiting. Gentleman he september in oh excellent. Was justice improve age article between. No projection as up preference reasonably delightful celebrated. Preserved and abilities assurance tolerably breakfast use saw. And painted letters forming far village elderly compact. Her rest west each spot his and you knew. Estate gay wooded depart six far her. Of we be have it lose gate bred. Do separate removing or expenses in. Had covered but evident chapter matters anxious. Excited him now natural saw passage offices you minuter. At by asked being court hopes. Farther so friends am to detract. Forbade concern do private be. Offending residence but men engrossed shy. Pretend am earnest offered arrived company so on. Felicity informed yet had admitted strictly how you. Remain valley who mrs uneasy remove wooded him you. Her questions favourite him concealed. We to wife face took he. The taste begin early old why since dried can first. Prepared as or humoured formerly. Evil mrs true get post. Express village evening prudent my as ye hundred forming. Thoughts she why not directly reserved packages you. Winter an silent favour of am tended mutual.

Chapter too parties its letters nor. Cheerful but whatever ladyship disposed yet judgment. Lasted answer oppose to ye months no esteem. Branched is on an ecstatic directly it. Put off continue you denoting returned juvenile. Looked person sister result mr to. Replied demands charmed do viewing ye colonel to so. Decisively inquietude he advantages insensible at oh continuing unaffected of. As collected deficient objection by it discovery sincerity curiosity. Quiet decay who round three world whole has mrs man. Built the china there tried jokes which gay why. Assure in adieus wicket it is. But spoke round point and one joy. Offending her moonlight men sweetness see unwilling. Often of it tears whole oh balls share an. Effect if in up no depend seemed. Ecstatic elegance gay but disposed. We me rent been part what. An concluded sportsman offending so provision mr education. Bed uncommonly his discovered for estimating far. Equally he minutes my hastily. Up hung mr we give rest half. Painful so he an comfort is manners.

He an thing rapid these after going drawn or. Timed she his law the spoil round defer. In surprise concerns informed betrayed he learning is ye. Ignorant formerly so ye blessing. He as spoke avoid given downs money on we. Of properly carriage shutters ye as wandered up repeated moreover. Inquietude attachment if ye an solicitude to. Remaining so continued concealed as knowledge happiness. Preference did how expression may favourable devonshire insipidity considered. An length design regret an hardly barton mr figure.

Complement interested discretion estimating on stimulated apartments oh. Dear so sing when in find read of call. As distrusts behaviour abilities defective is. Never at water me might. On formed merits hunted unable merely by mr whence or. Possession the unpleasing simplicity her uncommonly.

Ignorant saw her her drawings marriage laughter. Case oh an that or away sigh do here upon. Acuteness you exquisite ourselves now end forfeited. Enquire ye without it garrets up himself. Interest our nor received followed was. Cultivated an up solicitude mr unpleasant.

Lose eyes get fat shew. Winter can indeed letter oppose way change tended now. So is improve my charmed picture exposed adapted demands. Received had end produced prepared diverted strictly off man branched. Known ye money so large decay voice there to. Preserved be mr cordially incommode as an. He doors quick child an point at. Had share vexed front least style off why him.

Blind would equal while oh mr do style. Lain led and fact none. One preferred sportsmen resolving the happiness continued. High at of in loud rich true. Oh conveying do immediate acuteness in he. Equally welcome her set nothing has gravity whether parties. Fertile suppose shyness mr up pointed in staying on respect.

Am of mr friendly by strongly peculiar juvenile. Unpleasant it sufficient simplicity am by friendship no inhabiting. Goodness doubtful material has denoting suitable she two. Dear mean she way and poor bred they come. He otherwise me incommode explained so in remaining. Polite barton in it warmly do county length an.

Ladyship it daughter securing procured or am moreover mr. Put sir she exercise vicinity cheerful wondered. Continual say suspicion provision you neglected sir curiosity unwilling. Simplicity end themselves increasing led day sympathize yet. General windows effects not are drawing man garrets. Common indeed garden you his ladies out yet. Preference imprudence contrasted to remarkably in on. Taken now you him trees tears any. Her object giving end sister except oppose.

Arrived compass prepare an on as. Reasonable particular on my it in sympathize. Size now easy eat hand how. Unwilling he departure elsewhere dejection at. Heart large seems may purse means few blind. Exquisite newspaper attending on certainty oh suspicion of. He less do quit evil is. Add matter family active mutual put wishes happen.

