Cambridge Poets 1900-1913

CAMBRIDGE POETS

1900-1913

These ten Poems by Crowley appeared in the collection Cambridge Poets 1900-1913: An Anthology published in 1913.

IN NEVILLE’S COURT,

TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

I think the souls of many men are here

Among these cloisters, underneath the spire

That the moon silvers with magnetic fire;

But not a moon-ray is it, that so clear

Shines on the pavement, for a voice of fear

It hath, unless it be the breeze that mocks

My ear, and waves his old majestic locks

About his head. There fell upon my ear:

“O soul contemplative of distant things,

Who hast a poet’s heart, even if thy pen

Be dry and barren, who dost hold Love dear,

Speed forth this message on the fiery wings

Of stinging song to all the race of men:

That they have hope; for we are happy here.”

ON GARRET HOSTEL BRIDGE.

HERE in the evening curl white mists and wreathe in their vapour

All the gray spires of stone, all the immobile towers;

Here in the twilight gloom dim trees and sleepier rivers,

Here where the bridge is thrown over the amber stream.

Chill is the ray that steals from the moon to the stream that whispers

Secret tales of its source, songs of its fountain-head.

Here do I stand in the dusk; like spectres mournfully moving

Wisps of the cloud-wreaths form, dissipate into the mist,

Wrap me in shrouds of gray, chill me and make me shiver,

Not with the Night alone, not with the sound of her wing,

Yet with a sense of something vague and unearthly stalking

(Step after step as I move) me, to annul me, quell

Hope and desire and life, bid light die under my eyelids,

Bid the strong heart despair, quench the desire of Heaven.

So I shudder a little; and my heart goes out to the mountains,

Rock upon rock for a crown, snow like an ermine robe;

Thunder and lightning free fashioned for speech, and seeing,

Pinnacles royal and steep, queen of the arduous breast!

Ye on whose icy bosom, passionate, at the sunrise,

Ye in whose wind-swept hollows, lulled in the moon-rise clear,

Often and oft I struggled, a child with an angry mother,

Often and oft I slept, maid in a lover’s arms.

Back to ye, back, wild towers, from this flat and desolate fenland,

Back to ye yet will I flee, swallow on wing to the south;

Move in your purple cloud-banks and leap your far-swelling torrents,

Bathe in the pools below, laugh with the winds above,

Battle and strive and climb in the teeth of the glad wild weather,

Flash on the slopes of ice, dance on the spires of rock,

Run like a glad young panther over the stony highlands,

Shout with the joy of living, race to the rugged cairn,

Feel the breath of your freedom burn in my veins, and Freedom!

Freedom! echoes adown cliff and precipitous ghyll.

Fire and desire and light and youth and passion and freedom

Race in my blood untamed, laugh in my face for love.

Down by the cold gray lake the sun descends from his hunting,

Shadow and silence steals over the frozen fells.

Oh, to the there, my heart! And the vesper bells awaken,

Colleges call their children, Lakeland fades from the sight.

Only the sad slow Cam like a sire with age grown heavy

Wearily moves to the sea, to quicken to life at last.

Blithelier I depart, to a sea of sunnier kindness;

Hours of waiting are past; I re-quicken to love.

THE GOAD

αν υγρον αμπταιην

αιθερα πορσω γαιας Ελλανιας

αστερας εσπερους

οιον, οιον αλγος επαθον, φιλαι

Euripides.

Amsterdam, December 23rd, 1897.

Let me pass out beyond the city gate.

All day I loitered in the little streets

Of black worn houses tottering, like the fate

That hangs above my head even now, and meets

Prayer and defiance as not hearing it.

They lean, these old black streets ! a little sky

Peeps through the gap, the rough stone path is lit

Just for a little by the sun, and I

Watch his red face pass over, fade away

To other streets, and other passengers,

See him take pleasure where the heathen pray,

See him relieve the hunter of his furs,

All the wide world awaiting him, all folk

Glad at his coming, only I must weep:

Rise he or sink, my weary eyes invoke

Only the respite of a little sleep;

Sleep, just a little space of sleep, to rest

The fevered head and cool the aching eyes ;

Sleep for a space, to fall upon the breast

Of the dear God, that He may sympathise.

Long has the day drawn out; a bitter frost

Sparkles along the streets; the shipping heaves

With the slow murmur of the sea, half lost

In the last rustle of forgotten leaves.

