Prelude: Of the bond between individual and community

The link that binds the individual To the Society a mercy is;

His truest self in the community Alone achieves fulfilment.

Wherefore be So far as in thee lies in close rapport

With thy Society, and lustre bring To the wide intercourse of free‐born men.

Keep for thy talisman these words he spoke That was the best of mortals:

“Satan holds His furthest distance where men congregate.”

The individual a mirror holds To the community, and they to him;

He is a jewel threaded on their cord, A star that in their constellation shines;

And the Society is organized

As by comprising many such as he.

When in the Congregation he is list

’Tis like a drop which, seeking to expand, Becomes an ocean.

It is strong and rich In ancient ways, a mirror to the Past

As to the Future, and the link between

What is to come, and what has gone before,

As is Eternity.

The joy of growth Swells in his heart from the community,

That watches and controls his every deed;

To them he owes his body and his soul,

Alike his outward and his hidden parts.

His thoughts are vocal on the People’s tongue,

And on the pathway that his forbears laid He learns to run.

His immaturity Is warmed to ripeness by their friendship’s flame,

Till he becomes one with the Commonwealth.

His singleness in multiplicity

Is firm and stable, and itself supplies A unity to their innumerate swarm.

The word that sits outside its proper verse

Shatters the jewel of the thought concealed Within its pocket;

when the verdant leaf Falls from the stem, its thread of hope for Spring

Is snapped asunder.

He who has not drunk The water of the People’s sacred well,

The flames of minstrelsy within his lute Grow cold, and die.

The individual, Alone, is heedless of high purposes;

His strength is apt to dissipate itself;

The People only make him intimate

With discipline, teach him to be as soft And tractable as is the gentle breeze,

Set him in earth like a well‐rooted oak,

Close‐fetter him, to make him truly free.

When he is prisoner to the chain of Law

His deer, by nature wild and uncontrolled, Yields in captivity the precious musk.

Thou, who hast not known self from selflessness,

Therefore hast lost thyself in vain surmise,

Within thy dust there is an element

Of Light, whose single shaft illuminates Thy whole perception;

all thy joy derives From its enjoyment, all thy sorrow springs

From its distress; its constant change and turn Keep thee in vital being.

It is one And, being one, brooks no duality;

Grace to its glow I am myself, thou thou.

Preserving self, staking and making self,

Nourishing pride in meek humility,

It is a flame that sets a fire alight,

A spark that overshoots the blazing torch.

Its nature is to be both free and bond;

Itself a part, it has the potency To seize the whole.

I have beheld its wont Is strife incessant,

and have called its name Selfhood, and Life.

Whenever it comes forth From its seclusion, and discreetly steps

Into the riot of phenomena

Its heart is impressed with the stamp of “he”,

“I” is dissolved, converting into “thou”.

Compulsion cuts the freedom of its choice,

Making it rich in love.

While pride of self Pulls its own way, humility is not born;

Pull pride together, and humility Comes into being.

self negates itself In the community,

that it maybe No more a petal, but a rosary.

“These subtleties are like a steely sword:

If they defeat thy wit, quick, flee away!”