{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_5794/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_5794","id":"gutenberg_5794","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5794","summary":null,"tags":["Alchemists -- Fiction","Category: Novels","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Nobel Prizes in Literature"],"text":"Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nROSA ALCHEMICA\n\n\nBy W.B. Yeats\n\n\n\nO blessed and happy he, who knowing the mysteries of the gods,\nsanctifies his life, and purifies his soul, celebrating orgies in the\nmountains with holy purifications.--_Euripides._\n\n\n\n\nROSA ALCHEMICA.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nIt is now more than ten years since I met, for the last time, Michael\nRobartes, and for the first time and the last time his friends and\nfellow students; and witnessed his and their tragic end, and endured\nthose strange experiences, which have changed me so that my writings\nhave grown less popular and less intelligible, and driven me almost\nto the verge of taking the habit of St. Dominic. I had just published\nRosa Alchemica, a little work on the Alchemists, somewhat in the\nmanner of Sir Thomas Browne, and had received many letters from\nbelievers in the arcane sciences, upbraiding what they called my\ntimidity, for they could not believe so evident sympathy but the\nsympathy of the artist, which is half pity, for everything which has\nmoved men's hearts in any age. I had discovered, early in my\nresearches, that their doctrine was no merely chemical phantasy, but\na philosophy they applied to the world, to the elements and to man\nhimself; and that they sought to fashion gold out of common metals\nmerely as part of an universal transmutation of all things into some\ndivine and imperishable substance; and this enabled me to make my\nlittle book a fanciful reverie over the transmutation of life into\nart, and a cry of measureless desire for a world made wholly of\nessences.\n\nI was sitting dreaming of what I had written, in my house in one of\nthe old parts of Dublin; a house my ancestors had made almost famous\nthrough their part in the politics of the city and their friendships\nwith the famous men of their generations; and was feeling an unwonted\nhappiness at having at last accomplished a long-cherished design, and\nmade my rooms an expression of this favourite doctrine. The\nportraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and\ntapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the\ndoors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty\nand peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the\nrose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and\nprecise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the\ngrey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a\nChristian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I\npondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had\nmortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various\nbeauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour\nwith many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where\nevery book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and\nof a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory\nof the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue\ngrey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human\npassions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered\nabout me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every\npleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart,\nindividual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the\ntriumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the\nfirelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for\nwhich symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my\nworld, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their\nown; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other\nmoments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except\nthe bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this\nthought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow. All\nthose forms: that Madonna with her brooding purity, those rapturous\nfaces singing in the morning light, those bronze divinities with\ntheir passionless dignity, those wild shapes rushing from despair to\ndespair, belonged to a divine world wherein I had no part; and every\nexperience, however profound, every perception, however exquisite,\nwould bring me the bitter dream of a limitless energy I could never\nknow, and even in my most perfect moment I would be two selves, the\none watching with heavy eyes the other's moment of content. I had\nheaped about me the gold born in the crucibles of others; but the\nsupreme dream of the alchemist, the transmutation of the weary heart\ninto a weariless spirit, was as far from me as, I doubted not, it had\nbeen from him also. I turned to my last purchase, a set of alchemical\napparatus which, the dealer in the Rue le Peletier had assured me,\nonce belonged to Raymond Lully, and as I joined the _alembic_ to\nthe _athanor_ and laid the _lavacrum maris_ at their side,\nI understood the alchemical doctrine, that all beings, divided from\nthe great deep where spirits wander, one and yet a multitude, are\nweary; and sympathized, in the pride of my connoisseurship, with