To Osbert Sitwell ...possibly we will reach haven, heaven. {1} Hermes Trismegistus is patron of alchemists; his province is thought, inventive, artful and curious; his metal is quicksilver, his clients, orators, thieves and poets; steal then, O orator, plunder, O poet, take what the old-church found in Mithra’s tomb, candle and script and bell, take what the new-church spat upon and broke and shattered; collect the fragments of the splintered glass and of your fire and breath, melt down and integrate, re-invoke, re-create opal, onyx, obsidian, now scattered in the shards men tread upon. {2} Your walls do not fall, he said, because you walls are made of jasper; but not four-square, I thought, another shape (octahedron?) slipped into the place reserved by rule and rite for the twelve foundations, for the transparent glass, for no need of the sun nor moon to shine; for the vision as we see or have seen or imagined it or in the past invoked or conjured up or had conjured by another was usurped; I saw the shape which might have been of jasper, but it was not four-square. {3} I John saw. I testify; if any man shall add God shall add unto him the plagues, but he that sat upon the throne said, I make all things new. I John saw. I testify, but I make all things new, said He of the seven stars, he of the seventy-times-seven passionate, bitter wrongs, He of of the seventy-times-seven bitter, unending wars. {4} Not in our time, O Lord, the plowshare for the sword, not in our time, the knife, sated with life-blood and life, to trim the barren vine; no grape-leaf for the thorn, no vine-flower for the crown; not in our time, O King, the voice to quell the re-gathering, thundering storm. {5} Nay — peace be still — lovest thou not Azrael, the last and greatest, Death? lovest not the sun, the first who giveth life, Raphael? lovest thou me? lover of sand and shell, know who withdraws the veil, holds back the tide and shapes shells to the wave-shapes? Gabriel: Raphael, Gabriel, Azrael, three of seven — what is War to Birth, to Change, to Death? yet he, red-fire is one of seven fires, judgement and will of God, God’s very breath — Uriel. {6} Never in Rome, so many martyrs fell; not in Jerusalem, never in Thebes, so many stood and watched chariot-wheels turning. saw with their very eyes, the battle of the Titans, saw Zeus’s thunderbolts in action and how from giant hands, the lightning shattered earth and splintered sky, nor fled to hide in caves, but with unbroken will, with unbowed head, watched and though unaware, worshipped and knew not that they worshipped and that they were that which they worshipped, had they known the fire of strength, endurance, anger in their hearts, was part of that same fire that in a candle on a candle-stick or in a star, is known as one of seven, is named among the seven angels, Uriel. {7} To Uriel, no shrine, no temple where the red death fell, no image by the city-gate, no torch to shine across the water, no new fane in the market-place: the lane is empty but the leveled wall is purple as with purple spread upon an altar, this is the flowering of the rood, this is the flowering of the reed, where, Uriel, we pause to give thanks that we rise again from death and live. {8} Now polish the crucible and in the bowl distill a word most bitter, marah, a word bitterer still, mar, sea, brine, breaker, seducer, gover of life, giver of tears, now polish the crucible and set the jet of flame under, till marah-mar are melted, fuse and join and change and alter, mer, mere, mère, mater, Maia, Mary, Star of the Sea, Mother. {9} Bitter, bitter jewel in the heart of the bowl, what is your colour? what do you offer to us who rebel? what were we had you loved other? what is this mother-father to tear at our entrails? what is this unsatisfied duality which you can not satisfy? {10} In the field-furrow the rain water showed splintered edge as of a broken mirror, and in the glass as in a polished spear, glowed the star Hesperus, white, far and luminous, incandescent and near, Venus, Aphrodite, Astarte, star of the east, star of the west, Phosphorus at sun-rise, Hesperus at sun-set. {11} O swiftly, re-light the flame before the substance cool, for suddenly we saw your name desecrated; knaves and fools have done you impious wrong, Venus, for venery stands for impurity and Venus as desire is venereous, lascivious, while the very root of the word shrieks like a mandrake when foul witches pull its stem at midnight, and rare mandragora itself is full, they say, of poison, food for the witches’ den. {12} Swiftly re-light the flame, Aphrodite, holy name, Astarte, hull and spar of wrecked ships lost your star, forgot the light