The Spirit

  And the God of gods seperated a Spirit from
Himself and created in it Beauty.
  He gave to it the lightness of the breeze at dawn
and the gragrance of the flowers of the filed and the
softness of moonlight.
  The He gave to it a cup of joy, saying:
  "You shall not drink of it except that you forget
the Past and heed not the Future."
  And He gave to it a cup of sadness, saying:
  "YOu shall drink and know therefrom the mean-
ing of Life's rejoicing."
  Then He put therein a Love that would foresake it
with the first sigh of satisfaction; and a Sweetness
that would go out therefrom with the first word
uttered.
  And He caused to descend upon it knowledge
from the heavens to guide it in the way of Truth.
And planted in itrs depths Sight, that it might see
the unseen.
  Therein He created Feeling to flow with images
and phantom forms;
  And clothed it with a garment of Yearning woven
by angels from rainbow strands.
  In it He did put the darkness of Confusion,
which is Light's image.
  And the God took Fire from Wrath's furnace,
and a Wind from the desert of Ignoraance, and Sand
from the seashore of Selfishness, and Earth from
beneath the feet of the ages, and He created man.
  He gave to him unseeing Forrce to rise up in fury
with madness and subside before lust.
  And the God of gods smiled and wept and knew
a Love boundless and without limit, and He mated
Man with his Spirit.

----
A Vision
A Vision

  There in the midst of a filed on the banks of a 
limpied stream I saw a cage whose bars were wrought
by a cunning hand. In one corner of the cage was a 
dead bird and in another corner as a vessel where-
in teh water was dried up and a plate empty of
seeds.
  I stooed, overcome by the silence, and listened 
humbly, as though in the dead bird and the voice of
the streem were a sermon seeking out the heart and
asking of the conscience. OI pondered and considered
and then I knew that the poor bird had died
of thirst by the side of runnign water and perished of
hunger int he midst of fields., the very cradle of life.
Like a rich man locked in his treasurey who dies of 
hunger in the midst of his gold.
   And after a while I saw that the cage was be-
come the dry skeleton of a m,an, and the dead bird
was turned into a human hearhl and in the heart a 
deep wound from which dripped blood. The edges
of the wound were like to the lips of a grieving
woman.
  Then I heard a voice arising from the wound
saying: "I am the human heart,, the captive of mat-
ter and the slain of men's edicts. In the midst of this 
field of bbeauty on these banks of the source of life
I am captive in this cage of laws fashioned by men
for the feeling.
  "In the cradle of Creation's beauties, between the 
hands of Love, I died neglected. For the bounty of
those beauties and the fruits of this Love were for-
bidden to me. All that did awaken my desire was in
man's conception shameful; and that for which I
ytearned did he judge a thing of scorn.
  "I am the human heart, which is imprisoned in
the darkness of the multitudfe's edicts and fettered
by illusion until I am arrived at death's point.
  "I am forsaken and abandoned in the corners of
civilization and its seduction. The tongue of man-
kind is bound nad its eyes are dry the while they
smile."
  These words did I hear and behold as they came
out with the very drops of blood from that wounded
heart.
  Thereafter I saw no thing more, neither did I
hear a voce, for I had returned to my reality.