Hymn I
Sound forth, clear-tongued lyre, after the Teian cadence, after the
Lesbian movement; sing to me in more time-honoured strains a Dorian ode, not one for
dainty love-laughing girls or for the adolescence of flowering youths that compelleth
desire; for it is a sacred travail of divine wisdom and one unsullied that prompts me to
strike the strings of my lyre to a divine refrain, and bids me flee from the honied
infatuation of earthly loves. What is force and what beauty, what is gold or renown, and
what are royal honours as compared with meditations upon God? Let one man be apt in
driving horses, another in bending the bow; let another guard his treasure heaps, his
golden joy. Another's glory is the hair that sweeps his neck. Let him be lauded on high
for the brightness of his countenance by youths and maidens in their songs; but it be my
lot to lead a life not noised abroad, a life without display in what concerns other men,
but that knows in itself of what pertains to God. May wisdom be ever with me, wisdom the
good guide of youth and of age, wisdom the just mistress of wealth, she who smiling shall
easily bear poverty, impregnable to the bitter cares of life. May on such much be mine as
shall suffice to make me independent on my neighbour's hut, sufficient that want may not
bend me down to dark forebodings.
Listen now to the song of the cicada as she drinks the morning dew. See
how my lyre-strings cry out unbidden notes, how some prophetic voice flutters about and
around me. What melody shall this divine parturition bear unto me? God, the Beginning
created of Himself, Guardian and Father of existing things, born without birth, firmly
enthroned above the pinnacles of heaven, proud in glory unwaning, God sits steadfast, of
unities the pure unity, and the first monad of monads. He hath joined the elements of
exalted beings, bringing them to existence in supernatural acts of birth. From out of
these the monad itself, rushing on through a first-engendered form, diffused in
unspeakable ways, holds the power of three summits. But the fountain head which dominates,
is crowned with the beauty of children leaping from out the centre, and again rushing
towoards the centre therein.
Pause, audacious lyre, I entreat; pause, reveal not the mysteries to
the people at large, mysteries which are celebrated without initiations; go thou and tell
of the things here below; silence covereth those above. And now mind is busy with mind's
created universe, for out of his has the good beginning of man's spirit been divided
beyond division. Mind that waneth not, though descending to matter, is the seed of
progenitors that reign in right divine, a seed however feeble. But of these, this one
whole universal mind, this whole diffused into the whole, turns the vast hollow of the
heavens, and keeping guard upon this very whole is ever present, parted into forms
diverse. The one is the convoying of stars, another turns to the dances of angels, yet
another has found an earthly form by a bond descending, and is severed from its parentage.
Dark oblivion hath it drunk, and wondereth, in its blind tormenting cares, at the joyless
earth. Albeit a God looking on mortal things is within it, there is still a light in the
veiled pupils of its eyes, there is some courage even in those who have fallen here below,
that summoneth them above, what time that, fleeing from out of the waves of mortal life,
they enter free from the case on the sacred paths that lead to the palace of their Parent.
Happy he who fleeing the voracious cry of matter, and rising from earth, urgeth with light
bound his footsteps to God. Happy he who after his allotted destiny, after troubles, after
bitter earthly cares, enters on the pathways of mind and beholdeth the deep profound that
shineth with divine light. It is a labour to take flight with the whole wings of those
desires that lift upwards to the universal Heart. Do thou only confirm thy flight by such
flights as transport to the ideal world, and the Father will appear nigh unto thee and
will hold out His Hands to thee. For some shaft of light shall leap forth to illumine thy
paths, and will unfold to thee the field of mind, the beginning of beauty. Arise, my soul,
drink from the fountain that runs with gold. In worship of the Creator ascend thou, and
delay not; leave to the earth the things of the earth, and in unison with the Father thou
mayest perchance move in harmony with God, thyself divine.