the\nconsuming thirst for destruction which made the alchemist veil under\nhis symbols of lions and dragons, of eagles and ravens, of dew and of\nnitre, a search for an essence which would dissolve all mortal\nthings. I repeated to myself the ninth key of Basilius Valentinus, in\nwhich he compares the fire of the last day to the fire of the\nalchemist, and the world to the alchemist's furnace, and would have\nus know that all must be dissolved before the divine substance,\nmaterial gold or immaterial ecstasy, awake. I had dissolved indeed\nthe mortal world and lived amid immortal essences, but had obtained\nno miraculous ecstasy. As I thought of these things, I drew aside the\ncurtains and looked out into the darkness, and it seemed to my\ntroubled fancy that all those little points of light filling the sky\nwere the furnaces of innumerable divine alchemists, who labour\ncontinually, turning lead into gold, weariness into ecstasy, bodies\ninto souls, the darkness into God; and at their perfect labour my\nmortality grew heavy, and I cried out, as so many dreamers and men of\nletters in our age have cried, for the birth of that elaborate\nspiritual beauty which could alone uplift souls weighted with so many\ndreams.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nMy reverie was broken by a loud knocking at the door, and I wondered\nthe more at this because I had no visitors, and had bid my servants\ndo all things silently, lest they broke the dream of my inner life.\nFeeling a little curious, I resolved to go to the door myself, and,\ntaking one of the silver candlesticks from the mantlepiece, began to\ndescend the stairs. The servants appeared to be out, for though the\nsound poured through every corner and crevice of the house there was\nno stir in the lower rooms. I remembered that because my needs were\nso few, my part in life so little, they had begun to come and go as\nthey would, often leaving me alone for hours. The emptiness and\nsilence of a world from which I had driven everything but dreams\nsuddenly overwhelmed me, and I shuddered as I drew the bolt. I found\nbefore me Michael Robartes, whom I had not seen for years, and whose\nwild red hair, fierce eyes, sensitive, tremulous lips and rough\nclothes, made him look now, just as they used to do fifteen years\nbefore, something between a debauchee, a saint, and a peasant. He had\nrecently come to Ireland, he said, and wished to see me on a matter\nof importance: indeed, the only matter of importance for him and for\nme. His voice brought up before me our student years in Paris, and\nremembering the magnetic power he had once possessed over me, a\nlittle fear mingled with much annoyance at this irrelevant intrusion,\nas I led the way up the wide staircase, where Swift had passed joking\nand railing, and Curran telling stories and quoting Greek, in simpler\ndays, before men's minds, subtilized and complicated by the romantic\nmovement in art and literature, began to tremble on the verge of some\nunimagined revelation. I felt that my hand shook, and saw that the\nlight of the candle wavered and quivered more than it need have upon\nthe Maenads on the old French panels, making them look like the first\nbeings slowly shaping in the formless and void darkness. When the\ndoor had closed, and the peacock curtain, glimmering like many-coloured\nflame, fell between us and the world, I felt, in a way I\ncould not understand, that some singular and unexpected thing was\nabout to happen. I went over to the mantlepiece, and finding that a\nlittle chainless bronze censer, set, upon the outside, with pieces of\npainted china by Orazio Fontana, which I had filled with antique\namulets, had fallen upon its side and poured out its contents, I\nbegan to gather the amulets into the bowl, partly to collect my\nthoughts and partly with that habitual reverence which seemed to me\nthe due of things so long connected with secret hopes and fears. 'I\nsee,' said Michael Robartes, 'that you are still fond of incense, and\nI can show you an incense more precious than any you have ever seen,'\nand as he spoke he took the censer out of my hand and put the amulets\nin a little heap between the _athanor_ and the _alembic_. I\nsat down, and he sat down at the side of the fire, and sat there for\nawhile looking into the fire, and holding the censer in his hand. 'I\nhave come to ask you something,' he said, 'and the incense will fill\nthe room, and our thoughts, with its sweet odour while we are\ntalking. I got it from an old man in Syria, who said it was made from\nflowers, of one kind with the flowers that laid their heavy purple\npetals upon the hands and upon the hair and upon the feet of Christ\nin the Garden of Gethsemane, and folded Him in their heavy breath,\nuntil He cried against the cross and his destiny.' He shook some dust\ninto the censer out of a small silk bag, and set the censer upon the\nfloor and lit the dust which sent up a blue stream of smoke, that\nspread out over the ceiling, and flowed downwards again until it was\nlike Milton's banyan tree. It filled me, as incense often does, with\na faint sleepiness, so that I started when he said, 'I have come to\nask you that question which I asked you in Paris, and which you left\nParis rather than answer.'