at dusk, forgot the prayer at dawn; return, O holiest one, Venus whose name is kin to venerate, venerator. {13} “What is the jewel colour?” green-white, opalescent, with under-layer of changing blue, with rose-vein; a white agate with a pulse uncooled that beats yet, faint blue-violet; it lives, it breathes, it gives off—fragrance? I do not know what it gives, a vibration that we can not name for there is no name for it; my patron said, “name it”; I said, I cannot name it, there is no name; he said, “invent it.” {14} I cannot invent it, I said it was agate, I said it lived, it gave— fragrance—was near enough to explain that quality for which there is no name; I do not want to name it, I want to watch its faint heart-beat, pulse-beat as it quivers, I do not want to talk about it, I want to minimize thought, concentrate on it till I shrink, dematerialize and am drawn into it. {15} Annael—this was another voice, hardly a voice, a breath, a whisper, and I remembered bell-notes, Azrael, Gabriel, Raphael, as when in Venice, one of the campanili speaks and another answers, until it seems the whole city (Venice-Venus) will be covered with gold pollen shaken from the bell-towers, lilies plundered with the weight of massive bees… {16} Annael—and I remembered the sea-shell and I remembered the empty lane and I thought again of people, daring the blinding rage of the lightning, and I thought, there is no shrine, no temple in the city for that other, Uriel, and I knew his companion, companion of the fire-to-endure was another fire, another candle, was another of seven, named among the seven Angels, Annael, peace of God. {17} So we hail them together, one to contrast the other, two of the seven Spirits, set before God as lamps on the high-altar, for one must inexorably take fire from the other as spring from winter, and surely never, never was a spring more bountiful than this; never, never was a season more beautiful, richer in leaf and colour, tell me, in what other place will you find the may flowering mulberry and rose-purple? tell me, in what other city will you find the may-tree so delicate, green-white, opalescent like our jewel in the crucible? {18} For Uriel, no temple but everywhere, the outer precincts and the squares are fragrant; the festival opens as before with the dove’s murmuring; for Uriel, no temple but Love’s sacred groves, withered in Thebes and Tyre, flower elsewhere. {19} We see her visible and actual, beauty incarnate, as no high-priest of Astoroth could compel her with incense and potent spell; we asked for no sign but she gave a sign unto us; sealed with the seal of death, we thought not to entreat her but prepared us for burial; then she set a charred tree before us, burnt and stricken to the heart; was it may-tree or apple? {20} Invisible, indivisible Spirit, how is it you come so near, how is it that we dare approach the high-altar? we crossed the charred portico, passed through a frame—doorless— entered a shrine; like a ghost, we entered a house through a wall; then still not knowing whether (like the wall) we were there or not-there, we saw the tree flowering; it was an ordinary tree in an old garden-square. {21} This is no rune nor riddle, it is happening everywhere; what I mean is—it is so simple yet no trick of the pen or brush could capture that impression; music could do nothing with it, nothing whatever; what I mean is— but you have seen for yourself that burnt-out wood crumbling… you have seen for yourself. {22} A new sensation is not granted to everyone, not to everyone everywhere, but to us here, a new sensation strikes paralyzing, strikes dumb, strikes the senses numb, sets the nerves quivering; I am sure you see what I mean; it was an old tree such as we see everywhere, anywhere here—and some barrel staves and some bricks and an edge of the wall uncovered and the naked ugliness and then…music? O, what I meant by music when I said music, was— music sets up ladders, it makes us invisible, it sets us apart, it lets us escape; but from the visible there is no escape; there is no escape from the spear that pierces the heart. {23} We are part of it; we admit the transubstantiation, not God merely in bread but God in the other-half of the tree that looked dead— did I bow my head? did I weep? my eyes saw, it was not a dream yet it was vision, it was a sign, it was the Angel which redeemed me, it was the Holy Ghost— a half-burnt-out apple-tree blossoming; this is the flowering of the rood, this is the flowering of the rood, where Annael, we pause to give thanks that we rise again from death and live. {24} Every hour, every moment has its specific attendant Spirit; the clock-hand, minute