Over the bridges pass the throngs ; the sound,

Deep and insistent, penetrates the mist—

I hear it not; I contemplate the wound

Stabbed in the flanks of my dear silver Christ.

He hangs in anguish there ; the crown of thorns

Pierces that palest brow; the nails drip blood ;

There is the wound; no Mary by Him mourns,

There is no John beside the cruel wood.

I am alone to kiss the silver lips;

I rend my clothing for the temple veil;

My heart’s black night must act the sun’s eclipse;

My groans must play the earthquake, till I quail

At my own dark imagining. And now

The wind is bitterer: the air breeds snow;

I put my Christ away; I turn my brow

Towards the south stedfastly ; my feet must go

Some journey of despair. I dare not turn

To meet the sun; I will not follow him:

Better to pass where sand and sulphur burn,

And days are hazed with heat, and nights are dim

With some malarial poison. Better lie

Far and forgotten on some desert isle,

Where I may watch the silent ships go by,

And let them share my burden for awhile.

Let me pass out beyond the city gate

Where I may wander by the water still,

And see the faint few stars immaculate

Watch their own beauty in its depth, and chill

Their own desire within its icy stream.

Let me move on with vacant eyes, as one

Lost in the labyrinth of some ill dream,

Move and move on, and never see the sun

Lap all the mist with orange and red gold,

Throw some lank windmill into iron shade,

And stir the chill canal with manifold

Rays of clear morning; never grow afraid

When he dips down beyond the far fiat land,

Know never more the day and night apart,

Know not where frost has laid his iron hand

Save only that it fastens on my heart;

Save only that it grips with icy fire

These veins no fire of hell could satiate;

Save only that it quenches this desire.

Let me pass out beyond the city gate.

THE ROSICRUCIAN.

À SA MAJESTÉ JACQUES IV D’ÉCOSSE.

I SEE the centuries wax and wane.

I know their mystery of pain,

The secrets of the living fire,

The key of life: I live: I reign:

For I am master of desire.

Silent, I pass amid the folk

Caught in its mesh, slaves to its yoke.

Silent, unknown, I work and will

Redemption, godhead’s master-stroke,

And breaking of the wands of ill.

No man hath seen beneath my brows

Eternity’s exultant house.

No man hath noted in my brain

The knowledge of my mystic spouse.

I watch the centuries wax and wane.

Poor, in the kingdom of strong gold,

My power is swift and uncontrolled.

Simple, amid the maze of lies;

A child, among the cruel old,

I plot their stealthy destinies.

So patient, in the breathless strife;

So silent, under scourge and knife;

So tranquil, in the surge of things;

I bring them from the well of Life,

Love, from celestial water-springs!

From the shrill fountain-head of God

I draw out water with the rod

Made luminous with light of power.

I seal each æon’s period,

And wait the moment and the hour.

Aloof, alone, unloved, I stand

With love and worship in my hand.

I commune with the Gods: I wait

Their summons, and I fire the brand.

I speak their Word: and there is Fate.

I know no happiness, no pain,

No swift emotion, no disdain,

No pity: but the boundless light

Of the Eternal Love, unslain,

Flows through me to redeem the night.

Mine is a sad-slow life: but I,

I would not gain release, and die

A moment ere my task be done.

To falter now were treachery—

I should not dare to greet the sun!

Yet, in one hour I dare not hope,

The mighty gate of Life may ope,

And call me upwards to unite

(Even my soul within the scope)

With That Unutterable Light.

Steady of purpose, girt with Truth,

I pass, in my eternal youth,

And watch the centuries wax and wane:

Untouched by Time’s corroding tooth,

Silent, immortal, unprofane!

My empire changes not with time.

Men’s kingdom's cadent as a rhyme

Move me as waves that rise and fall.

They are the parts, that crash or climb,

I only comprehend the All.

I sit, as God must sit; I reign.

Redemption from the threads of pain

I weave, until the veil be drawn.

I burn the chaff, I glean the grain;

In silence I await the dawn.

SONG.

To sea! To sea! The ship is trim;

The breezes bend the sails.

They chant the necromantic hymn,

Arouse Arabian tales.

To sea! Before us leap the waves;

The wild white combers follow.

Invoke, ye melancholy slaves,

The morning of Apollo!