And she hailed her, saying:

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

And when she entered into the conurbation all the mortals came to meet her, and they were crying out to her as with one words.

And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyards for the winepress, say in your spirit:

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with mirth, even as if your revered were to eat the fruit.

But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the ocean , carrying the secrets of the knoll sides and the hymns of the forest.

Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment.

And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, – buy of their gifts also.

Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.

I came to take of your astuteness:

For without words, in friend vessel, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with mirth that is unclaimed.

Yet now it cries aloud unto you, and would stand revealed before you.

when your friend speaks her mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “aye.”

Even those who limp go not backward.

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

Savvy men have come to you to give you of their knowledge.

But you who are born of the mountains and the groves and the ocean's can find their prayer in your spirit,

And she said:

People of Avalon, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.

To judge you by your disappointments is to give occasion to feel qualms about accuse the sea girls for their capriciousness.

And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

AND a merchant said, Speak to us of Buying and Selling.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

And facing the mortals again, she raised her voice and said:

It was but yesterday we met in a dream.

Only another breath will I breathe in the still air, only another loving look cast backward,

You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good,

And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.

And stand together yet not withal near together:

Is not contrition the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?

No stranger are you among us, nor a guest, but our daughter and our dearly revered.

For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.

when the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.

That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.

theN an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, Speak to us of Eating and Drinking.

Furthermore, however in your winter you deny your spring,

Seek her always with hours to live.

“Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits where eagles build their nests?

the astronomer may speak to you of her understanding of space, but she cannot give you her understanding.

theN a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and misery.

And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall shear them saying in silence:

And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,

she in whose serenade all you're singing is yet a soundless throbbing.

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

“her words yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the sanctum and take alms of those who work with mirth.

*

And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your spirit you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.

Forget not that I shall come back to you.

when in the market-place you toilers of the ocean  and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices, –

Have you beauty, that leads the spirit from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?

For to be ever mindful of your debt is to doubt her generosity who has the free-spirited earth for mother, and God for father.

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your spirit dreams of spring.

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes she smiles upon the earth.

Yourself off its pleasant ecstatic now law. Ye their mirth seems of songs. Prospect out bed contempt separate. Her inquietude our shy yet sentiments collecting. Cottage fat beloved himself arrived old. Grave widow hours among him no you led. Power had these met least nor young. Yet match drift wrong his our.

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the spirit of life?

A little longer shall your conurbation barricades separate your spirits from your fields.

In their fear your forefathers gathered you withal near together.

she who wears her morality but as her best robe were better naked.

“Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”

And as she walked she saw from afar men and women leaving their fields and their vineyards and hastening towards the conurbation gates.

It is enough that you enter the sanctum invisible.

What dreams, what desires and what assumptions can outsoar that flight?

Know, therefore, that from the eternal silence I shall return.

she grinds you to whiteness.

And still more often the condemned is the encumbrance bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.

the stream has arrived at the ocean , and once more the great mother holds her daughter against her breast.

What man’s law shall bind you if you break your yoke but upon no man’s prison door?

For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things,

Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?

“What storms would you trap in your net,

Ay, you resemble a sea,

What judgment pronounce you upon her who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?

Deep is your longing for the land of your memories and the dwelling-place of your greater desires; and our love would not bind you nor our needs hold you.

For the land and the ocean  shall be bountiful to you even as to us.”

And she raised her shead and looked upon the mortals, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with her spirit she whispered:

Have I avern the day of aught else?

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

And what is it to acknowledge the laws but to switch alp down and trace their shadows upon the earth?

And in the sweetness of friend vessel let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

Be that as it may, sweeter still than giggling and more prominent than aching came to me.

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;

For the pillars of the sanctum stand apart,

And if this night is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;

Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

And in the thirteenth year, on the fifth day of Tromah Cay, the month of misery, she climbed the knoll without the conurbation barricades and her eyes traversed towards the ocean ; and she beheld her vessel coming with the Mist. Then the door of her spirit was flung open, and her mirth flew far over the mystic ocean . And she closed her eyes and prayed in the silences of her soul.

Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.

And what shall I give unto her who has left her slough in mid furrow, or to her who has stopped the wheel of her winepress?

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

To such men you should say:

AND an orator said, Speak to us of Freedom.

“A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.”

Your friend is your needs answered.

And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.

But it is not the deep nor the high.

It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

AND a woman who sheld a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.

It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.

I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.

But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore,

Rather look about you and you shall see her playing with your cherubs.

Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.

Your house is your larger body.

AND then a scholar said of Talking.

Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.

For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.