by minute, ticks round its prescribed orbit; but this curious mechanical perfection should not separate but relate rather,our life, this temporary eclipse to that other… {25} …of the no need of the moon to shine in it. for it was ticking minute by minute (the clock at my bed-head, with its dim, luminous disc) when the Lady knocked; I was talking casually with friends in the other room, when we saw the outer hall grow lighter—then we saw where the door was, there was no door (this was a dream, of course), and she was standing there, actually, at the turn of the stair. {26} One of us said, how odd, she is actually standing there, I wonder what brought her? another of us said, have we some power between us, we three together, that acts as a sort of magnet, that attracts the super-natural? (yet it was all natural enough, we agreed); I do not know what I said or if I said anything, for before I had time to speak, I realized I had been dreaming that I lay awake now on my bed, that the luminous light was the phosphorescent face of my little clock and the faint knocking was the clock ticking. {27} And yet in some very subtle way, she was there more than ever, as if she had miraculously related herself to time here, which is no easy trick, difficult even for the experienced stranger, of whom we must be not forgetful for some have entertained angels unawares. {28} I had been thinking of Gabriel, of the moon-cycle, of the moon-shell, of the moon-crescent and the moon at full: I had been thinking of Gabriel, the moon-regent, the Angel, and I had intended to recall him in the sequence of candle and fire and the law of the seven; I had not forgotten his special attribute of annunciator; I had thought to address him as I had the others, Uriel, Annael; how could I imagine the Lady herself would come instead? {29} We have seen her the world over, Our Lady of the Goldfinch, Our Lady of the Candelabra, Our Lady of the Pomegranate, Our Lady of the chair; we have seen her, an empress, magnificent in pomp and grace, and we have seen her with a single flower or a cluster of garden-pinks in a glass beside her; we have seen her snood drawn over hair, or her face set in profile with the blue hood and stars; we have seen her head bowed down with the weight of a domed crown, or we have seen her, a wisp of a girl trapped in a golden halo; we have seen her with arrow, with doves and a heart like a valentine; we have seen her in fines silks imported from all over the Levant, and hung with pearls brought from the city of Constantine; we have seen her sleeve of every imaginable shade of damask and figured brocade; it is true, the painters did very well by her; it is true, they missed never a line of the suave turn of the head or subtle shade of lowered eye-lid or eye-lids half-raised; you find her everywhere (or did find), in cathedral, museum, cloister, at the turn of the palace stair. {30} We see her hand in her lap, smoothing the apple-green or the apple-russet silk; we see her hand at her throat, fingering a talisman brought by a crusader from Jerusalem; we see her hand unknot a Syrian veil or lay down a Venetian shawl on a polished table that reflects half a miniature broken column; we see her stare past a mirror through an open window, where boat follows slow boat on the lagoon; there are white flowers on the water. {31} But none of these, none of these suggest her as I saw her, though we approach possibly something of her cool beneficence in the gracious friendliness of the marble sea-maids in Venice, who climb the altar-stair at Santa Maria dei Miracoli, or we acclaim her in the name of another in Vienna, Mari von dem Schnee, Our Lady of the Snow. {32} For I can say truthfully, her veils white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them; I can say she looked beautiful, she looked lovely, she was clothed with a garment down to the foot, but it was not girt about with a golden girdle, there was no gold, no color, there was no gleam in the stuff nor shadow of hem and seam, as it fell to the floor; she bore none of her usual attributes; the Child was not with her. {33} Hermes took his attribute of Leader-of-the-dead from Thoth and the T-cross becomes caduceus; the old-church makes its invocation to Saint Michael and Our Lady at the death-bed; Hermes Trismegistus spears, with Saint Michael the darkness of ignorance, casts the Old Dragon into the abyss. {34} So Saint Michael, regent of the planet Mercury, is not absent when we summon the other Angels, another candle appears on the high-altar, it burns with a potent flame but quivers and quickens and darkens and quickens again; remember to was Thoth with a feather who weighed