God's All-Annihilating Fire - Excerpt

Foul is the robber stronghold, filled with hate;
Thief strangling thief, and mate at war with mate,
Fronting wild raiders, all forlorn to Fate!

There is nor health nor happiness therein.
Manhood is cowardice, and virtue sin.
Intolerable blackness hems it in.

Not hell's heart hath so noxious a shade;
Yet harmless and unharmed, and undismayed,
Pines in her prison an unsullied maid.

Penned by the master mage to his desire,
She baffles his seductions and his ire,
Praying God's all-annihilating fire.

The Lord of Hosts gave ear unto her song:
The Lord of Hosts waxed wrathful at her wrong.
He loosed the hound of heaven from its thong.

Violent and vivid smote the levin flash.
Once the tower rocked and cracked beneath its lash,
Caught inextinguishable fire; was ash.

But that same fire that quelled the robber strife,
And struck each being out of lust and life,
Left the mild maiden a rejoicing wife.

There is a well before the Great White Throne
That is choked up with rubbish from the ages;
Rubble and clay and sediment and stone,
Delight of lizards and despair of sages.

Only the lightning from His hand that sits,
And shall sit when the usurping tyrant falls,
Can purge that wilderness of wills and wits,
Let spring that fountain in eternal halls.

Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury:
Which is master of the three?

Salt is Lady of the Sea;
Lord of Air is Mercury.

Now by God's grace here is salt
Fixed beneath the violet vault.

Now by God's love purge it through
With our right Hermetic dew.

Now by God wherein we trust
Be our sophic salt combust.

Then at last the Eye shall see
Three in One and One in Three,

Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury,
Crowned by Heavenly Alchemy!

To the One who sent the Seven
Glory in the Highest Heaven!

To the Seven who are the Ten
Glory on the Earth, Amen!