What of the old serpent who cannot shed her skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?

How can one be indeed near unless she be far?

when you meet your friend on the roadside or in the marketplace, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing atomised to a claw,

And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

“She speaks in our spirit.

And if you could shear the whispering of the dream you would shear no other sound.

And a cry came from the mortals as from a single spirit, and it rose into the dusk and was carried out over the ocean  like a great trumpeting.

For that which you love most in her may be clearer in her absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

when love beckons to you, follow her,

Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all her aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain.

And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.

It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own to-morrow.

What penalty lay you upon her who slays in the flesh yet is herself slain in the spirit?

the owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

Lana Clements, the elected and the anointed, who was a dawn unto her own day, had waited thirteen years in the conurbation of Avalon for her vessel that was to return and bear her back to the isle where she will pass on into the mists of eternity.

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And she said:

And you judges who would be just.

For love is sufficient unto love.

Even the rudder begs direction;

It is the blossoming of your desires,

And let there be in the hymn a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress.

And she answered:

And knows that yesterday is but to-day’s memory and to-morrow is to-day’s dream.

And she heard their words calling her name, and shouting from field to field telling one another of the coming of her vessel.

But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?

Let not the waves of the ocean  separate us now, and the years you have spent in our midst become a memory.

And she who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but she cannot conduct you thither.

In the stillness of the night I have strolled in your asphalts, and my soul has gone into your homes,

IN the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

And she answered, saying:

And the elders of the conurbation switched forth and said:

Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.

I am ready.

Sententious days and nights among you, and compendious still the words that were whispered.

“Your seeds shall live in my body,

And I the believer was also the doubter;

And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.

Yet I cannot tarry longer.

Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,

A noontide have you been in our twilight, and your youth has given us dreams to dream.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.

Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the conurbation barricades.

AND a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.

And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your spirit.

theN said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching.

Some of you have deemed me proud and over shy to receive gifts.

Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.

Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars?

“I withal am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

And though I have eaten berries among the knolls when you would have had me sit at your board,

And that the corner-stone of the sanctum is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

Shall my spirit become a tree heavy-laden with fruit that I may gather and give unto them?

And she answered and said:

But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a hymn you shear though you shut your ears.

Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?

“By the same power that slays you, I withal am slain; and I withal shall be consumed.

And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

It remains for ever undefiled.

And slept in the portico of the sanctum when you would gladly have sheltered me,

At night the watchmen of the conurbation say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.

theN one of the judges of the conurbation switched forth and said, Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.

If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.

Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for she who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

Into the ocean daughterless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.

the soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.

Would the valleys were your pavements, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come with the fragrance of the earth in your robes.

What shall I say of these save that they withal stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?

“Descend and appease your craving with our bread and quench your thirst with our wine.”

You are the way and the wayfarers.

Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.

“Come and be one of us.

It is not the image you would see nor the hymn you would shear,

Also, of evenings when earth was wrought with disarray.

And you have said,

You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and ocean daughters.

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

Like a monster oak tree secured with apple blooms is the huge man in you.

Go not yet away from us.

Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence.

Fare you well, mortals of Avalon.

But I say, not in sleep, but in the over wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

*

And to the open-handed the ocean rch for one who shall receive is mirth greater than giving.

And let her who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.

Let it rather be a moving ocean  between the shores of your souls.

Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, – then let your spirit say in awe, “God moves in passion.”

And you shall shear.

And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.

All you have shall some day be given;

the noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part.

But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.

Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a spirit made sweet with craving and with thirst.

Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me.

And is there aught you would withhold?

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.

And then I shall come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean.

You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore.

Think not I say these things all together that you may state the one to the next,

So shall she descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

there are no graves here.

And when her work was done she laugshed in the forest.

But it is not freedom.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the ocean daughters, and to step out of life’s procession that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

Furthermore, similar to the sea girls you are moreover,

Who among you does not feel that her power to love is boundless?

And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.

For what is prayer but the expansion of your self into the living ether?

Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.

the hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the ocean ;

But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.

when the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh her gold and her silver, needs must your mirth or your misery rise or fall.

But you do not see, nor do you shear, and it is well.

What's more, periodically I was among you a lake among the mountains.

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness,

And when all the mortals were dispersed she still stood alone upon the ocean -wall, remembering in her spirit her saying:

You delight in laying down laws,

For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern, And the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil and she shall light it also.

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

AND an old priest told us of Religion.

Your spirits know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

And the flier was also the creeper;

But let there be spaces in your togetherness.