\n\nHe had turned his eyes towards me, and I saw them glitter in the\nfirelight, and through the incense, as I replied: 'You mean, will I\nbecome an initiate of your Order of the Alchemical Rose? I would not\nconsent in Paris, when I was full of unsatisfied desire, and now that\nI have at last fashioned my life according to my desire, am I likely\nto consent?'\n\n'You have changed greatly since then,' he answered. 'I have read your\nbooks, and now I see you among all these images, and I understand you\nbetter than you do yourself, for I have been with many and many\ndreamers at the same cross-ways. You have shut away the world and\ngathered the gods about you, and if you do not throw yourself at\ntheir feet, you will be always full of lassitude, and of wavering\npurpose, for a man must forget he is miserable in the bustle and\nnoise of the multitude in this world and in time; or seek a mystical\nunion with the multitude who govern this world and time.' And then he\nmurmured something I could not hear, and as though to someone I could\nnot see.\n\nFor a moment the room appeared to darken, as it used to do when he\nwas about to perform some singular experiment, and in the darkness\nthe peacocks upon the doors seemed to glow with a more intense\ncolour. I cast off the illusion, which was, I believe, merely caused\nby memory, and by the twilight of incense, for I would not\nacknowledge that he could overcome my now mature intellect; and I\nsaid: 'Even if I grant that I need a spiritual belief and some form\nof worship, why should I go to Eleusis and not to Calvary?' He leaned\nforward and began speaking with a slightly rhythmical intonation, and\nas he spoke I had to struggle again with the shadow, as of some older\nnight than the night of the sun, which began to dim the light of the\ncandles and to blot out the little gleams upon the corner of\npicture-frames and on the bronze divinities, and to turn the blue of the\nincense to a heavy purple; while it left the peacocks to glimmer and\nglow as though each separate colour were a living spirit. I had\nfallen into a profound dream-like reverie in which I heard him\nspeaking as at a distance. 'And yet there is no one who communes with\nonly one god,' he was saying, 'and the more a man lives in\nimagination and in a refined understanding, the more gods does he\nmeet with and talk with, and the more does he come under the power of\nRoland, who sounded in the Valley of Roncesvalles the last trumpet of\nthe body's will and pleasure; and of Hamlet, who saw them perishing\naway, and sighed; and of Faust, who looked for them up and down the\nworld and could not find them; and under the power of all those\ncountless divinities who have taken upon themselves spiritual bodies\nin the minds of the modern poets and romance writers, and under the\npower of the old divinities, who since the Renaissance have won\neverything of their ancient worship except the sacrifice of birds and\nfishes, the fragrance of garlands and the smoke of incense. The many\nthink humanity made these divinities, and that it can unmake them\nagain; but we who have seen them pass in rattling harness, and in\nsoft robes, and heard them speak with articulate voices while we lay\nin deathlike trance, know that they are always making and unmaking\nhumanity, which is indeed but the trembling of their lips.'\n\nHe had stood up and begun to walk to and fro, and had become in my\nwaking dream a shuttle weaving an immense purple web whose folds had\nbegun to fill the room. The room seemed to have become inexplicably\nsilent, as though all but the web and the weaving were at an end in\nthe world. 'They have come to us; they have come to us,' the voice\nbegan again; 'all that have ever been in your reverie, all that you\nhave met with in books. There is Lear, his head still wet with the\nthunder-storm, and he laughs because you thought yourself an\nexistence who are but a shadow, and him a shadow who is an eternal\ngod; and there is Beatrice, with her lips half parted in a smile, as\nthough all the stars were about to pass away in a sigh of love; and\nthere is the mother of the God of humility who cast so great a spell\nover men that they have tried to unpeople their hearts that he might\nreign alone, but she holds in her hand the rose whose every petal is\na god; and there, O swiftly she comes! is Aphrodite under a twilight\nfalling from the wings of numberless sparrows, and about her feet are\nthe grey and white doves.' In the midst of my dream I saw him hold\nout his left arm and pass his right hand over it as though he stroked\nthe wings of doves. I made a violent effort which seemed almost to\ntear me in two, and said with forced determination: 'You would sweep\nme away into an indefinite world which fills me with terror; and yet\na man is a great man just in so far as he can make his mind reflect\neverything with indifferent precision like a mirror.' I seemed to be\nperfectly master of myself, and went on, but more rapidly: 'I command\nyou to leave me at once, for your ideas and phantasies are but the\nillusions that creep like maggots into civilizations when they begin\nto decline, and into minds when they begin to decay.' I had grown\nsuddenly angry, and seizing the _alembic_ from the table, was\nabout to rise and strike him with it, when the peacocks on the door\nbehind him appeared to grow immense; and then the _alembic_ fell\nfrom my fingers and I was drowned in a tide of green and blue and\nbronze feathers, and as I struggled hopelessly I heard a distant\nvoice saying: 'Our master Avicenna has written that all life