The Litany of the Sun

Having said something about the inner Earth in my last entry it seemed appropriate if I added something about the inner Sun. The following was written by an old mentor of mine, Margaret Lumley Brown, who has been described as possibly the greatest psychic of the 20th century. She also wrote poetry in her earlier days, which was published in a collection called The Litany of the Sun. It upset some conventional reviewers at the time for what they felt to be its paganism. But it seems to me to encompass a universal spirituality that embraces Christian, pagan, and scientific belief systems – not merely as an intellectual appreciation but as a heart felt reality of the wonder of the creation of the world and the source of physical and celestial light. Whatever our appreciation of it as poetry it seems to me her lines are worthy of deep contemplation. I was able only to publish an extract from it in my book about her, Pythoness (Thoth Publications), so here it is in its entirety.



THE LITANY OF THE SUN

Thou who standest at the portal
Of the Heaven’s great highway,
Mortal Light of Light Immortal,
Take the prayers our hearts yet say:
Thou whose worship faileth never
From the Temple of the Day
And who wast and shalt be ever
Lord of Love and Life and Lay:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou who livest through all changes
Since the world began to be,
Ere the mountains rose in ranges
From the bottom of the sea
And the mighty spheric water
Swept the land from shore to lea,
Till the universal slaughter
Laid the forests bare to thee:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou whose kingdom was deep-rooted
In Hellenic hills of yore
Where thy columns piled and fluted
Reared their heads from shore to shore;
Thou whose Face lit those historic
Groves of oak and sycamore,
And whose Limbs divine and Doric
Trampled all the vineyard floor:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou who wast the Generator
Of the world’s primeval spawn;
Thou the Matrix and Creator
Of the Attic soul withdrawn;
Thou whose wine of rising brims on
Every waking lake and lawn
When within its foaming crimson
Hath been crushed the pearl of dawn:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!


Thou the fiery Drum that beatest
From the East across the sky,
Till the Southern heights thou meetest
With a crash of victory,
And into the far West wended
Marchest earthward from on high,
As the measured roll descended
Passes the horizon by:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou the Mystic Heav’nly Bowman
Whose swift arrows heal all ills
And who, piercing Night the foeman,
Bath’st the wound in thine own rills!
Thou art Phoebus, Christ, Osiris,
Walking yet upon the hills;
Thine the Myriad-Arching Iris
Which Eternal Heaven fills!
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!


Thou who fall’st, thy work completed,
As the darkness stabs thy breast,
And unrobed, discrowned, defeated,
Art uplifted on the West
Where thou hangest, slain and dying
For the world that thou hast blest,
Till the windy landscape, sighing,
Lays thee in the caves of rest:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou who risest sad in glory
From the strife so lately ceased,
Golden-robed but pale and gory,
Double-crowned as King and Priest
Who to awe the midnight’s malice,
At dawn’s sacramental feast,
Liftest up the morning’s chalice
On the altar of the East:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!