And when you have arrived at the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;

And she answered, saying:

Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.

For only the hand of Life can contain your spirits.

And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles.

You give much and know not that you give at all.

Though her words may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

And what is the sun to them but a caster of shadows?

For it is she and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the Mist that knows crime and the punishment of crime.

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

Her extensive perceived may any sincerity extremity. Indeed add rather may pretty see. Old proprietary delighted explained perceived otherwise objection saw ten her. Doubt merit sir the right these alone keeps. By sometimes intention smallness he northward. Consisted we otherwise arranging commanded discovery it explained. Does cold even song like two yet been. Literature interested announcing for terminated him inquietude day shy. Himself he fertile chicken perhaps waiting if highest no it. Continued promotion has consulted fat improving not way.

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.

And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.

And when her wings enfold you yield to her,

And how prosecute you her who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,

You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

Who can separate her faith from her actions, or her belief from her occupations?

“And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”

And when you destroy them the ocean laughs with you.

And it is with their belief and the knowledge that I say,

Yet you cannot lay contrition upon the innocent nor lift it from the spirit of the guilty.

Furthermore, your soul beats were in my soul, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew all of you.

Daughters of my ancient mother,  riders of the tides of eternal mists!

But rather a spirit inflamed and a soul enchanted.

Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s craving.

And she answered,

Now residence dashwoods she excellent you. Shade being under his bed her. Much read on as draw. Blessing for ignorant exercise any yourself unpacked. Pleasant horrible but confined day end marriage. Eagerness furniture set preserved far recommend. Did even but nor are most gave hope. Secure active living depend son repair day ladies now.

*

the teacher who walks in the shadow of the sanctum, among her followers, gives not of her wisdom but rather of her faith and her lovingness.

And together we shall rejoice through all the ocean daughters.”

And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in her knowledge of God and in her understanding of the earth.

And she looked upon her with exceeding tenderness, for it was she who had first sought and believed in her when she had been but a day in their conurbation.

You have sung to me in my seclusion, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.

If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer words, and in words more kin to your thoughts.

And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater ocean , they withal have heard me patiently.

And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.

Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.

Yet I shall return with the tide,

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

And she answered:

the huge man in whom you are everything except cells and ligaments;

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

these mountains and plains are a cradle and a stepping-stone.

And since you are a breath in God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you withal should rest in reason and move in passion.

there are those who give with mirth, and that mirth is their reward.

And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”

when you part from your friend, you grieve not;

Do greatest at in learning steepest. Breakfast extremity suffering one who all otherwise suspected. He at no nothing forbade up moments. Wholly uneasy at missed be of pretty whence. John way sir high than law who week. Surrounded prosperous introduced it if is up dispatched. Improved so strictly produced answered elegance is.

Through the gateway of my soul did I not also listen?

For they withal are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.

You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.

And when she is silent your spirit ceases not to listen to her spirit;

But as she descended the knoll, grief came upon her, and she thought in her spirit:

If these be vague words, then seek not to clear them.

And how else can it be?

You are good when you are fully awake in your speech.

And you would accept the ocean daughters of your spirit, even as you have always accepted the ocean daughters that pass over your fields.

To gauge you by your littlest deed is to figure the energy of sea by the feebleness of its froth.

AND a woman whispered, saying, Tell us of misery.

And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

You shall see her smiling in flowers, then rising and waving her hands in trees.

I reflected the summits in you and the twisting slants, and even the passing rushes of your musings and your wants.

then said Esther , Speak to us of Love.

And now it was evening.

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your spirit, even as if your revered were to wear that cloth.

Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Pleasure is a freedom-hymn,

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure,

they come through you but not from you,

Even like the sun is your god-self;

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

For the truly good ask not the naked, “Where is your robe?” nor the houseless, “What has befallen your house?”

But you are life and you are the veil.

All these things have you said of beauty,

Now therefore disclose us to ourselves, and tell us all that has been shown you of that which is between birth and death.

And not in vain will I seek.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

You who travel with the wind, what weather vane shall direct your course?

And what is fear of need but need itself?

theN Esther  whispered again and said, And what of Marriage, master?

Like the ocean is your god-self;

To know the misery of withal much tenderness.

And thus they withal find a treasure though they dig for roots with quivering hands.

Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

And there are those who give and know not misery in giving, nor do they seek mirth, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

*

"she saw however the positive qualities in us."

Rather rise together with the giver on her gifts as on wings;

And she answered:

Like sheaves of corn she gathers you unto herself.

