Tablet of Union 3D

New 3D image of Tablet of Union. Carefully modelled and rendered.

Rotating image. Experimental.

Dustjackets

Some dustjackets of Yeats's books have interesting designs from an occult view point. We are not sure to what extent the designers, notably T. Sturge Moore and his mentor Charles Ricketts, pursued the symbolism, but the results were really fine.

W. B. Yeats, Plays in Prose and Verse (1922) design by Charles Ricketts

W. B. Yeats, Last Poems & Plays (1940) design by T. Sturge Moore.

Poems by J.W. Brodie-Innes

ONE DAY.

I.

Once, on a golden summer's day,

We left the road, we climbed th brae.

The sweet hills all around us lay

In royal robes of heather.

Scarce felt the wooing scented air,

I only knew we two sat there

Jeannie and I together.

II.

O life hath brought full many a boon

When young blood thrilled in life's mid-noon,

In bounding time to love's sweet tune,

And loves and joys were many.

Yet sooth that hour was worth them all

To watch the lengthening shadows fall,

And hear the distant curlew call,

Out on the moors with Jeannie.

III.

And clear, and calm, and sweet to see,

The young moon rose o'er Logan lea,

With promise fair for her and me

of all love's dearest blisses.

All radiant hues of seas and skies

Reflect themselves in Jennie's eyes

And dreamland all around us lies,

As sweet as Jeannie's kisses.

IV.

So bide for aye thou lovely dream!

When from life's dark and gloomy stream

For ever fades that one bright gleam,

And, like some prisoned startling,

I cry to years grown dull and grey,

Oh, give me back my summer's day,

Out on the moors of Logan brae,

With my unforgotten darling.

-- J.W. Brodie Innes

----------------------------------------------------

THE GHOST OF AUNT ELIZA

OH! once I was gay

As a child at play,

I'm sadder now and wiser,

For it's mine to boast

I've seen the ghost

Of my maiden aunt Eliza.

I own, with a sigh,

That never I

Much did idolize her.

A Vigilant

Old termagant

Was my gaunt aunt Eliza.

I did not know,

When I laid her low

Beneath the ancient minster,

That her coffin lid

could fail to keep hid

That venerable spinster.

She told me oft

(But I hear I scoffed)

That nought on earth could stop her,

She'd rise from her grave

Should I behave

In a way she thought improper.

So I tried for days

Her ghost to raise,

Committed crimes by the dozen,

I forged a will,

Ran a private still,

 And scraged my second cousin.

But she heeded nought,

And I rather thought

Perhaps she didn't get out

From the place where she was gone to.

But on Christmas day,

Sad to say!

(It was somebody else's sister),

I saw her to

'Neath the mistletoe,

Then and there I kissed her.

Then, gaunt and grim,

through blue lights dim,

Appeared my aunt Eliza,

And from my bones

With moans and groans,

That I did surprise her.

And, since that night,

A weary wight,

Haunted by aunt I wander,

That vigilant

Old termagant

Keeps up her mournful daunder.

And never a whit

Cant I get quit

Of that grim moralizer,

I'm always watched,

and mostly "cotched,"

By my gaunt aunt Eliza.

--J.W. Brodie-Innes.

from The Beggar's Wallet (1905).

ALL SOULS' NIGHT

"And it is All Souls' Night.
And two long glasses brimmed with muscatel
Bubble upon the table. A ghost may come,
For it is a ghost's right,
His element is so fine
Being sharpened by his death,
To drink from the wine-breath
While our gross palates drink from the whole wine."

so sang W.B. Yeats in his superb "All Souls' Night".

I reproduced the scene by examining the text. The wine should be a sparkling wine made from muscat grape. I chose Reymos Moscatel from Spain. And the long glasses should be the type for sparkling wine, showing the little bubbles going upward as long as possible. I purchased two of those.

I'd like to make this an annual ceremony to commemorate those personalities who appeared in the poem, especially for Horton (I love him, and love the strange story of Horton and Amy Audrey Locke). I wonder if he responds to my call.

The muscatel is so sweet and tasty. Have to be careful not to drink too much.

Divine Feminine, Horton, and Audrey Locke.

painted by W.T. Horton

I Wonder Why

I Wonder Why (1920) by Alfred Scott-Gatty is a music score book with the words by Dorothy Bouviere and the pictures by W. Graham Robertson.

The pictures in the book feature mostly little boys and that makes the book unique among the works of WGR who are famous for his fondness of little girls. But looking at the pictures one by one helped me understand the nature of the book.  First, the boys are playing in the nursery, then outdoors, and in the bed at night and meeting with an angel. Published in 1920, I believe the book was a sort of "Requiem" for the British soldiers who died in WWI.

 WGR mentioned this book in a letter to his friend Kerrison Preston, "The Gatty-Bouvierie-Me book seems to be going well and is stocked at most strange, unexpected, places in London, such as Liberty's, and the Army and Navy store" (Letters from Graham Robertson, p53). Though WGR wrote "unexpected", it's no wonder they put the book on the shelves of Army and Navy Store.

masonic charity

"Above is a coloured reproduction of the famous picture painted by J. Stothard in or about 1790, showing the Founder, the Chevalier Bartholomew Ruspini, leading the children from the Masonic School into the Temple of the Grand Lodge in Great Queen Street, before His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, afterwards King George IV, and other distinguished Freemasons.

For many years the original was in the Museum of Grand Lodge, but, in 1947, Bro. Beachcroft was able to acquire it from the Masonic Authorities (who most generously accepted a price greatly below its actual value).

It was by him presented to the School and now hang over the mantel of the Commitee Room, behind the Chairman's place." (Maurice Beachcroft, Memories of Rickkansworth,  p.31.)

GEORGE WASHINGTON, the father of our country

"Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come

unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven"

TO THE GRAND LODGES OF THE UNITED STATES

This print represents THE DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTIC OF MASONRY, CHARITY, bestowed on proper objects.

"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God."

The second picture is from Kitty Cheatham's A Nursery Garland (New York, G. Schirmer: 1921). It seems the second is a copy from the first, with some changes of the faces and figures. But for what end? 

I found these in my research on W. Graham Robertson. 

a dagger

Every country has its law on the weapon control.

A number of atrocious homicides by daggers outbroke in my country of 2008 and consequently the selling and possesing of daggers became illegal. The police was persuading the citizens who possesed a dagger to bring and give it up to the neaby police station by the 4th of July 2009. After that date, possesing of dagger was regarded as a crime and offenders will be fined or imprisoned. So I gave up my air dagger to a police station (after demagnetizing it) and have been using a small paperknife since then. But today I found a really good alternative "lawfuldagger". The hilt is natural wood and very easy to paint, the blade being genuine stainless steel yet without the edge, an ideal ceremonial tool. And it's not expensive, about 10 bucks. To tell the truth, the official name of the dagger is "oyster knife": a simple tool for fishermen to open and scrape oysters. The jurisdiction might interfere if the tool is unnecessarily sharp or hefty, but those now on the market is legally okay. I am a conformist.