proceeds\nout of corruption.' The glittering feathers had now covered me\ncompletely, and I knew that I had struggled for hundreds of years,\nand was conquered at last. I was sinking into the depth when the\ngreen and blue and bronze that seemed to fill the world became a sea\nof flame and swept me away, and as I was swirled along I heard a\nvoice over my head cry, 'The mirror is broken in two pieces,' and\nanother voice answer, 'The mirror is broken in four pieces,' and a\nmore distant voice cry with an exultant cry, 'The mirror is broken\ninto numberless pieces'; and then a multitude of pale hands were\nreaching towards me, and strange gentle faces bending above me, and\nhalf wailing and half caressing voices uttering words that were\nforgotten the moment they were spoken. I was being lifted out of the\ntide of flame, and felt my memories, my hopes, my thoughts, my will,\neverything I held to be myself, melting away; then I seemed to rise\nthrough numberless companies of beings who were, I understood, in\nsome way more certain than thought, each wrapped in his eternal\nmoment, in the perfect lifting of an arm, in a little circlet of\nrhythmical words, in dreaming with dim eyes and half-closed eyelids.\nAnd then I passed beyond these forms, which were so beautiful they\nhad almost ceased to be, and, having endured strange moods,\nmelancholy, as it seemed, with the weight of many worlds, I passed\ninto that Death which is Beauty herself, and into that Loneliness\nwhich all the multitudes desire without ceasing. All things that had\never lived seemed to come and dwell in my heart, and I in theirs; and\nI had never again known mortality or tears, had I not suddenly fallen\nfrom the certainty of vision into the uncertainty of dream, and\nbecome a drop of molten gold falling with immense rapidity, through a\nnight elaborate with stars, and all about me a melancholy exultant\nwailing. I fell and fell and fell, and then the wailing was but the\nwailing of the wind in the chimney, and I awoke to find myself\nleaning upon the table and supporting my head with my hands. I saw\nthe _alembic_ swaying from side to side in the distant corner it\nhad rolled to, and Michael Robartes watching me and waiting. 'I will\ngo wherever you will,' I said, 'and do whatever you bid me, for I\nhave been with eternal things.' 'I knew,' he replied, 'you must need\nanswer as you have answered, when I heard the storm begin. You must\ncome to a great distance, for we were commanded to build our temple\nbetween the pure multitude by the waves and the impure multitude of\nmen.'\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nI did not speak as we drove through the deserted streets, for my mind\nwas curiously empty of familiar thoughts and experiences; it seemed\nto have been plucked out of the definite world and cast naked upon a\nshoreless sea. There were moments when the vision appeared on the\npoint of returning, and I would half-remember, with an ecstasy of joy\nor sorrow, crimes and heroisms, fortunes and misfortunes; or begin to\ncontemplate, with a sudden leaping of the heart, hopes and terrors,\ndesires and ambitions, alien to my orderly and careful life; and then\nI would awake shuddering at the thought that some great imponderable\nbeing had swept through my mind. It was indeed days before this\nfeeling passed perfectly away, and even now, when I have sought\nrefuge in the only definite faith, I feel a great tolerance for those\npeople with incoherent personalities, who gather in the chapels and\nmeeting-places of certain obscure sects, because I also have felt\nfixed habits and principles dissolving before a power, which was\n_hysterica passio_ or sheer madness, if you will, but was so\npowerful in its melancholy exultation that I tremble lest it wake\nagain and drive me from my new-found peace.\n\nWhen we came in the grey light to the great half-empty terminus, it\nseemed to me I was so changed that I was no more, as man is, a moment\nshuddering at eternity, but eternity weeping and laughing over a\nmoment; and when we had started and Michael Robartes had fallen\nasleep, as he soon did, his sleeping face, in which there was no sign\nof all that had so shaken me and that now kept me wakeful, was to my\nexcited mind more like a mask than a face. The fancy possessed me\nthat the man behind it had dissolved away like salt in water, and\nthat it laughed and sighed, appealed and denounced at the bidding of\nbeings greater or less than man. 'This is not Michael Robartes at\nall: Michael Robartes is dead; dead for ten, for twenty years\nperhaps,' I kept repeating to myself. I fell at last into a feverish\nsleep, waking up from time to time when we rushed past some little\ntown, its slated roofs shining with wet, or still lake gleaming in\nthe cold morning light. I had been too pre-occupied to ask where we\nwere going, or to notice what tickets Michael Robartes had taken, but\nI knew now from the direction of the sun that we were going westward;\nand presently I knew also, by the way in which the trees had grown\ninto the semblance of tattered beggars flying with bent heads towards\nthe east, that we were approaching the western coast. Then\nimmediately I saw the sea between the low hills upon the left, its\ndull grey broken into white patches and lines.