The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863

Allan Kardec

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Poetry by Mrs. Raoul de Navery

Read at the Parisian Society on March 27th, 1863



OBSERVATION: Although it is not our habit to publish poetry that has not been attested as mediumistic the readers will certainly thank us for the exception given to the work below, result of the inspiration of a person that not long ago considered the Spiritist beliefs as utopias
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When the hand of death, multiplying its blows,

Sowed vacuum and sorrow around us,

The only expression to reach our ears was:

If a beloved one rests on its mortal veil

The soul freed from its bodily jail

Broke the links of the heavy shroud;

And now returning to the original cradle

Enjoys God’s light and enormous power.

Meet again you will and confuse

With the earthly love, an immortal one.

Today it is no longer the faintly hope

Illuminating pain with a vacillating glare;

It is no longer a future that brings back our dead.

No, they are around us, helping in our struggles,

Suffering with us, aware of our troubles,

Messengers bringing the sacred hope,

Responding to our secret sorrow from above,

Their hands in our hands, their lips carrying

Even more kindly kisses, so reassuring!

From the heart of another world like a dove

Adding some mystery to the greatness of love.

When evoked, invisible phalanxes overwhelm

Our chests with clarity and calm.

They come! It is all color and change to us;

From unknown worlds, we foresee the dawn;

Illuminating our heads a reflex, sidereal

Worshiping in silence, we kneel.

God’s majesty is by them revealed.

Answer me, oh eternal wisdom!

Do we offend you when

Reverently impelled we broke the veil

That has concealed heavens for such a long trail?

Are we following a restive Soul?

Are we tearing apart the divine texts of the Gospels?

No. We have conviction and courage!

We do ourselves what the Lord has done:

We believe. We can do miracles

Turning our own homes into temples.

We can call that Spirit whose tongue of fire awed

And turned simple fishermen into apostles of God.

Blow celestial winds, blow from all corners of heavens!

Keep away from us that dismal darkness;

Spread clarity, oh golden chandeliers;

From the sacred arc bring to the treasure cheers!

Light beams from the Sinai! Tree of Horeb on fire!

Powerful Spirits of the strong, prophets and women alike,

Spirit, this furtive breath that Job felt

Passing by, giving him the goose flesh;

All of you who destroyed the exalted minds,

Making martyrs out of the mutinous crowds;

When the tormented Middle Ages in its trunk

Generated the inquisitor, the bloody monk;

Come, we are thirsty of the strange teachings;

Rejecting forever the childish things;

We need another language to the new truths

Instead of old sermons, repeated speeches.

We march ahead of the indolent horde.

And if truth devours us with its burning cords

We become martyrs, gladly dying

But will never such a truth believe!

Let us move ahead of our time;

Let us seek, with the kings, the sign

The hidden God for our homage!

We know very well what they stage:

“Poets, dreamers, they are now mad!”

Be it! Because the name we proudly bear

Was given to Jesus when his servants

Of those days launching the sublime emblem

Of the whitely dress said with Paul:

“Madness, then, is wisdom”!

Let us have the courage of seeking,

Let us investigate incessantly, asking

Death about its powerful secrets;

Ridding our minds from the barriers of senses

Of this world whose rules are revealed by God

Changing us, as eagle is rejuvenated by the Lord!

Standing strong on His laws, fortified by his power

We shall open to all the doors of knowledge.

There will be a day – and its dawn is near –

When tired of crying humanity will engage

Us knowing that pain is quenched in our hearts,

Where there is a satiating wave rather than a lighting fire,

Repeating with us in a huge outcry:

“Give us light and the holy hope by

Having the unction of virtue in hand,

Raising our heads from the abated land.

To the eyes blinded by the dust, filthy,

Suddenly giving them the sacred clarity.

Pronounce the Ephpheta of Christ, a mystery!

Transfigure the flesh of the enslaved mind!

Place us, the living ones, among the cohorts

Of apparitions and dead figures alike!

The graves are not tombs but

Badly whitewashed places of bad hearts.

The dead will teach us how

We must live to follow them in God.”

And we who received the blessings of the Lord

To live on Earth in a more perfect center,

We will open our arms to the docile followers

In the name of Spiritism! In the name of the Gospel!

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