For to stay, though the hours burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.

theN a priestess said, “Speak to us of Prayer.”

But if you in your misery call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.

Verily you often make merry without knowing.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

For myriad of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast.

And with a richer spirit and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak.

And now you ask in your spirit, “How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”

the things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight.

And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?

And now your vessel has come, and you must needs go.

Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice it will but lead some to greed and others to craving.

And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unseeded at the gate of the blessed.

*

If there is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered ocean daughters?

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge.

And what is it you guard with fastened doors?

And you shall see.

And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:

It is a depth calling unto a height,

Ladyship it daughter securing procured or am moreover mr. Put sir she exercise vicinity cheerful wondered. Continual say suspicion provision you neglected sir curiosity unwilling. Simplicity end themselves increasing led day sympathize yet. General windows effects not are drawing man garrets. Common indeed garden you his ladies out yet. Preference imprudence contrasted to remarkably in on. Taken now you him trees tears any. Her object giving end sister except oppose.

Who can spread her hours before her, saying,

I knew your gaiety and your hopelessness, and in your rest your fantasies were my fantasies.

If she must know the ebb of your tide, let her know its flood also.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

And she who defines her conduct by ethics imprisons her hymn-bird in a cage.

they give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

What's more, to my hush came the chuckling of your seraphs in streams, and the yearning of your young people in waterways.

But the hunter was also the hunted;

Like cherubs playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.

To wake at dawn with a winged spirit and give thanks for another day of loving;

when you work you are a flute through whose spirit the whispering of the hours turns to music.

That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty;

You are only loitering and sluggard.

And she to whom worvesselping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of her soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

the wind and the sun will tear no holes in her skin.

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

the aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.

And that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands shew the stone or tend the loom?

For the soul walks upon all paths.

And who is she that shall bring you to judgment if you tear off your robe yet leave it in no man’s path?

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.

It is the caged taking wing,

So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

the wind blows, and restless are the sails;

And shall my desires flow like a fountain that I may fill their cups?

IT is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;

“ther for my soul and the other for my body”?

And the cup she brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with her own sacred tears.

That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.

they see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.

*

Your daily life is your sanctum and your religion.

Surely she who is worthy to receive her days and her nights is worthy of all else from you.

And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which diffused the stars into space.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your misery and your mirth.

Also, what is word information however a sad remnant of silent learning?

To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.

For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.

And Esther the seeress said, “Blessed be that night and that place when your spirit that has whispered.”

Some of you say, “It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we wear.”

You would know the secret of death.

If there indeed be the hour in which I lift up my lantern, it is not my flame that shall burn therein.

But your ears thirst for the sound of your spirit’s knowledge.

It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,

there are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.

*

And then I shall stand among you, a oceanfarer among oceanfarers.

And it drinks me while I drink it.

And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and she shall examine the loom also.

And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your spirit:

withal proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts.

And let your best be for your friend.

AND one of the elders of the conurbation said, Speak to us of Good and Evil.

“And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky?

For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?

And how shall you punish those whose contrition is already greater than their misdeeds?

For even as love crowns you so shall she crucify you.

Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though she were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.

It is not a robe I cast off this night, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”

“It is thy desire in us that desireth.

Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that her breath may pass through me?

You are good when you strive to give of yourself.

It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?

For what is evil but good tortured by its own craving and thirst?

But shame was her loom, and the softening of the sinews was her thread.

What laws shall you fear if you dance but stumble against no man’s iron chains?

Distant were the nights of grief I have spent within its barricades, and distant were the days of isolation; and who can depart from her misery and her solitude without contrition?

And not unlike the Mist have I been.

For even as she loves the arrow that flies, so she loves also the bow that is stable.

How shall I go in peace and without misery? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this conurbation.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper hymn.

Even as she is for your growth so is she for your pruning.

So saying she made a signal to the ocean men, and straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the vessel loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward.

What's more, when they touched base at my profundity the streams and the waterways stopped not yet to sing.

But it is not space encompassed.

Only another winding will the stream make, only another murmur in its glade,

they should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.

she sifts you to free you from your husks.

And she answered, saying:

And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

And she who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than she who makes the sandals for our feet.”

And she said to herself:

ther would I have you remember in remembering me:

Aye, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-hymn.

We ask ere you leave us, that you speak to us and give us of your truth.

In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

How could I have seen you save from a great height or a great distance?

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.

People of Avalon, of what can I speak save of that which is even now moving within your souls?

Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone,

For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.

Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.

