THE LIGHT:

A JOURNAL OF PSYCHICAL, OCCULT, AND MYSTICAL RESEARCH

6 January 1912

(page 34)

ITEMS OF INTEREST.

We have glanced at ‘The Whirlpool,’ a little book of poems by Ethel Archer, with a preface by Mr. Aleister Crowley (1s, net, Wieland and Co., 3, Great James-street, Bedford-row, W.C.). The verse is musical and the ideas profound—so profound that the plummet line of an average intelligence like our own occasionally fails to reach the bottom. We tried it on the first poem, but after three perusals gave up the task in despair. At the same time, the feelings of the poetess call for our respectful, if wondering, sympathy, for they are evidently very fervent indeed—rising, one may say, to fever point—especially when she swears devotion to ‘The Great High Priest of Elemental Passion’ by everything in heaven and earth for which she can find a rhyming simile or an alliterative adjective:—

‘By the rapturous red of the roses, the ruin of rain,

By the poisonous passion of poppies, the perfume of pain,

By the dawn of the faun of desire, by the shudder of sleep,

And the swoon of the moon as she catches the cry of the deep;

I adore thee!’

To quote Gilbert, ‘this is simply cloying.’ May we recommend a mild course of hockey or lawn tennis?