\n\nWhen we left the train we had still, I found, some way to go, and set\nout, buttoning our coats about us, for the wind was bitter and\nviolent. Michael Robartes was silent, seeming anxious to leave me to\nmy thoughts; and as we walked between the sea and the rocky side of a\ngreat promontory, I realized with a new perfection what a shock had\nbeen given to all my habits of thought and of feelings, if indeed\nsome mysterious change had not taken place in the substance of my\nmind, for the grey waves, plumed with scudding foam, had grown part\nof a teeming, fantastic inner life; and when Michael Robartes pointed\nto a square ancient-looking house, with a much smaller and newer\nbuilding under its lee, set out on the very end of a dilapidated and\nalmost deserted pier, and said it was the Temple of the Alchemical\nRose, I was possessed with the phantasy that the sea, which kept\ncovering it with showers of white foam, was claiming it as part of\nsome indefinite and passionate life, which had begun to war upon our\norderly and careful days, and was about to plunge the world into a\nnight as obscure as that which followed the downfall of the classical\nworld. One part of my mind mocked this phantastic terror, but the\nother, the part that still lay half plunged in vision, listened to\nthe clash of unknown armies, and shuddered at unimaginable\nfanaticisms, that hung in those grey leaping waves.\n\nWe had gone but a few paces along the pier when we came upon an old\nman, who was evidently a watchman, for he sat in an overset barrel,\nclose to a place where masons had been lately working upon a break in\nthe pier, and had in front of him a fire such as one sees slung under\ntinkers' carts. I saw that he was also a voteen, as the peasants say,\nfor there was a rosary hanging from a nail on the rim of the barrel,\nand I saw I shuddered, and I did not know why I shuddered. We had\npassed him a few yards when I heard him cry in Gaelic, 'Idolaters,\nidolaters, go down to Hell with your witches and your devils; go down\nto Hell that the herrings may come again into the bay'; and for some\nmoments I could hear him half screaming and half muttering behind us.\n'Are you not afraid,' I said, 'that these wild fishing people may do\nsome desperate thing against you?'\n\n'I and mine,' he answered, 'are long past human hurt or help, being\nincorporate with immortal spirits, and when we die it shall be the\nconsummation of the supreme work. A time will come for these people\nalso, and they will sacrifice a mullet to Artemis, or some other fish\nto some new divinity, unless indeed their own divinities, the Dagda,\nwith his overflowing cauldron, Lug, with his spear dipped in\npoppy-juice lest it rush forth hot for battle. Aengus, with the three\nbirds on his shoulder, Bodb and his red swineherd, and all the heroic\nchildren of Dana, set up once more their temples of grey stone. Their\nreign has never ceased, but only waned in power a little, for the Sidhe\nstill pass in every wind, and dance and play at hurley, and fight their\nsudden battles in every hollow and on every hill; but they cannot build\ntheir temples again till there have been martyrdoms and victories, and\nperhaps even that long-foretold battle in the Valley of the Black Pig.'\n\nKeeping close to the wall that went about the pier on the seaward\nside, to escape the driving foam and the wind, which threatened every\nmoment to lift us off our feet, we made our way in silence to the\ndoor of the square building. Michael Robartes opened it with a key,\non which I saw the rust of many salt winds, and led me along a bare\npassage and up an uncarpeted stair to a little room surrounded with\nbookshelves. A meal would be brought, but only of fruit, for I must\nsubmit to a tempered fast before the ceremony, he explained, and with\nit a book on the doctrine and method of the Order, over which I was\nto spend what remained of the winter daylight. He then left me,\npromising to return an hour before the ceremony. I began searching\namong the bookshelves, and found one of the most exhaustive\nalchemical libraries I have ever seen. There were the works of\nMorienus, who hid his immortal body under a shirt of hair-cloth; of\nAvicenna, who was a drunkard and yet controlled numberless legions of\nspirits; of Alfarabi, who put so many spirits into his lute that he\ncould make men laugh, or weep, or fall in deadly trance as he would;\nof Lully, who transformed himself into the likeness of a red cock; of\nFlamel, who with his wife Parnella achieved the elixir many hundreds\nof years ago, and is fabled to live still in Arabia among the\nDervishes; and of many of less fame. There were very few mystics but\nalchemical mystics, and because, I had little doubt, of the devotion\nto one god of the greater number and of the limited sense of beauty,\nwhich Robartes would hold an inevitable consequence; but I did notice\na complete set of facsimiles of the prophetical writings of William\nBlake, and probably because of the multitudes that thronged his\nillumination and were 'like the gay fishes on the wave when the moon\nsucks up the dew.' I noted also many poets and prose writers of every\nage, but only those who were a little weary of life, as indeed the\ngreatest have been everywhere, and who cast their imagination to us,\nas a something they needed no longer now that they were going up in\ntheir fiery chariots.