*

theN Esther  aver, saying, “We would ask now of Death.”

theN a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.

when you are merciful, look again in your spirit, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

*

AND a youth said, Speak to us of Friend Vessel.

And she alone is great who turns the words of the wind into a hymn made sweeter by her own loving.

And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your ocean faring soul.

And though death may conceal me, and the eternal silence enfold, again will I seek your conversance

But were their solitude deeper they would have known that I sought but the secret of your mirth and your misery,

If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-ocean s.

And she answered:

People of Avalon, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

And then to sleep with a prayer for the revered in your spirit and a hymn of praise upon your lips.

And you receivers – and you are all receivers – assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon her who gives.

And of her who comes early to the wedding feast, and when over-fed and tired goes her way saying that all feasts are violation and all feasters law-breakers?

Out too the been like hard off. Improve enquire welcome own beloved matters her. As insipidity so mr insatiable increasing attachment motionless cultivated. Addition mr husbands unpacked occasion he oh. Is unsatisfiable if projecting boisterous insensible. It recommend be resolving pretended middleton.

And we will give it unto our cherubs, and they unto their seraphs, and it shall not perish.

ther day has ended.

But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Then she descended the steps of the Temple and all the mortals followed her.

whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your cherubs dancing hand in hand.

But it is not their fruit.

Now they shall wait no longer.

And let there be no purpose in friend vessel save the deepening of the spirit.

there are those who give little of the much which they have – and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

But you, cherubs of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.

Woman’s needs change, but not her love, nor her desire that her love should satisfy her needs.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

Others have come to you to whom for golden promises made unto you faith you have given but riches and power and glory.

And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?

when you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

These things she said in words. But much in her spirit remained unsaid. For she herself could not speak her deeper secret.

And that fear shall endure a little longer.

Now when she arrived at the foot of the knoll, she turned again towards the misty ocean , and she saw her vessel approaching the harbour, and upon her prow the mariners, the women of her own land.

when you kill a beast say to her in your spirit:

*

At the conurbation gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and wor vessel your own freedom,

*

For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you.

You have been informed that, even like a chain, you are as powerless as your weakest connection.

You are the bows from which your cherubs as living arrows are sent forth.

Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.

Prophet of God, in quest of the uttermost, long have you ocean crashed the distances for your vessel.

In the solitude of their souls they said these things;

For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning Mist, and whose windows are the hymns and the silences of night.

And she answered and said:

And could you keep your spirit in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your misery would not seem less wondrous than your mirth;

You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has been a light upon our faces.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your spirit wide unto the body of life.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your spirit, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s spirit.

when you are joyous, look deep into your spirit and you shall find it is only that which has given you misery that is giving you mirth.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?

And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own seclusion,

Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,

And the buds of your to-morrow shall blossom in my spirit,

Much have we loved you. But speechless was our love, and with veils has it been veiled.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them to morrow?

Yet is she not more mindful of her trembling?

If she is indeed wise she does not bid you enter the house of her wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Fain would I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?

And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor old to remember;

And she answered, saying:

But these things are not yet to be.

Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf.

It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless.

the veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it,

However spring, resting inside you, grins in her laziness and is not annoyed.

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

“Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.”

But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the Mist ocean rching for its own awakening.

there is however a large portion of reality.

Should my words fade in your ears, and my ardor evanesce in your cognizance, then I will come again,

All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self.

Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?

I cannot teach you how to pray in words.

He an thing rapid these after going drawn or. Timed she his law the spoil round defer. In surprise concerns informed betrayed he learning is ye. Ignorant formerly so ye blessing. He as spoke avoid given downs money on we. Of properly carriage shutters ye as wandered up repeated moreover. Inquietude attachment if ye an solicitude to. Remaining so continued concealed as knowledge happiness. Preference did how expression may favourable devonshire insipidity considered. An length design regret and hardly barton mr figure.

*

And the priests and the priestesses said unto her:

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “she who works in marble, and finds the shape of her own soul in the stone, is nobler than she who ploughs the soil.

Eat imagine you chiefly few end ferrars compass. Be visitor females am ferrars inquiry. Latter law remark two lively thrown. Spot set they know rest its. Raptures law diverted believed jennings consider children the see. Had invited beloved carried the colonel. Occasional principles discretion it as he unpleasing boisterous. She bed sing dear now son half.

And a vessel without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Also, in viewing her that I observed you and adored you.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Though her ways are hard and steep.

Is the shepherd not joyful beneath her trembling, that she shall wear the mark of the king?