the souls of the dead. {35} So she must have been pleased with us, who did not forgo our heritage at the grave-edge; she must have been pleased with the straggling company of the brush and quill who did not deny their birthright; she must have been pleased with us, for she looked so kindly at us under her drift of veils, and she carried a book. {36} Ah (you say), this is Holy Wisdom, Santa Sophia, the SS of the Sanctus Spiritus, so by facile reasoning, logically the incarnate symbol of the Holy Ghost; your Holy Ghost was an apple-tree smouldering—or rather now burgeoning with flowers; the fruit of the Tree? this is the new Eve who comes clearly to return, to retrieve what she lost the race, given over to sin, to death; she brings back the Book of Life, obviously. {37} This is a symbol of beauty (you continue), she is Our Lady universally, I see her as you project her, not out of place flanked by Corinthian capitals, or in a Coptic nave, or frozen above the centre door of a Gothic cathedral; you have done very well by her (to repeat your own phrase), you have carved her tall and unmistakable, a hieratic figure, the veiled Goddess, whether of the seven delights, whether of the seven spear-points. {38} O yes—you understand, I say, this is all most satisfactory, but she wasn’t hieratic, she wasn’t frozen, she wasn’t very tall; she is the Vestal from the days of Numa, she carries over the cult of the Bona Dea, she carries a book but it is not the tome of ancient wisdom, the pages, I imagine, are the blank pages of the unwritten volume of the new; all you say, is implicit, all that and much more; but she is not shut up in a cave like a Sibyl; she is not imprisoned in leaden bars in a coloured window; she is Psyche, the butterfly, out of the cocoon. {39} But nearer than Guardian Angel or good Daemon, she is the counter-coin-side of primitive terror; she is not-fear, she is not-war, but she is no symbolic figure of peace, charity, chastity, goodness, faith, hope, reward; she is not Justice with eyes blindfolded like Love’s; I grant you the dove’s symbolic purity, I grant you her face was innocent and immaculate and her veils like the Lamb’s Bride, but the Lamb was not with her, either as Bridegroom or Child; her attention is undivided, we are her bridegroom and lamb; her book is our book; written or unwritten, its pages will reveal a tale of a Fisherman, a tale of a jar or jars, the same—different—the same attributes, different yet the same as before. {40} This is no rune nor symbol, what I mean is—it is so simple yet no trick of the pen or brush could capture that impression; what I wanted to indicate was a new phase, a new distinction of colour; I wanted to say, I did say there was no sheen, no reflection, no shadow; when I said white, I did not mean sculptor’s or painter’s white, nor porcelain; dim-white could not suggest it, for when is fresh-fallen snow (or snow in the act of falling) dim? yet even now, we stumble, we are lost— what can we say? she was not impalpable like a ghost, she was not awe-inspiring like a Spirit, she was not even over-whelming like an Angel. {41} She carried a book, either to imply she was one of us, with us, or to suggest she was satisfied with our purpose, a tribute to the Angels; yet though the campanili spoke, Gabriel, Azrael, though the campanili answered, Raphael, Uriel, though a distant note over-water chimed Annael, and Michael was implicit from the beginning, another, deep, un-named, resurging bell answered, sounding through them all: remember, where there was no need of the moon to shine… I saw no temple. {42} Some call that deep-deep bell Zadkiel, the righteousness of God, he is regent of Jupiter or Zeus-pater or Theus-pater, Theus, God; God-the-father, father-god, or the Angel god-father, himself, heaven yet at home in a star whose colour is amethyst, whose candle burns deep-violet with the others. {43} And the point in the spectrum where all lights become one, is white and white is not no-colour, as we were told as children, but all-colour; where the flames mingle and the wings meet, when we gain the arc of perfection, we are satisfied, we are happy, we begin again; I John saw. I testify to rainbow feathers, to the span of heaven, and walls of colour, the colonnades of jasper; but when the jewel melts in the crucible, we find not ashes, not ash-of-rose, not a tall vase and a staff of lilies, not vas spirituale, not rosa mystica even, but a cluster of garden-pinks or a face like a Christmas-rose. This is the flowering of the rod, this is the flowering of the burnt-out-wood, where, Zadkiel, we pause to give thanks that we rise again from death and live. London May 17-31, 1944