Of Darkness, and Light, and the shape of things unborn!
Of conjecture, speculation, apprehension, fear and terror! And of hope, confidence, belief and faith. And of all the obscure roots and origins of these things.
Of the knowledge of Seers and Adepts - which, alas, we do not know how to distinguish from the supreme self-confidence of the self-deceived. Of the consolations of religion - for the religion; and of the contempt for dogma and all theological constructions by those whose minds run contrarywise.
Of the shifting foundations and flux of thought. Of speculative Science, which now dreams anew the old mystical intuitions of the East. Of its material triumphs, so greatly servient to the ends of destruction and of death. Of the mind of man, who can learn all things except how to serve his fellows - how to do as he would be done by.
Of the rise of the new knowledge (old as the race), which six parts of the world is folly. Of voices from the invisible, and the thinning of the Veil betwixt the planes. Of those who reject the Voices, or are bewildered or terrified by them; and of those who are deluded and become lunatic, and of others who "try the spirits", and learn and profit and rejoice exceedingly.
And over all hangs the Future, that is to say, the consciousness and half-perception and dim intuition of it - a glowing cloud and pregnant with vast shapes - but whether of promise or destruction, who can say? Or, must it not be both - dark barren Mother, bright fertile Mother, the Binah of the ancient Qabalists?
Death, and rebirth! Death which is transmutation. The two go hand in hand thruout all Nature. For our time-consciousness, the gnat has its hour, and the solar system also, and the unfathomable galaxies of stars. At the end of epochs, cycles, millenia, periods of history, of the life of races, civilizations, planets, human beings, Death-the-Rebuilder puts forth more notably his hand. Men feel beforehand the breath of his Presence; there is a chill in the air of the autumn of the worlds. Autumn, and Winter - but the hounds of Spring are close upon its traces.
Of all these things which have been named, the poet-philosopher of our time (had one been brought forth) would be constrained to writer. "Father-Mother spin a web" - and the strands of the Web are these. But would he have any new message, any strange bright revelation for the Hour? We do not think so. We think he would say only "Courage, and patient, and love ye one another." Only "desire truth and shun error - learn and unlearn, but unceasingly aspire." There is a measure of Fate, but a measure of Freedom also.