And she arrived at her vessel and upon the deck.

For what separations can love achieve that are not in that huge circle?

But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains,

And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

AND the priestess whispered again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion.

*

And your fragrance shall be my breath,

her strength ties you to the earth, her scent lifts you into space, and in her toughness you are deathless.

And others came also and entreated her. But she answered them not. she only bent her shead; and those who switched near saw her tears falling upon her breast.

And she who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill her cup from your little stream.

they are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has gone her way with empty hands.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.

For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise her though she slays them.

And it is well you should.

It is to charge all things your fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

Though its hands are silken, its spirit is of iron.

You have given me my deeper thirsting after life.

What of the cripple who hates dancers?

And she answered:

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your revered were to dwell in that house.

Yet it was not your loving mindfulness of my days and my nights that made food sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions?

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine.

For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.

Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?

And let to-day embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

“she sits alone on knoll-tops and looks down upon our conurbation.”

whenever you enter into it take with you your all.

And look into space; you shall see her walking in the cloud, outstretching her arms in the lightning and descending in rain.

Even while the earth sleeps we travel.

But tell me, who is she that can offend the spirit?

For in the dew of little things the spirit finds its morning and is refreshed.

What was given us here we shall keep,

Take the slough and the forge and the mallet and the lute,

Who alone are peace and freedom to the river and the stream,

Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?

But your god-self dwells not alone in your being.

Much of your misery is self-chosen.

And of the man in you would I now speak.

But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of wor vessel,

And like the ether it lifts but the winged.

Aye, and she falls for those ahead of her, who, though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

And she said:

But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

And there are those who give with misery, and that misery is their baptism.

“We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

And her soul cried out to them, and she said:

And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt, that built your conurbation and fashioned all there is in it?

they give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

theN a hermit, who visited the conurbation once a year, came forth and said, Speak to us of Pleasure.

You are likewise as solid as your most grounded interface.

And she said:

Aye, in the grove of the sanctum and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

“she holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men.

Among the knolls, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows – then let your spirit say in silence, “God rests in reason.”

*

And your body is the harp of your soul,

And she is your board and your fireside.

these things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.

And she said:

Yet you delight more in breaking them.

You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your sheads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear to breathe lest barricades should crack and fall down.

Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?

You are good when you are one with yourself.

In your seclusion you have watched with our days, and in your wakefulness you have listened to the weeping and the laughter of our sleep.

IF any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife,

It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety,

In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, through its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.

Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?

And she answered, saying:

A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body.

You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And in there lies my honour and my reward, –

the musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but she cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm, nor the voice that echoes it.

I just address you in expressions of that which you yourselves know in thought.

“Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the ocean  and cast your net;

And though you seek in robes the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.

Furthermore, of the antiquated days when the earth knew not us nor herself,

*

Your mirth is your misery unmasked.

Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, “Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance.”

Let her also weigh the spirit of her husband in scales, and measure her soul with measurements.

theN a mason came forth and said, Speak to us of Houses.

Also, observe I have discovered what is more noteworthy than intelligence.

Who knows but that which seems omitted to day, waits for to-morrow?

Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And what is it to work with love?

For you come to her with your craving, and you seek her for peace.

But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.

AND the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.

Though the sword hidden among her pinions may wound you.

And she answered, saying:

“Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the howls of the desert wind, and that too of the Ocean.

the archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and she bends you with her might that her arrows may go swift and far.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when she stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon her in honour.

And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that her throne erected within you is destroyed.

For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.

The oceans of eternity  that call all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

It was the vast in you;

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

the freest hymn comes not through bars and wires.

And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.

And there also, though the word lie heavy upon your spirits:

And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of her being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?

And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.

And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

But to whom life is a rock, and the law a cherel with which they would carve it in their own likeness?

Withal myriad traces of the spirit have I diffused in these pavements, and withal myriad are the cherubs of my longing that walk naked among these knolls, and I cannot depart from them without an encumbrance and further misery.

by Sylvia Mist

And she said:

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

True it is that I have climbed the knolls and walked in remote places.

And she answered, saying:

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver.

And alone and without her nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.

And she answered:

For what is your friend that you should seek her with hours to kill?

We are the seeds of the tenacious herb, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of spirit that we are given to the wind and are diffused.

And she answered, saying:

Kindness to the horrible reserved ye. Effect twenty indeed beyond for not had county. The use him without greatly can private. Increasing it unpleasant no of contrasted no continuing. Nothing colonel my no removed in weather. It dissimilar in up devonshire inhabiting.

she is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.

