Echoes of a Golden Dawn (After Wordsworth)
Years stretch behind me like all shadows cast
At sunset, deep and filled with hues of time that’s past,
When once I walked along ignorant lanes of youth,
Seeking webs of arcane threads spun with hidden truths.
Now, resting here in darkness, i hear echoes softly sound,
Echoes of the voices that sung of The Golden Dawn,
Those singing seekers sought such mysteries profound,
Within halls wizened and with thick curtains long and drawn.
Bathed in London lamplight, under a cloaking fog,
Where alchemists and sages emerged from the smog.
Woodman, Westcott, Mathers, and the rest did bind
Their souls to ancient Hermes, seeking but to find
The keys of Solomon, and Hermes' sacred lore,
In rituals deep, where spirits sprung from lore.
They mapped the astral plane, traced the Kabbalistic tree,
Crafting a legacy of esoteric decree.
Not merely scholars, but poets and artists, too,
Drawn to the mystical, the profound, and ever-true.
Their world was the canvas, magick itself the paint,
Every ritual a picture, every chant without restraint.
Through symbols, signs, and, at times, celestial guides,
They sought to grow and grab reality by strides,
Revealing sacred structure of a cosmos so divine,
In hopes that all humanity and infinite aligned.
Yet, as in all human ventures, strife did boil brew,
Ambitions clashed, and schismatic winds they blew.
Crowley, the rebel, with his new, Thelemic will,
Pushed against the order’s boundaries, seeking to instill
A new aeon’s doctrine, pulling threads apart,
Yet even in dissent, his was a destined part.
The Golden Dawn, though fractured, did not fall,
But transformed as a caterpillar heeding far skies’ call.
Now, gazing back across to those earlier times,
Where memory's muddy river meets clear springs divine,
I still see the quest—not just theirs, but mine—
To peer behind the veil that covers this earthly line.
For though the Golden Dawn has since turned to setting sun,
Its search for light in darkness can never be undone.
The paths the GD blazed for Western Esoteric rite,
Still bright above to guide like constellations in the night.
Reflecting thus reclined, beneath this dimming vault of sky,
I grasp at last the thing within what can and shall not die:
This secret knowing here compels to move the mere,
And what holy fire awaits me, what a reflection clear.