\n\nPresently I heard a tap at the door, and a woman came in and laid a\nlittle fruit upon the table. I judged that she had once been\nhandsome, but her cheeks were hollowed by what I would have held, had\nI seen her anywhere else, an excitement of the flesh and a thirst for\npleasure, instead of which it doubtless was an excitement of the\nimagination and a thirst for beauty. I asked her some question\nconcerning the ceremony, but getting no answer except a shake of the\nhead, saw that I must await initiation in silence. When I had eaten,\nshe came again, and having laid a curiously wrought bronze box on the\ntable, lighted the candles, and took away the plates and the\nremnants. So soon as I was alone, I turned to the box, and found that\nthe peacocks of Hera spread out their tails over the sides and lid,\nagainst a background, on which were wrought great stars, as though to\naffirm that the heavens were a part of their glory. In the box was a\nbook bound in vellum, and having upon the vellum and in very delicate\ncolours, and in gold, the alchemical rose with many spears thrusting\nagainst it, but in vain, as was shown by the shattered points of\nthose nearest to the petals. The book was written upon vellum, and in\nbeautiful clear letters, interspersed with symbolical pictures and\nilluminations, after the manner of the _Splendor Solis_.\n\nThe first chapter described how six students, of Celtic descent, gave\nthemselves separately to the study of alchemy, and solved, one the\nmystery of the Pelican, another the mystery of the green Dragon,\nanother the mystery of the Eagle, another that of Salt and Mercury.\nWhat seemed a succession of accidents, but was, the book declared,\nthe contrivance of preternatural powers, brought them together in the\ngarden of an inn in the South of France, and while they talked\ntogether the thought came to them that alchemy was the gradual\ndistillation of the contents of the soul, until they were ready to\nput off the mortal and put on the immortal. An owl passed, rustling\namong the vine-leaves overhead, and then an old woman came, leaning\nupon a stick, and, sitting close to them, took up the thought where\nthey had dropped it. Having expounded the whole principle of\nspiritual alchemy, and bid them found the Order of the Alchemical\nRose, she passed from among them, and when they would have followed\nshe was nowhere to be seen. They formed themselves into an Order,\nholding their goods and making their researches in common, and, as\nthey became perfect in the alchemical doctrine, apparitions came and\nwent among them, and taught them more and more marvellous mysteries.\nThe book then went on to expound so much of these as the neophyte was\npermitted to know, dealing at the outset and at considerable length\nwith the independent reality of our thoughts, which was, it declared,\nthe doctrine from which all true doctrines rose. If you imagine, it\nsaid, the semblance of a living being, it is at once possessed by a\nwandering soul, and goes hither and thither working good or evil,\nuntil the moment of its death has come; and gave many examples,\nreceived, it said, from many gods. Eros had taught them how to\nfashion forms in which a divine soul could dwell, and whisper what\nthey would into sleeping minds; and Ate, forms from which demonic\nbeings could pour madness, or unquiet dreams, into sleeping blood;\nand Hermes, that if you powerfully imagined a hound at your bedside\nit would keep watch there until you woke, and drive away all but the\nmightiest demons, but that if your imagination was weakly, the hound\nwould be weakly also, and the demons prevail, and the hound soon die;\nand Aphrodite, that if you made, by a strong imagining, a dove\ncrowned with silver and had it flutter over your head, its soft\ncooing would make sweet dreams of immortal love gather and brood over\nmortal sleep; and all divinities alike had revealed with many\nwarnings and lamentations that all minds are continually giving birth\nto such beings, and sending them forth to work health or disease, joy\nor madness. If you would give forms to the evil powers, it went on,\nyou were to make them ugly, thrusting out a lip, with the thirsts of\nlife, or breaking the proportions of a body with the burdens of life;\nbut the divine powers would only appear in beautiful shapes, which\nare but, as it were, shapes trembling out of existence, folding up\ninto a timeless ecstasy, drifting with half-shut eyes, into a sleepy\nstillness. The bodiless souls who descended into these forms were\nwhat men called the moods; and worked all great changes in the world;\nfor just as the magician or the artist could call them when he would,\nso they could call out of the mind of the magician or the artist, or\nif they were demons, out of the mind of the mad or the ignoble, what\nshape they would, and through its voice and its gestures pour\nthemselves out upon the world. In this way all great events were\naccomplished; a mood, a divinity, or a demon, first descending like a\nfaint sigh into men's minds and then changing their thoughts and\ntheir actions until hair that was yellow had grown black, or hair\nthat was black had grown yellow, and empires moved their border, as\nthough they were but drifts of leaves. The rest of the book contained\nsymbols of form, and sound, and colour, and their attribution to\ndivinities and demons, so that the initiate might fashion a shape for\nany divinity or any demon, and be as powerful as Avicenna among those\nwho live under the roots of tears and of laughter.