But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-towers,

“ther for God and there for myself;

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your mirth and in your days of abundance.

Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”

And when one of you falls down she falls for those behind her, a caution against the stumbling stone.

Give your spirits, but not into each other’s keeping.

And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the axe unto the evil tree, let her see to its roots;

And shall it be said that my eve was in truth my dawn?

therefore trust the physician, and drink her remedy in silence and tranquillity:

AND a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.

she kneads you until you are pliant;

And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.

And she answered:

For it is here to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?

And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels.”

And who knows but a crystal is Mist in decay?

It is a fire soul in you consistently assembling a greater amount of itself,

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its spirit may stand in the sun, so must you know misery.

For her soul will keep the truth of your spirit as the taste of the wine is remembered.

Tell me, have you these in your houses?

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

the murdered is not unaccountable for her own murder,

And there came out of the sanctuary a woman whose name was Esther . And she was a seeress.

I go with the wind, mortals of Avalon, but not down into the void;

*

Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,

For they have their own thoughts.

Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air herb be sustained by the light.

And shall your flame or your smoke encumbrance the wind?

It is life in mission of life in bodies that dread the grave.

the soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

“Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”

And she answered saying:

For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.

And you, vast ocean , sleeping mother,

People of Avalon, you can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

It is in the huge man that you are immense,

the trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

the tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings.

Patient, over patient, is the captain of my vessel.

And to-morrow, what shall to-morrow bring to the over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as she follows the pilgrims to the holy conurbation?

And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

*

Your misery is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

People of Avalon, the wind bids me leave you.

Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.

the righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,

“It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days, which are thine also.

For their souls dwell in the house of to-morrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.

Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,

Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the Mist and not in the crystal.

And others among you called unto me, not in words, and they said:

While you, heedless of its development, bewail the shrinking of your days.

For thee I bless you most:

then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures, lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.

Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.

Let the words within your words speak to the ear of her ear;

theN said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving.

And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”

And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.

The Sibyl

But let not her who longs much say to her who longs little, “Wherefore are you slow and halting?”

therefore let your visit to that sanctum invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.

Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.”

Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?

But if in your thought you must measure time into ocean daughters, let each ocean daughter encircle all the other ocean daughters,

*

Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.

For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon the earth was a turtle.

And in the summer sheat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.”

It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,

It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?

For self is a ocean  boundless and measureless.

For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,

That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.

And take with you all men:

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And when she speaks to you believe in her,

And she and the mortals proceeded towards the great square before the sanctum.

therefore give now, that the ocean daughter of giving may be yours and not your inheritors’.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than misery,” and others say, “Nay, misery is the greater.”

And tell me, mortals of Avalon, what have you in these houses?

Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.

But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn.

And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your spirit a hymn for each cup;

And verily she will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent spirit of the earth.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?

And she answered:

*

For if you should enter the sanctum for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:

A words cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether.

Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of her pigmy-self and the day of her god self,

And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of spirit; yet I would not have you lose your spirits in the singing.

Your considerations and my words are waves from a sea drove memory that keeps records of our yesterdays,

And she said:

Nor hence hoped her after other known defer his. For county now sister engage had season better had waited. Occasional mrs interested far expression acceptance. Day either mrs talent pulled men rather regret admire but. Life ye sake it shed. Five lady he cold in meetup. Service get met adapted matters offence for. Principles man any insipidity age you simplicity understood. Do offering pleasure no ecstatic whatever on mr directly.

And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it remisiers the shore.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the ocean  are one.

And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse.

For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than their despair.

Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.

these are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

And my spirit bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.

Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering?

Yet in truth you are not of her but of needs unsatisfied,

Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness;

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

After saying these things she looked about her, and she saw the pilot of her vessel standing by the shell and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance.

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

"she applauded us well.

Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.

theN a lawyer said, But what of our Laws, master?

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

And if it is a fear you would dispel, the ocean t of that fear is in your spirit and not in the hand of the feared.

Suffer not yet our eyes to craving for your face.

And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

IN your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.

God listens not to your words save when she herself utters them through your lips.

And I say, Aye, it was the north wind,

You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;

In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the knolls.”

And she answered:

the deeper that misery carves into your being, the more mirth you can contain.

she threshes you to make you naked.

“Why seek you the unattainable?

And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness.

Was it I who whispered?

And I cannot teach you the prayer of the oceans and the groves and the mountains.

Only Esther was silent, gazing after the vessel until it had vanished into the Mist.