THE VEIL OF EDEN - Part three

THE VEIL OF EDEN

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

Part III - The Eye In The Sanctuary

In the phosphorescent hush of the dark wood,
Came Eve, that delicate blush of womanhood;
Her body, an ecstasy of celebration:
A temple of song that she sings of creation!
But her eyes hang sad for the veil is rent;
She weeps for she can foresee man's discontent.
And here passes the star, in its sickness, grown
Awful before the meteor that was God's throne;
Where there once was passion, dark and deep,
Radiant by night, where the light doth keep
Its vigil strong. Gone, O 'tis all gone now
Where woman walks alone and weeps unto her shadow.
Her heart a stone cast in the pit of motherhood,
Lost unto the shades where she weeps within the wood.
Thus tormented she sees things fate hast chose to be,
This be the song sweet Eve sings of man's destiny.

Sprite:

And having tasted of desire
She swooned at the unspeakable rites
Foretold in a vision of the higher
Realms of angels and of sprites.

Thus, her eyes drawn unto fire,
She sang as sighing satellites
Perished in the unalterable mire
Of mightier things in their delights.

Struck with beauty, sang the choir
From their heavenly heights;
But blood lust gave the great destroyer
His joy amongst the parasites.

Eve:

And I saw thus blazing from the hordes,
The shining ones come forth and listen
With bloody hands clasped on mighty swords,
Upon the emerald hilts that glisten
Radiantly at their armoured sides.
These winged warriors with giant strides

Came to rest beside a stream,
The fight not lost, though their eyes told
The light had'st lost God's brilliant gleam,
For eyes were as the darkness, cold;
Like lunar lamps, and all put out
As shadows fell to unseen doubt.

And Paradise raged against God's Law
At the full rise of the sun,
Where the beauteous bankside maidens saw
The light retreateth into one.
And here were stars in the folds of sorrow
As darkness came down, thick and low.

And morning light did'st turn his head
Aloft unto God's mighty throne
And back upon the field of dead
Celestial seraphims of stone:
Come home! Come home! His pitiful voice
And all the dim stars did'st rejoice!

Our saviour crosseth on the prow,
Watched by darkness at the helm;
With names of blasphemy on His brow,
He surveyed the measure of His realm.
His broken sword aloft, He swore
To reverseth all God madeth Law!

And God's voice did'st tremble in the wind
Unto shameless sinners and the sinned:

Make why thou wilt, my brother son,
For 'tis writ that there shalt cometh one
To un-good the good that I hath done
Unto this Paradise begun.
Thy broken wings of undying hate
Are folded in combustible fate;
Where the zenith hath appeared too late
To save the Kingdom that falleth great!
Thou may'st have thy rule, thy period
Where thou may'st strut thyself a God,
But lo! as from a lightening rod
Shalt God's word find thy Kingdom shod
In filthy labourings of the dead:
A crown of thorns upon thy head
Shalt bloom no more, for it hath bled
The terrors of the tomb ye fed.

...........................................................

And the muse of all time sat in wonder
As dark, those ones of evil, born,
Tore the brotherhood of Light asunder,
Terrible to that scarlet dawn
Where the phoenix of the flames had'st flown
In the splendour of damnation's crown.

And within the city of soulless slaves
Were vast pyramids of corpses, lying
Skinless, shovelled into graves
Of red streams unto midnight, sighing;
Here man in fear of his true fate
Did'st pray to terrors, insensate.

And the filth of an hundred days of war
Had'st spoilt six days upon the earth;
Death's cloud did'st appear to blot the star
And violate its swift re-birth.
Iron death and scent of skin
Had'st let infernal darkness in!

From the night our master fell
And in war's wake the moon had'st turned
With fastened lips - a sunlit Hell
As victory in death's madness yearned
Unto man's cerements of fear:
Lo! the goat-foot God was here!

And man breathed fire and man breathed force
Throughout the depths of eternity,
And God revealed His unholy course
For man and woman's destiny.
And woman sighed, sealed in the tomb
For she was as blind within its gloom.

Her love, shalt creaseth to the moon
And man's unto the sun
Where he shalt sheathe his splendid plume
In sorrow's fruitless womb,
Where demon lusts slays, without pause:
Man, in the calamity of its jaws.

And love divided, conquered all,
Arose damnation on its head
That whispered softly, Eden's fall
Was thrice glimpsed and thrice blessed!
And this thy pleasaunce and thy shore
God giveth greatly to adore.

And tears shalt wash away the work
Of God whose mind cannot contain
The will to penetrate the murk
That clouds upon the human brain,
Where imagination and the dream
Be thus like fishing in the stream.

Man long betrayeth for he hath wronged
The omnipotent eye that all doth see
The myriad miscarriages, triple-tongued
In sad songs sung in serpentry.
Yet came the lone voice from afar
Curled towards that elusive star:

Hast thou seen the lion loveth the lamb?
Hast thou seen the hawk loveth the hare?
Hast thou seen the she-wolf loveth the ram?
Hast thou seen man weak in woman's snare?

And his shadow shalt darken and grow with time
Before the threshold of the dawn
That shalt awaken him to the sublime
Seeds of sorrow, upon him, born;
Unto the dying of the old year
Wilt man wait, and beauty re-appear!