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nA couple of hours after Sunset Michael Robartes returned and told me\nthat I would have to learn the steps of an exceedingly antique dance,\nbecause before my initiation could be perfected I had to join three\ntimes in a magical dance, for rhythm was the wheel of Eternity, on\nwhich alone the transient and accidental could be broken, and the\nspirit set free. I found that the steps, which were simple enough,\nresembled certain antique Greek dances, and having been a good dancer\nin my youth and the master of many curious Gaelic steps, I soon had\nthem in my memory. He then robed me and himself in a costume which\nsuggested by its shape both Greece and Egypt, but by its crimson\ncolour a more passionate life than theirs; and having put into my\nhands a little chainless censer of bronze, wrought into the likeness\nof a rose, by some modern craftsman, he told me to open a small door\nopposite to the door by which I had entered. I put my hand to the\nhandle, but the moment I did so the fumes of the incense, helped\nperhaps by his mysterious glamour, made me fall again into a dream,\nin which I seemed to be a mask, lying on the counter of a little\nEastern shop. Many persons, with eyes so bright and still that I knew\nthem for more than human, came in and tried me on their faces, but at\nlast flung me into a corner with a little laughter; but all this\npassed in a moment, for when I awoke my hand was still upon the\nhandle. I opened the door, and found myself in a marvellous passage,\nalong whose sides were many divinities wrought in a mosaic, not less\nbeautiful than the mosaic in the Baptistery at Ravenna, but of a less\nsevere beauty; the predominant colour of each divinity, which was\nsurely a symbolic colour, being repeated in the lamps that hung from\nthe ceiling, a curiously-scented lamp before every divinity. I passed\non, marvelling exceedingly how these enthusiasts could have created\nall this beauty in so remote a place, and half persuaded to believe\nin a material alchemy, by the sight of so much hidden wealth; the\ncenser filling the air, as I passed, with smoke of ever-changing\ncolour.\n\nI stopped before a door, on whose bronze panels were wrought great\nwaves in whose shadow were faint suggestions of terrible faces. Those\nbeyond it seemed to have heard our steps, for a voice cried: 'Is the\nwork of the Incorruptible Fire at an end?' and immediately Michael\nRobartes answered: 'The perfect gold has come from the\n_athanor_.' The door swung open, and we were in a great circular\nroom, and among men and women who were dancing slowly in crimson\nrobes. Upon the ceiling was an immense rose wrought in mosaic; and\nabout the walls, also in mosaic, was a battle of gods and angels, the\ngods glimmering like rubies and sapphires, and the angels of the one\ngreyness, because, as Michael Robartes whispered, they had renounced\ntheir divinity, and turned from the unfolding of their separate\nhearts, out of love for a God of humility and sorrow. Pillars\nsupported the roof and made a kind of circular cloister, each pillar\nbeing a column of confused shapes, divinities, it seemed, of the\nwind, who rose as in a whirling dance of more than human vehemence,\nand playing upon pipes and cymbals; and from among these shapes were\nthrust out hands, and in these hands were censers. I was bid place my\ncenser also in a hand and take my place and dance, and as I turned\nfrom the pillars towards the dancers, I saw that the floor was of a\ngreen stone, and that a pale Christ on a pale cross was wrought in\nthe midst. I asked Robartes the meaning of this, and was told that\nthey desired 'To trouble His unity with their multitudinous feet.'\nThe dance wound in and out, tracing upon the floor the shapes of\npetals that copied the petals in the rose overhead, and to the sound\nof hidden instruments which were perhaps of an antique pattern, for I\nhave never heard the like; and every moment the dance was more\npassionate, until all the winds of the world seemed to have awakened\nunder our feet. After a little I had grown weary, and stood under a\npillar watching the coming and going of those flame-like figures;\nuntil gradually I sank into a half-dream, from which I was awakened\nby seeing the petals of the great rose, which had no longer the look\nof mosaic, falling slowly through the incense-heavy air, and, as\nthey fell, shaping into the likeness of living beings of an\nextraordinary beauty. Still faint and cloud-like, they began to\ndance, and as they danced took a more and more definite shape, so\nthat I was able to distinguish beautiful Grecian faces and august\nEgyptian faces, and now and again to name a divinity by the staff in\nhis hand or by a bird fluttering over his head; and soon every mortal\nfoot danced by the white foot of an immortal; and in the troubled\neyes that looked into untroubled shadowy eyes, I saw the brightness\nof uttermost desire as though they had found at length, after\nunreckonable wandering, the lost love of their youth. Sometimes, but\nonly for a moment, I saw a faint solitary figure with a Rosa veiled\nface, and carrying a faint torch, flit among the dancers, but like a\ndream within a dream, like a shadow of a shadow, and I knew by an\nunderstanding born from a deeper fountain than thought, that it was\nEros himself, and that his face was veiled because no man or woman\nfrom the beginning of the world has ever known what