The Unhallowed and the Lost

And now, dearly departed connectees, as autumnal shades deepen and hallowed memories of the haunted past surge and rise from the depths of smiling despair, I cast before you pearls of eternal wisdom to set in your swiftly-corroding crowns of ephemeral earthly joy as you prepare body and soul for All Hallows Even.

Here are passages from Scenes From Beyond the Grave
first published in 1865 by Marietta Davis.

Chapter 12

the Abode of the Lost

Suddenly a sable veil of nether night appeared to ascend, pervading, and encompassing my being. My inner doubt seemed wrought into a cloud that shut out the upper glory, and the spirit of denial plunged me into the vortex of a deeper gloom. I fell as one precipitated from some dizzy height. The embodiment of darkness opened to receive me. The moving shadow of a more desolate abyss arose like clouds in dense masses of tempestuous gloom; and as I descended, the ever-accumulating weight of darkness pressed more fearfully upon me. At length a nether plain that seemed boundless was imaged upon my sight, which, at a little distance, appeared to be covered with the sparkling semblance of vegetation. Luminous appearances, like waving trees, with resplendent foliage, and flowers and fruits of crystal and of gold, were visible in every direction.

Spirits of the Lost

Multitudes of spirits appeared beneath the umbrage, and luminous mantles were folded about rapidly moving form. Some wore crowns upon their heads; others tiaras; and others decorations of which I knew not the name, but which appeared to be wrought of clusters of jewels, wreaths of golden coin, and cloth of gold and silver tissue. Others, wore towering helmets; and others circlets filled with glistening and waving plumes. A pale phosphorescence was emitted by every object, and all appeared a splendid masquerade. The apparel worn by these busy myriads corresponded with the ornaments of the head; hence every variety of sumptuous apparel was displayed upon their forms. Kings and queens appeared arrayed in the gorgeous robes of coronation. Groups of nobility of both sexes, also decorated with all the varieties of adornment displayed in the pageantry of kingly courts. Dense multitudes were visible in costume, proper to the highly cultivated nations; and as they passed by, I discovered similar groups composed of less civilized tribes, attired in barbaric ornaments of every form. While some appeared clothed in the habiliments of the present day, others were in ancient attire; but every class of spirits manifested, in the midst of variety of mode, a uniformity of external pride, pomp, and rapidly moving and dazzling luster.

BEYOND BEYOND the GRAVE

All Hallows Draws Near

Oct24

Although it depicts June, The Sleeper remains a quintessential Halloween poem for me; a beautiful proto-Symbolist work that must have inspired Baudelaire and many others. But as a counterbalance to Poe’s sepulchral solemnity, I include lines by another American poet, James Russel Lowell, making fun of his versification:

“There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge,
Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters,
In a way to make people of common-sense damn meters,
Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,
But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind…”

[A Fable For Critics, Part VI: Poe and Longfellow]

The Sleeper

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!- and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right-
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully- so fearfully-
Above the closed and fringed lid
‘Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come O’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-

Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

BEYOND the GRAVE HERE

IMAGE CREDITS: photo.net
paris-in-photos.com

Memory, of Lost Opportunity

Oct26

from: Scenes Beyond the Grave, by Marietta Davis (1865)

Overcome by her deep feelings, she yielded to the manifestation of grief, and I heard her speak no more; whereupon another spirit drew near, and addressing me, said:

“Go, leave us to our lot. Your presence gives us pain, since it revives the more active memory of lost opportunities; the indulgence of propensities that folded around the soul the elements of evil magnetism, and pervaded the spirit with its deadly miasma.”

Here the spirit paused a moment, then continued, “No, tarry; prompted by a cause I know not, I am desirous to reveal what we have learned while here, relative to the power and influence of evil and its magnetism upon the spirit of man, which, though while man inhabits the tenement of clay is exceedingly subtle, when the spirit leaves the outer world and enters the interior world, forms the external sphere of his existence. Here it is the more external. In the world whence we came, it is the invisible and interior; but now it is our outward dwelling. It arises from the deep. It unfolds from the soul. It encompasses all, pervades all, controls and inspires all. Mortals are opposed to this truth, and from the love and goodness of God, they reason that there can not be suffering in the spirit of man. This reasoning charges evil upon God, since evil and suffering exist with the family of man in the outer world and with us prevail. The cause of this is obvious, and yet men seek to reject the principle.

The Harvest of Sin

“When the harmony and movement of law is disturbed or prevented, evil consequences ensue. Man, by counteracting the movement of law in himself, produces a contrary effect from what is indicated, and therefore, that which was ordained unto life—that which should have perfected him—by improper tendencies, is operative unto death; sin therefore, or the violation of law, unfits the being for proper development, and hence, the violator being removed from harmony, dies unto (ceases to exist in) the law of peace and holy development. This great and irrevocable truth is manifest in every degree of physical and moral movement, where law meets with obstruction; and we have its fruits with us in abundant and fearful harvest.”

[ to be continued]

The Folly of the Suicide

Oct24

from: Scenes Beyond the Grave, by Marietta Davis (1865)

“Did mortals but know the dark and dreadful night into which they are sure to fall if they die unprepared, they would desire to lengthen the day of probation rather than to hasten its termination, however multiplied their scenes of sorrow, and to wisely improve the fleeting moments which quickly number earth’s probationary scenes. Is man’s weary existence fraught with grief while he walks the gloomy dells of death, and gropes along the brambly paths that mortals tread? Here, on either hand, awake new and multiplied causes of accumulating gloom. Does hope of peaceful and happy days in the outer world flicker like the dying taper ? In this abode are ceaseless, unsatisfied, and unholy inclinations.
Here also sense is infinitely more acute. What with mortals would produce only a pang, enters into the very elements of our existence, and the pain becomes a part of us. And as immortality is the intellectual sensation of man unencumbered with physical sense, and vastly superior in its ability to endure to mortality, in like proportion is the consciousness and capability of suffering here, superior to human suffering.”

The Result of the Violated Law

“Marietta, I feel ‘tis vain to attempt the expression of our deplorable state. I often inquire, is there no hope? And my sense replies, How can harmony exist in the very midst of discord? We were advised of the consequences of our course while in the body; but we loved our ways better than those which exalted the soul. We have fallen into this fearful abode. We have originated our sorrow. God is just. He is good. We know that ‘tis not from a vindictive law of our Creator that we suffer. Marietta, it is our condition from which we receive the misery we endure. The violation of the moral law, by which our moral natures should have been preserved in harmony and health, is the prime cause of our state. O sin! thou parent of countless woes! thou insidious enemy of peace and heaven! why do mortals love thy ways?”

Here she paused and fixed her eyes, wild with despair, upon me. I shrank from the dreadful glare, for the appearance manifested inexpressible torture.
While she was addressing me, a multitude of the forlorn beings were moving around her, striving to suppress their true feelings, while listening to her relation of the reality of their sufferings. Their appearance, her address and the scene which was before me, filled me with horror; and I sought to escape. Upon discovering this, her grief appeared to deepen, and she hastily said:

“No, Marietta, leave me not, can you not endure for a short period the sight and relation of what I am continually suffering? Tarry with me, for I desire to speak many things. Do you startle at these scenes? Know then that all that moves around you is but the outer degree of deeper woe. Marietta, no good and happy beings abide with us. All within is dark. We sometimes dare to hope for redemption, still remembering the story of Redeeming Love, and inquire, Can that love penetrate this abode of gloom and death? May we ever hope to be made free from those desires and inclinations which bind us like chains, and passions which burn like consuming fires in the unhallowed elements of this world of wretchedness?”