Gerald Massey (1828–1907,) fully Thomas Gerald Massey, was an English poet and writer on Spiritualism and Ancient Egypt. He was also a researcher into the influence of ancient Egyptian beliefs on the development of western myth, symbol, language, and Judaism and Christianity.
Born near Tring, Hertfordshire, Massey became a Christian Socialist and became associated with Frederick Denison Maurice and Charles Kingsley. He wrote essays in such radical publications as The Uxbridge Spirit of Freedom, The Red Republican, and The Friend of the People. He later edited the Spirit of Freedom.
Massey’s poetry protests the lack of sorely-needed political and social reform. His volumes of poems include Voices of Freedom and Lyrics of Love (1850,) The Ballad of Babe Christabel (1854,) War Waits (1855,) Havelock’s March (1860,) A Tale of Eternity (1869,) and My Lyrical Life (2 vols., 1889.) Massey also wrote mystical and speculative theological or cosmogenic works and claimed to have discovered a ‘Secret Drama’ in Shakespeare’s sonnets.
From 1870, Massey became increasingly interested in Egyptology and the similarities between ancient Egyptian mythology and the Gospel stories. He published The Book of the Beginnings (2 vols., 1881,) The Natural Genesis (2 vols., 1883,) and Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (12 vols., 1907.) Massey asserted that the ancient Egyptian myths developed as a necessary and fundamental core of belief from the earliest times and are the roots of modern cultural origins.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Gerald Massey
When man to man shall be friend and brother.
—Gerald Massey
A sweet new blossom of humanity, fresh fallen from God’s own home, to flower on earth.
—Gerald Massey
Topics: Humanity
Soft hair, on which light drops a diadem.
—Gerald Massey
Topics: Hair
The world is full of beauty, as other worlds above, And if we did our duty, it might be as full of love.
—Gerald Massey
Topics: Love, World
All the rarest hues of human life take radiance and are rainbowed out in tears.
—Gerald Massey
Topics: Tears
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