The grave of Christian Rosenkreuz,

depicted as the Philosophers’ Mountain,

published in the ‘Geheime Figuren Der Rosenkreuzer’ in Altona in 1785.

Here in the French AMORC 1985 edition.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA is a poem by Fernando Pessoa, ‘In the tomb of Father Rosenkreuz’, a Via-HYGEIA English translation from the French edition translation of ‘ Fernando Pessoa, ‘Poèmes Esotériques’, ‘Message’, ‘le Marin’. Christian Bourgois. Paris. 1988.

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‘We haven’t glanced yet to the body of our Father, the noble, the wise. To this end, we moved aside the altar. Then we lifted up a solid slab of yellow metal, and there in his beauty a corpse unique, intact, unaltered; he was holding with his hand a small parchment book, with golden letters, named T, book which is, after the Bible, our most precious treasure, and that we must never carelessly subject to the censorship of the world.’ Fama Fraternitatis Roseae Crucis.

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I

When awoken from this slumber, life,

We will learn what we are,

And what was this fall towards the body,

This descent towards the Night that encumbers the Soul,

Will we then know all the hidden truth,

The one of all that is and flows?

No; even in the free Soul it remains unknown…

And God, who created us, in him doesn’t retain it.

God is the man of a greater God:

Superior Adam, He also knew the Fall;

And also Him, as He was our creator,

He was created, for Him too Truth died…

From above, His Spirit, the Abyss, is hiding it from Him.

Here below, it is not in His Body, our World.

II

But before was the Word, lost here

When the Infinite Light, now extinguished,

From the Chaos, ground of the Being, was then uplifted

In Shadow, and that the Word was darkened.

But if the Soul feels clearly that its shape is wrong,

In it self-this shadow-it finally sees

The Word shine, humane and sacred, from this World,

Rose of perfection, in God crucified.

Then, Lords of the threshold that opens towards Heaven,

We can then go and seek beyond God

Both the Secret of the Master and the Essential Good.

Awaken from here below and, already, from our selves,

In the actual blood of emancipated Christs

From this to-God that dies the genesis of the World.

III

But Alas ! Down here, unreal, wrong,

We slumber what we are, and the truth

That finally gives itself to be glanced only in dreams,

We see it, as it is in dream, in falsehood.

Shadows in craving for bodies, if the quest finds its term,

How to feel from these bodies the reality?

Because, with shadow hands, shadow, what do we grasp?

Our touch is nothing more than absence and vacuity.

Who will deliver us from this closed Soul?

Without seeing, we listen beyond the room

Of the being: But how, here, open the door?

………………………………………………………

Calm in the apparent death lying in front of us,

On his bosom lies the Hermetic Book,

Our Father Rosenkreuz knows and remains silent.

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French

Translation

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Original

Portuguese

I

Quando, despertos deste sono, a vida,
Soubermos o que somos, e o que foi
Essa queda até corpo, essa descida
Ate á noite que nos a Alma obstrui,

Conheceremos pois toda a escondida
Verdade do que é tudo que há ou flui?
Não: nem na Alma livre é conhecida…
Nem Deus, que nos criou, em Si a inclui

Deus é o Homem de outro Deus maior:
Adam Supremo, também teve Queda;
Também, como foi nosso Criador,

Foi criado, e a Verdade lhe morreu…
De Além o Abismo, Sprito Seu, Lha veda;
Aquém não há no Mundo, Corpo Seu.

II

Mas antes era o Verbo, aqui perdido
Quando a Infinita Luz, já apagada,
Do Caos, chão do Ser, foi levantada
Em Sombra, e o Verbo ausente escurecido.

Mas se a Alma sente a sua forma errada,
Em si que é Sombra, vê enfim luzido
O Verbo deste Mundo, humano e ungido,
Rosa Perfeita, em Deus crucificada.

Então, senhores do limiar dos Céus,
Podemos ir buscar além de Deus
O Segredo do Mestre e o Bem profundo;

Não só de aqui, mas já de nós, despertos,
No sangue actual de Cristo enfim libertos
Do a Deus que morre a geração do Mundo.

III

Ah, mas aqui, onde irreais erramos,
Dormimos o que somos, e a verdade,
Inda que enfim em sonhos a vejamos,
Vemo-la, porque em sonho, em falsidade.

Sombras buscando corpos, se os achamos
Como sentir a sua realidade?
Com mãos de sombra, Sombras, que tocamos?
Nosso toque é ausência e vacuidade.

Quem desta Alma fechada nos liberta?
Sem ver, ouvimos para além da sala
De ser: mas como, aqui, a porta aberta?
…………………………………

Calmo na falsa morte a nós exposto,
O Livro ocluso contra o peito posto,
Nosso Pai Rosaecruz conhece e cala.

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