"THE LIGHT": Saint-Martin's Theosophick Hymns - Chant 2

"THE LIGHT"
by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

            Blessed art Thou, O radiant Light, visible splendor of the eternal Luminary, from whence my thought hath received existence.

            If my thought was not one of Thy sparks, I would not have the power to contemplate Thee.

            I would not be seized with admiration for Thy grandeur, if Thou hadst not deigned to sow in me some elements of Thy measure.

            Celebrated men! Say no longer that the light of a torch is transmitted to other torches without descrease, and it is thus that the spirits are produced by God.

            Cease to dishonor the visible light in speaking to us only of its material mechanism. The torch paints the life of subsistence, and not the law of generation.

            

            Is not a substance outside this torch necessary in order to transmit the visible light?

            

            But our God is Himself the Light; He draws from His own breast the luminous substance of spirit.

            All is complete in going out from the hands of the Principle of all. He wanted the sensation of the visible light to arise from the life of my body.

            He wanted the sun to awaken in my eyes this sensation of the visible light.

            But He wished Himself to awaken in my soul the sensation of the invisible light;

            For He Himself has drawn into this light the sacred seed by which the soul of man is animated.

            Do not the branches extend from the living chandelier, and is not their sap the holy oil which nourishes the light in me?

            Is it not this oil which always burns and never peters out? May the Life unite with my life, and may It regenerate in me the life that it has produced there!

            May my immortal and divine increase continue like that of my eternal Source!

            It is by penetrating into the beings that God makes them feel their life; they are in death as soon as they are no longer in communion with Him.

            All you inhabitants of the earth, leap for joy—you can contribute to the universal communion! You can, like so many Vestals, tend the sacred fire, and make it shine in every part of the universe!

            Why do the sages and the prudent ones cherish the light? It is because they know that the light and soul of man are two torches which can never be extinguished.

            And Thou, Supreme Agent, why canst Thou not cease to penetrate all, to see all and to carry Thy lucidity everywhere?

            It is because the sacred oil drawn within Thy Source is dissemminated in all regions, and Thy light finds everywhere a food which is proper to itself!

--Chant 2 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L'HOMME DE DESIR) (1790),

translated by Seth Edwards, 2016

title by Robert Amadou

"THE MARVEL'S": Saint-Martin's Theosophick Hymns - Chant 1

 "THE MARVELS"

by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin

            The marvels of the Lord seem thrown without order and without design into the field of the immensity.

            
            They sparkle in scattered patches like these innumerable flowers with which the spring decks our meadows.

            We do not seek a more regular plan by which to describe them. Principle of beings, all  adore Thee.

          
            It is their secret liaison with Thee that gives them value, regardless of the place and rank that they occupy.

            I would dare to lift my gaze to the Throne of Thy Glory. My thoughts will be revived in considering Thy love for men, and the wisdom which reigns in Thy works. Thy Word is subdivided at its origin, like a torrent which precipitates itself from the peaks of mountains upon the piercing rocks.

            I see it rebound into vapor clouds; and each drop of water that it sends into the air reflects to my eyes the light of the day-star.

            Thus all the rays of Thy Word make Thy living and sacred light to shine into the sage's eyes; he sees Thy action produce and animate all the universe.

            Sublime objects of my canticles!--I shall be often forced to divert my sight away from you.

            Man has deemed himself mortal because he has found something mortal within;

            And man has regarded even the One who gives life to all beings as having neither life, nor existence.

            And thou, Jerusalem, what reproaches have not the Lord's prophets to make to thee?

            Thou hast taken what served to adorn thee, saith the Lord, and what was made from my gold and my silver that I had given to thee; thou hast formed of it images of men to which thou hast prostituted thyself.

            Cries of sorrow, mingle yourselves with my chants of glee; no more hath pure joy been  made for the sad sojourn of man. Have not irresistible proofs of these first truths been manifested already to the nations?

            If you remain in doubt, go purify yourself in these fountains. Then you will return to unite your voice to mine;

            And we shall celebrate together the joys of the man of desire, who will have had the happiness to weep for truth.

--Chant 1 from THE MAN OF DESIRE (L'HOMME DE DESIR) (1790),
translated by Seth Edwards, 2016

title by Robert Amadou