love is, or\nlooked into his eyes, for Eros alone of divinities is altogether a\nspirit, and hides in passions not of his essence if he would commune\nwith a mortal heart. So that if a man love nobly he knows love\nthrough infinite pity, unspeakable trust, unending sympathy; and if\nignobly through vehement jealousy, sudden hatred, and unappeasable\ndesire; but unveiled love he never knows. While I thought these\nthings, a voice cried to me from the crimson figures: 'Into the\ndance! there is none that can be spared out of the dance; into the\ndance! into the dance! that the gods may make them bodies out of the\nsubstance of our hearts'; and before I could answer, a mysterious\nwave of passion, that seemed like the soul of the dance moving within\nour souls, Alchemica took hold of me, and I was swept, neither\nconsenting nor refusing, into the midst. I was dancing with an immortal\naugust woman, who had black lilies in her hair, and her dreamy gesture\nseemed laden with a wisdom more profound than the darkness that is\nbetween star and star, and with a love like the love that breathed upon\nthe waters; and as we danced on and on, the incense drifted over us\nand round us, covering us away as in the heart of the world, and ages\nseemed to pass, and tempests to awake and perish in the folds of our\nrobes and in her heavy hair.\n\nSuddenly I remembered that her eyelids had never quivered, and that\nher lilies had not dropped a black petal, or shaken from their\nplaces, and understood with a great horror that I danced with one who\nwas more or less than human, and who was drinking up my soul as an ox\ndrinks up a wayside pool; and I fell, and darkness passed over me.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nI awoke suddenly as though something had awakened me, and saw that I\nwas lying on a roughly painted floor, and that on the ceiling, which\nwas at no great distance, was a roughly painted rose, and about me on\nthe walls half-finished paintings. The pillars and the censers had\ngone; and near me a score of sleepers lay wrapped in disordered\nrobes, their upturned faces looking to my imagination like hollow\nmasks; and a chill dawn was shining down upon them from a long window\nI had not noticed before; and outside the sea roared. I saw Michael\nRobartes lying at a little distance and beside him an overset bowl of\nwrought bronze which looked as though it had once held incense. As I\nsat thus, I heard a sudden tumult of angry men and women's voices mix\nwith the roaring of the sea; and leaping to my feet, I went quickly\nto Michael Robartes, and tried to shake him out of his sleep. I then\nseized him by the shoulder and tried to lift him, but he fell\nbackwards, and sighed faintly; and the voices became louder and\nangrier; and there was a sound of heavy blows upon the door, which\nopened on to the pier. Suddenly I heard a sound of rending wood, and\nI knew it had begun to give, and I ran to the door of the room. I\npushed it open and came out upon a passage whose bare boards\nclattered under my feet, and found in the passage another door which\nled into an empty kitchen; and as I passed through the door I heard\ntwo crashes in quick succession, and knew by the sudden noise of feet\nand the shouts that the door which opened on to the pier had fallen\ninwards. I ran from the kitchen and out into a small yard, and from\nthis down some steps which descended the seaward and sloping side of\nthe pier, and from the steps clambered along the water's edge, with\nthe angry voices ringing in my ears. This part of the pier had been\nbut lately refaced with blocks of granite, so that it was almost\nclear of seaweed; but when I came to the old part, I found it so\nslippery with green weed that I had to climb up on to the roadway. I\nlooked towards the Temple of the Alchemical Rose, where the fishermen\nand the women were still shouting, but somewhat more faintly, and saw\nthat there was no one about the door or upon the pier; but as I\nlooked, a little crowd hurried out of the door and began gathering\nlarge stones from where they were heaped up in readiness for the next\ntime a storm shattered the pier, when they would be laid under blocks\nof granite. While I stood watching the crowd, an old man, who was, I\nthink, the voteen, pointed to me, and screamed out something, and the\ncrowd whitened, for all the faces had turned towards me. I ran, and\nit was well for me that pullers of the oar are poorer men with their\nfeet than with their arms and their bodies; and yet while I ran I\nscarcely heard the following feet or the angry voices, for many\nvoices of exultation and lamentation, which were forgotten as a dream\nis forgotten the moment they were heard, seemed to be ringing in the\nair over my head.\n\nThere are moments even now when I seem to hear those voices of\nexultation and lamentation, and when the indefinite world, which has\nbut half lost its mastery over my heart and my intellect, seems about\nto claim a perfect mastery; but I carry the rosary about my neck, and\nwhen I hear, or seem to hear them, I press it to my heart and say:\n'He whose name is Legion is at our doors deceiving our intellects\nwith subtlety and flattering our hearts with beauty, and we have no\ntrust but in Thee'; and then the war that rages within me at other\ntimes is still, and I am at peace.","title":"Rosa Alchemica","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":7784}