Rosa prayer that Time has trampled upon and left 

 Mystica. an( j forever leaves green and virginal ? 



To give that, that lovely fragrant flame of 

 the old material earth, to the altars of the 

 bowed spirit : to clothe it in the fire of heaven : 

 to commit it to the unassuaged thirst of the 

 everlasting graves of the sea. Surely, here, an 

 image of that Rosa Mundi which has been set 

 upon the forehead of the world since time was, 

 that Rose of Beauty, that Rose of Time, that 

 Rose of the world which the passion of the 

 soul has created as a prayer to the Inscrutable : 

 the Rose of the Soul, of you, of me, of all 

 that have been, of all that are, of all unborn, 

 that we lay upon our places of prayer, and 

 offer to the Secret Fires, and commit to 

 desolation, and sorrow, and the salt and avid 

 hunger of Death ? What came of that 

 mystical wedding, of the world we know and 

 the world we do not know, by that rose of the 

 spirit, committed thus in so great a hope, so 

 great a faith ? The Druid is not here to tell. 

 Faith after Faith has withered like a leaf. 

 But still we stand by ancestral altars, still offer 

 the Rose of our Desire to the veiled Mystery, 

 still commit this our symbol to the fathomless, 

 the everlasting, the unanswering Deep. 



348 



