The King Initiate

    "They took Iesous and scourged him."--St. John

Age after age the world has wept
    A joy supreme--I saw the hands
Whose fiery radiations swept
    And burned away his earthly bands:
And where they smote the living dyes
Flashed like the plumes of paradise.

Their joys the heavy nations hush--
    A form of purple glory rose
Crowned with such rays of light as flush
    The white peaks on their towering snows:
It held the magic wand that gave
Rule over earth, air, fire and wave.

What sorrow makes the white cheeks wet:
    The mystic cross looms shadowy dim--
There where the fourfold powers have met
    And poured their living tides through him,
The Son who hides his radiant crest
To the dark Father's bosom pressed.

--June 15, 1896

George William Russell

George William Russell, who wrote under the pseudonym 'AE,' was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and painter. As a prominent mystical writer, he contributed significantly to the Irish Literary Revival. He also played a vital role in the cooperative movement in Ireland and was a close associate of notable literary figures like W.B. Yeats.

George William Russell

Comfort

George William Russell, Simple Poetry

The Hermit

George William Russell, Simple Poetry

A Vision Of Beauty

George William Russell, Simple Poetry

Aphrodite

George William Russell, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

From the Book of the Eagle

--[St. John, i. 1-33]


In the mighty Mother's bosom was the Wise
With the mystic Father in aeonian night;
Aye, for ever one with them though it arise
    Going forth to sound its hymn of light.

At its incantation rose the starry fane;
At its magic thronged the myriad race of men;
Life awoke that in the womb so long had lain
    To its cyclic labours once again.

'Tis the soul of fire within the heart of life;
From its fiery fountain spring the will and thought;
All the strength of man for deeds of love or strife,
    Though the darkness comprehend it not.

In the mystery written here
John is but the life, the seer;
Outcast from the life of light,
Inly with reverted sight
Still he scans with eager eyes
The celestial mysterie...

George William Russell

The Free

They bathed in the fire-flooded fountains;
    Life girdled them round and about;
They slept in the clefts of the mountains:
    The stars called them forth with a shout.

They prayed, but their worship was only
    The wonder at nights and at days,
As still as the lips of the lonely
    Though burning with dumbness of praise.

No sadness of earth ever captured
    Their spirits who bowed at the shrine;
They fled to the Lonely enraptured
    And hid in the Darkness Divine.

At twilight as children may gather
    They met at the doorway of death,
The smile of the dark hidden Father
    The Mother with magical breath.

Untold of in song or in story,
    In days long forgotten of men,
Their eyes were yet blind with a glory
    T...

George William Russell

Songs of Olden Magic--II. The Robing of the King

--"His candle shined upon my head, and by his light I walked
through darkness."--Job, xxix. 3


On the bird of air blue-breasted
    glint the rays of gold,
And a shadowy fleece above us
    waves the forest old,
Far through rumorous leagues of midnight
    stirred by breezes warm.
See the old ascetic yonder,
    Ah, poor withered form!
Where he crouches wrinkled over
    by unnumbered years
Through the leaves the flakes of moonfire
    fall like phantom tears.
At the dawn a kingly hunter
    passed proud disdain,
Like a rainbow-torrent scattered
    flashed his royal train.
Now the lonely one unheeded
    seeks earth's caverns dim,
Never king or princes will robe them
    radiantly as him.
Mid the deep enfolding darknes...

George William Russell

The Magi

"The mountain was filled with the hosts of the Tuatha de Dannan."
--Old Celtic Poem


See where the auras from the olden fountain
    Starward aspire;
The sacred sign upon the holy mountain
    Shines in white fire:
Waving and flaming yonder o'er the snows
    The diamond light
Melts into silver or to sapphire glows
    Night beyond night;
And from the heaven of heavens descends on earth
    A dew divine.
Come, let us mingle in the starry mirth
    Around the shrine!
Enchantress, mighty mother, to our home
    In thee we press,
Thrilled by the fiery breath and wrapt in some
    Vast tenderness
The homeward birds uncertain o'er their nest
    Wheel in the dome,
Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest,
    Wheel in the ...

George William Russell

The Breath of Light

From the cool and dark-lipped furrows
    breathes a dim delight
Aureoles of joy encircle
    every blade of grass
Where the dew-fed creatures silent
    and enraptured pass:
And the restless ploughman pauses,
    turns, and wondering
Deep beneath his rustic habit
    finds himself a king;
For a fiery moment looking
    with the eyes of God
Over fields a slave at morning
    bowed him to the sod.
Blind and dense with revelation
    every moment flies,
And unto the Mighty Mother
    gay, eternal, rise
All the hopes we hold, the gladness,
    dreams of things to be.
One of all they generations,
    Mother, hails to thee!
Hail! and hail! and hail for ever:
    though I turn again
For they joy unto the human
    vesture...

George William Russell

W. Q. J. *

O hero of the iron age,
Upon thy grave we will not weep,
Nor yet consume away in rage
For thee and thy untimely sleep.
Our hearts a burning silence keep.

O martyr, in these iron days
One fate was sure for soul like thine:
Well you foreknew but went your ways.
The crucifixion is the sign,
The meed of all the kingly line.

We may not mourn--though such a night
Has fallen on our earthly spheres
Bereft of love and truth and light
As never since the dawn of years;--
For tears give birth alone to tears.

One wreath upon they grave we lay
(The silence of our bitter thought,
Words that would scorch their hearts of clay),
And turn to learn what thou has taught,
To shape our lives as thine was wrought.

--April 15, 1896

George William Russell