From Matthias Gesner’s edition of the Orphic Corpus.1764.
*
Today’s sharing from the Blue House of HYGEIA is an ‘Hymn to DEMETER’, by Anna Bonus Kingsford, ‘Clothed with the Sun’, page 252. George Redway. 1889.
*
‘1. And thou, Demeter, fair Earth-Mother, whose bosom the patient ox treadeth, whose hands are full of plenty and blessings.
2. Angel of the crucible, guardian of the dead, who makest and unmakest, who combinest and disolvest, who bringest forth life out of death, and transformest all bodies.
3. They are sown as seed in thy furrows; they are buried therein, as droppings of the ripened ear; from thy womb they came forth, and to thee they return, O Mother of birth and of sleep!
4. Who makest the volatile to be fixed, and the real to be apparent, whether in the great or the small, whether in the outer or the inner.
5. Who yokest the cattle of the field to thy plough, for thy dominion is of the field, O daughter of Time; thou bindest not the sons of the air and the sea.
6. But to the gross thou art gross, and to the subtle thou art subtle.
7. Be praised, Demeter, cunning and multiform alchemist; be praised, -thou and thy wheel, O fruitful Spirit of the Earth!’
Leave a Reply