Margaret Fuller and Alchemy

THE ALCHEMICAL POETRY

OF MARGARET FULLER

Double Triangle, Serpent and Rays

by

Margaret Fuller

Patient serpent, circle round,

Till in death thy life is found;

Double form of godly prime

Holding the whole thought of time,

When the perfect two embrace,

Male & female, black & white,

Soul is justified in space,

Dark made fruitful by the light;

And, centred in the diamond Sun,

Time & Eternity are one.

The Sacred Marriage

By

Margaret Fuller

And has another’s life as large a scope?

It may give due fulfillment to thy hope,

And every portal to the unknown may ope,

If, near this other life, thy inmost feeling

Trembles with fateful prescience of revealing

The future Deity, time still concealing.

If thou feel thy whole force drawn more and more

To launch that other bark on seas without a shore;

And no still secret must be kept in store;

If meannesses that dim each temporal deed,

The dull decay that mars the fleshly weed,

And flower of love that seems to fall and leave no seed –

Hide never the full presence from thy sight

Of mutual aims and tasks, ideals bright,

Which feed their roots today on all this seeming blight.

Twin stars that mutual circle in the heaven,

Two parts for spiritual concord given,

Twin Sabbaths that inlock the Sacred Seven;

Still looking to the centre for the cause,

Mutual light giving to draw out the powers,

And learning all the other groups by cognizance of one another’s laws:

The parent love the wedded love includes,

The one permits the two their mutual moods,

The two each other know mid myriad multitudes;

With child-like intellect, discerning love,

And mutual action energizing love,

In myriad forms affiliating love.

A world whose seasons bloom from pole to pole,

A force which knows both starting-point and goal,

A Home in Heaven, — the Union in the Soul.

Sub Rosa, Cruz

by

Margaret Fuller

In times of old, as we are told,

When men more child-like at the feet

Of Jesus sat, than now,

A chivalry was known more bold

Than ours, and yet of stricter vow,

Of worship more complete.

Knights of the Rosy Cross, they bore

Its weight within the heart, but wore

Without, devotion’s sign in glistening ruby bright;

The gall and vinegar they drank alone,

But to the world at large would only own

The wine of faith, sparkling with rosy light.

The pass-word now is lost

To that initiation full and free;

Daily we pay the cost

Of our slow schooling for divine degree,

We know no means to feed an undying lamp;

Our lights go out in every wind or damp.

Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold

Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold;

Forget not oft to lift the hope on high

The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky.

And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed,

The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed,

Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand,

The kindred angels of a faithful band;

Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside,

No lamp is needed, for the night has died.

Be to the best thou knowest ever true,

Is all the creed;

Then, by thy talisman of rosy hue,

Or fenced with thorns that wearing thou must bleed,

Or gentle pledge of Love’s prophetic view,

The faithful steps it will securely lead.

Happy are all who reach that shore,

And bathe in heavenly day,

Happiest are those who high the banner bore,

To marshal others on the way;

Or waited for them, fainting and way-worn,

By burdens overborne.

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