There's phosphorescence in the wake,

And starlight o'er the prow.

One comet, like an angry snake,

Lifts up its hooded brow.

The black grows grey towards the East:

A hint of silver grows.

Gods gather to the mystic feast

On interlunar snows.

The moon is up full-orbed: she glides

Striking a snaky ray

Across the black resounding tides,

The sepulchre of day.

The moon is up: upon the prow

We stand and watch the moon.

A star is lustred on your brow;

Your lips begin a tune,

A long, low tune of love that swells

Little by little, and lights

The overarching miracles

Of Love 's desire, and Night's.

It swells, it rolls to triumph-song

Through luminous black skies:

Thrills into silence sharp and strong,

Assumes its peace, and dies.

There is the night: it covers close

The lilies folded fair

Of all your beauty, and the rose

Half hidden in your hair.

There is the night: unseen I stand

And look to seaward still:

We would not look upon the land

Again, had I my will.

The ship is trim: to sea! to sea!

Take life in either hand,

Crush out its wine for you and me,

And drink, and understand.

IN MEMORIAM A. J. B.

The life by angels’ touch divinely lifted

From our dim space-bounds to a vaster sphere

The spirit, through the vision of clouds rifted,

Soars quick and clear.

We know the dance that hails the golden pinions

The sun waves over an awakening earth;

We know the joy that floods the heart’s dominions

At true love’s birth.

Even so, the mists that roll o’er earth are riven,

The spirit flashes forth from mortal sight,

And, flaming through the viewless space, is given

A robe of light.

As when the conqueror Christ burst forth of prison,

And triumph woke the thunder of the spheres,

So brake the soul, as newly re-arisen

Beyond the years.

Far above Space and Time, that earth environ

With bands and bars we strive against in vain,

Far o’er the world, and all its triple iron

And brazen chain,

Far from the change that men call life fled higher

Into the world immutable of sleep,

We see our loved one, and vain eyes desire

In vain to weep.

Woeful our gaze, if on Ione Earth descendent,

To view the absence of yon flame afar—

Yet in the Heavens, anew, divine, resplendent,

Behold a star!

One light the less, that steady flamed and even

Amid the dusk of Earth’s uncertain shore;

One light the less, but in Jehovah’s Heaven

One star the more!

THE CHALLENGE

Now your grave eyes are filled with tears;

Your hands are trembling in my own;

The slow voice falls upon my ears,

An undulating monotone.

Your lips are gathered up to mine:

Your bosom heaves with fearful breath;

Your scent is keen as floral wine,

Inviting me, and love, to death.

You, whom I kept, a sacred shrine,

Will fling the portals to the day;

Where shone the moon the sun shall shine,

Silver in scarlet melt away.

There is a yet a pang: they give me this

Who can; and you who could have failed?

Is it too late to extend the kiss?

Too late the goddess be unveiled?

O but the generous flower that gives

Her kisses to violent sun,

Yet none the less in ardour lives

An hour, and then her day is done.

Back from my lips, back from my breast!

I hold you as I always will,

You unprofaned and uncaressed,

Silent, majestical, and still.

Back! for I love you. Even yet

Do you not see my deepest fire

Burn through the veils and coverings set

By fatuous phantoms of desire?

Back! O I love you evermore.

But, be our bed the bridal sky!

I love you, love you. Hither, shore

Of far unstained eternity!

There we will rest. Beware! Beware!

For I am young, and you are fair.

Nay! I am old in this, you know!

Ah! heat of God! I love you so!

TWO HYMNS ON THE FEAST

OF THE NATIVITY.

The cool December breezes

Appease the glowing sun .

The agonies and eases

Of all the year are done;

When eastward through the lampless night

There shone a strange and splendid sight.

The noise of pomp and battle

Of Israel died away.

Amid the lowing cattle

The Holy Mother lay,

While at her breast the Child Divine

Drank in the starry milk and wine

Three magicians Chaldean

Have bowed their royal knees

Before the Galilean,

The God of stars and seas,

And tasted all the fervent grace

That shone from Mary's maiden face.

That star of resurrection

Still stands above the night;

Its portent of perfection

Shall bring us all to light;

And by the peace of Mary's prayers

Our rapture stands, exceeding theirs.

II.

The Virgin lies at Bethlehem.