Meredith Starr Diary Entry

Saturday, 2 July 1910

Slept 7 hours 12.30 — 7.30.

10.30 A.M.

The mists in the Valley of Shadow

Have darkened the glory of dawn,

But flowers are bright in the meadow

Where dances the passionate faun.

The eternal cry of the ages

Ascends to the calm of the skies,

And ever The Silence assuages

The moan of earth's desolate cries.

In Silence the Answer lies hidden,

And peace is in desperate strife:

The guests to Death's banquet are bidden

To feast on the viands of Life.

Written 3.30 — 4 p.m.

A shaft of light has passed within

The portal of the star-lit night:

My spirit was imprisoned in

The shaft of light.

My spirit burst the bonds and bars

That twined it in a web accurst,

And leaped beyond the palest stars,

Aflame, a-thirst.

And in a net of purple-gold

It gathered dreams that men forget,

And trod the beaten path of old

Where thorns are set.

O thorns that pierce! O wounds that bleed

To fill [illegible] blood the mystic tierce!

To satisfy the need

Of vampires fierce!

O crimson flowers drenched with blood,

Plucked from fair Elysian bowers—

To bleed beneath the surging flood

Of crimson hours!

Went to Crowley at the Equinox at 5.30—Stayed till 2.45 A.M. I did not see anything—but distinctly felt a presence in the room that had not been there before. . . . When Neuburg [Victor B. Neuburg] and Crowley were crouching in the centre of the room. . . . N.[euburg] appeared to be obsessed.

Slept 5 hours — 4 a.m. — 9.

[234]