Page:Across the Zodiac (Volume 2).djvu/224

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Across the Zodiac.

wards the Throne, but it remained vacant as ever. Then, fixing his eyes for a few moments upon the culprit, who started and woke to full consciousness under his gaze—and receiving from the Chief nearest to him on the left a chain of small golden circles similar to that of the canopy, represented also on the Signet, while he on the right held a small roll, on the golden surface of which a long list of names was inscribed—our Superior pronounced, amid deepest stillness, in a low clear tone, the form of excommunication; breaking at the appropriate moment one link from the chain, and, at a later point, drawing a broad crimson bar through one cipher on the roll:—

"Conscience-convict, tried in truth,Judged in justice, doomed in ruth;Ours no more—once ours in vain—Falls the Veil and snaps the Chain,Drops the link and lies alone:—Traitor to the Emerald Throne,Alien from the troth we plight,Nature native to the night;Trained in Light the Light to scorn,Soul apostate and forsworn,False to symbol, sense, and sign,To the Serpent's pledge divine,To the Wings that reach afar,To the Circle and the Star;Recreant to the mystic rule,Outlaw from the sacred school—Backward is the Threshold crossed;Lost the Light, the Life is lost.Go; the golden page we blot:Go; forgetting and forgot!Go—by final sentence shriven,Be thy crime absolved in Heaven!"

Once more the Throne and the Emblems behind and

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