A Song for Beltane
Our tradition greatly values creative expression, including poetry, music and visual art. We encourage initiates to explore their creativity, and, as they progress, weave it in to their own ritual work.
As well as prose, Melita Denning wrote extensive poetry, little of which has been published. Her work included invocatory hymns in Latin, verse translations of Catullus and Lactantius, as well as a range of vernacular lyrics. The long poem dedicated to the memory of Ernest Page, Orpheus, which opens the combined edition of The Magical Philosophy, is characteristic. It uses an alliterative format reminiscent of Anglo-Saxon epic to tell an allegorised, Hermetic reading of the Orpheus myth. (And there is much about our work in it for those with ears to hear.)
In an early presentation of the Order, it was noted:
As befits an occult Order functioning in Britain, the A∴S∴ has based much of its work on Celtic contacts: the ancient Fire Festivals, lmbolc, Bealteinne, Lughnasadh and Samhuinn, are ritually celebrated year by year, and a series of magical ceremonies has been conducted in or near centres of early British and Celtic potency: prehistoric sites such as the stone circles of Avebury and Stonehenge, caves such as “King Arthur’s Cavern” in the Wye Valley, the Paviland Cave in Glamorganshire and such legendary sites as “Waylands Smithy” (actually an ancient tomb) in Berkshire : also places of later Celtic associations such as Tintagel, Glastonbury, Holyhead, Iona and Lindisfarne.
(Robe and Ring, 1974, p.166)
This strand is less obvious in the modern Order, though Denning’s own affection for Druidry is well known. (She had been magically close to Thomas Maughan of the Druid Order, and was the Presider of OBOD in her last years in Britain.)
In the early ’00s, Osborne Phillips shared some of her simple lyric poems for the Celtic fire festivals, including the below:
Song for Bealteinne
Who comes maying, comes maying with me? –
Lad and maiden, sweetheart and friend –
Softly slip from your house-doors free:
Sweet May-night in the woods we’ll spend!
We’ll pass by where the hawthorns white
Breathe their bridal odour of love:
Not a twig shall we pluck till light –
Sweet May-night in the woods we’ll rove!
Bring ye plenty of bread and ale,
Meat and sweet as it pleases ye, bring:
Lanterns vying with moonlight pale,
In the woods we shall sup and sing!
Praise the Goddess-Queen for whose feast
Love’s the hymnal and kisses the creed:
Two and two ‘mid the leaves embraced,
Sweet May-night in joy let us speed!
Bathed in dew when the daybreak is come,
Boughs of hawthorn bear we away –
Crowned and decked with its sacred bloom,
In the morning we’ll bring home the May!