The Link is published monthly at 40p (Senior Citizens 35p), and we deliver free within the parish and post copies (at the reader's expense) to those who request it. Please contact us if you would like a free copy for a trial period.
July 2007, Page 2.
Index of articles:
by subject,
by date.
In this issue:
(July 2007)
Cooperative?
Soma,
Colossians,
Hymn.
The brewing of soma ...
I recently came across the story of the origins of one of the most popular hymns in our hymn book. It was written as a 17-verse poem against the evils of “soma”, which Hindu Vedic priests used to brew and drink. They were trying to have a religious experience and contact the spirit world, and John G Whittier (in 1872) described at length the effects of the drug - like alcohol but with supposed transcendental added effects
Here are the first 11 verses - can you guess which hymn the poem finishes up as?
The brewing of soma
The fagots blazed, the caldron's smoke
Up through the green wood curled;
"Bring honey from the hollow oak,
Brink milky sap," the brewers spoke,
In the childhood of the world.
And brewed they well or brewed they ill,
The priests thrust in their rods,
First tasted, and then drank their fill,
And shouted, with one voice and will,
"Behold, the drink of gods!"
They drank, and lo! in heart and brain
A new, glad life began;
They grew of hair, grew young again,
The sick man laughed away his pain,
The cripple leaped and ran.
"Drink, mortals, what the gods have sent,
Forget you long annoy."
So sang the priests. From tent to tent
The Soma's sacred madness went:
A storm of drunken joy.
Then knew each rapt inebriate
A winged and glorious birth,
Soared upward, with strange joy elate,
Beat, with dazed head, Varuna's gate,
And sobered, sank to earth.
The land with Soma's praises rang;
On Gihon's banks of shade
Its hymns the dusky maidens sang;
In joy of life or mortal pang
All men to Soma prayed.
The morning twilight of the race
Sends down these matin psalms;
And still with wondering eyes we trace
The simple prayers to Soma's grace,
That Vedic verse embalms.
As in the child-world's early year,
Each after age has striven
By music, incense, vigils drear,
And trance, to bring the skies more near,
Or lift men up to heaven!
Some fever of the blood and brain,
Some self-exalting spell,
The scourger's keen delight of pain,
the Dervish dance, the Orphic strain,
The wild-haired Bacchant's yell, -
The desert's hair-grown hermit sunk
The saner brute below;
The naked wanton, hashish-drunk,
The cloister madness of the monk,
The fakir's torture show!
And yet the past comes round again,
And new doth old fulfill;
In sensual transports wild as vain
We brew in many a Christian fane
The heathen Soma still!
Have you guessed? In the original parish magazine article you would have had to turn over a page to discover the way the poem continues. On this web page you'll have to click here. Hope you got it right!