Revelations

O God of Earth and Altar G. K. Chesterton O God of earth and altar, Bow down and hear our cry, Our earthly rulers falter, Our people drift and die The walls of gold entomb us, The swords of scorn divide, Take not thy thunder from us, But take away our pride From all that terror teaches From lies of tongue and pen From all the easy speeches That comfort cruel men From sale and profanation Of honour and the sword From sleep and from damnation, Deliver us, good Lord. Tie in a living tether The prince and priest and thrall, Bind all our lives together, Smite us and save us al; In ire and exultation Aflame with faith, and free, Lift up a living nation, A single sword to thee.

Revelations Bruce Dickinson O God of earth and altar Bow down and hear our cry Our earthly rulers falter Our peolple drift and die The walls of gold entombe us The swords of scorn divide Take not thy thunder from us But take away our pride Just a babe in a black abyss No reason for a place like this The walls are cold and souls cry out in pain An easy way for the blind to go A clever path for the fools who know The secret of the hanged man – the smile on his lips The light of the blind youll see The venom that tears my spine The eyes of the nile are opening – youll see She came to me with a serpents kiss As the eye of the sun rose on her lips Moonlight catches silver tears I cry So we lay in a black embrace And the seed is sown in a holy place And I watched and I waited for the dawn The light of the blind youll see The venom that tears my spine The eyes of the nile are opening – you’ll see Bind all of us together Ablaze of hope and free No storm or heavy weather Will rock the boat youll see The time has come to close your eyes And still the wind and rain For the one who will be king The watcher in the ring It is you

From the mere pairing up of the lyrics we can see that the Egyptian theme of the song is sandwiched within the opening and closing verses of the original English hymn. The first part is sung ipsis literis , whereas the closing verses are sung mirroring the general idea but paraphrasing the contentes (aflame with faith / ablaze with hope, etc).

We can easily estabilish that both the Hymn and the song’s theme is a call for a miracle to unite a people, but where does the Egyptian content come from? Acordingly to Wikipedia Bruce was partly inspired by the works of Aleister Crowley, a somewhat maverick writter.

I did some research on the topic and found out that the guy claims that when he was in Egypt in 1904, his wife (named Rose) was possessed by Horus (the eye of the Sun rose on her lips) during a ritual invocation (So whe lay in a black embrace and the seed is sown in a holy place) and that he, Aleister Crowley was then annointed both “prince and priest of the beast” and was heralding a new age, where Horus himself would come down and conquer the world (by brute force, I might add!).

Then he went of to create his own religion, with its own book of revelations and all. Which is something that seems to become increasingly more common these days. Maybe one day I’ll gather some friends and have a go at that, too.