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GARGOYLES
Fifty copies only printed of this edition on hand-made paper, all of which are numbered and signed. No.
Gargoyles
BEING
STRANGELY WROUGHT IMAGES
OF LIFE AND DEATH
BY
ALEISTER CROWLEY
FOYERS SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH 1906
CONTENTS
To Lola Bentrovata
IMAGES OF LIFE
Prologue: Via Vitae The White Cat Ali and Hassan Al Malik Song Anicca Tarshittering A Fragment The Stumbling-Block Wooodcraft A Nugget from a Mine Au Caveau des Innocents Rosa Inferni Diogenes Said Epilogue: Prayer
IMAGES OF DEATH
Prologue: Patchouli Kali The Jilt The Eyes of Pharoah Banzai Le Jour des Morts Ave Mors The Moribund The Beauty and the Bhikkhu Immortality Epilogue: The King-Ghost
GARGOYLES
Nec tamen illa mihi dextra deducta paterna Fragrantem Assyrio venit odore domum Sed furtiva dedit muta munuscula nocte.
TO LOLA BENTROVATA.
Go sunnily through my garden of flowers, dear maiden o’ mine, and once in a while you shall come upon some grotesque Chinese dragon with huge and hideous eyes leering round the delight of the daffodils; or it may be some rude Priapus looking over the calm rock- shadowed beauty of the lake; or even, hanging amid the glory of elm or beech, an human skeleton, whose bones shall rattle in the breeze, and from whose eyeless sockets shall glare—?—I dare not bid you guess what evil knowledge. Then, an you be wise, you shall know that a wise gardener wisely put them there. For every garden is the world; and in the world these are. So every cathedral is the world, and the architect of Notre Dame deserved his heaven. To me life and death have most often appeared in majesty and beauty, in solemnity and horror; in emotions, to be brief, so great that man had no place therein. But there are moods, in which the heights are attained indirectly, and through man’s struggle with the elemental powers. In these poems you shall hear the laughter of the gods and of the devils; understand their terrors and ecstasies; live in their heavens and hells. But I not only heard and understood and lived; I sounded and imposed and begat: you must also do both, or the universe will still be a mystery to you as to the others.
IMAGES OF LIFE
PROLOGUE.
VIA VITAE.
I. My head is split. The crashing axe Of the agony of things shears through The stupid skull: out spurt the brains. The universe revolves, then cracks, Then roars in dissolution due; And I am counting up the gains And losses of a life afire With dust of thought and dulled desire.
II. So, all is over. I admit Futility the lord of will. Life was an episode, for me As for the meanest monad, knit To man by mightier bonds than skill Of subtle-souled psychology May sever. Aim in chaos? None. The soul rolls senseless as the sun.
III. Existence, as we know it, spins A fatal warp, a woof of woe. There is no place for God or soul. Works, hopes, prayers, sacrifices, sins Are jokes. The cosmos happened so: Innocent all of guide or goal. Else, what were man’s appointed term? To feed God’s friend, the coffin-worm!
IV. Laugh, thou immortal Lesbian! Thy verse runs down the runic ages. Where shalt thou be when sun and star, My sun, my star, the vault that span, Rush in their rude, impassive rages Down to some centre guessed afar By mindless Law? Their death-embrace A simple accident of space?
V. Where is thy fame, when million leagues Of flaming gas absorb the roll Of many a system ruinous hurled With infinite pains and dire fatigues To build another stupid soul For fools to call another world? Where then thy fame, O soul sublime? Where then thy victory over Time?
VI. Wilt thou seek deeper than the fact? Take refuge in a city of mind? Build thee an house, and call it heaven? Rush on! there foams the cataract, Blind steersman leader of the blind, Sole devil herald of the seven Thy garnished halls should house, O Christ, Thou being dead, thou sacrificed
VII. Not for atonement, not for bliss; Truly for nothing: so it was. Nay, friends, think well! Renounce the dream! Seek not some mystery in the kiss, Some virtue in the chrysopras, Some nymph or undine in the stream. Things as we know them should be enough To glut our misery and our love.
VIII. Why must despair to madness drive The myriad fools that fear to die? God’s but a fervid phantom drawn Out of the hasty-ordered hive Of thoughts that battle agony In the melancholy hours of dawn. When vital force at lowest ebbs Anaemic nerves weave frailest webs.
IX. So, be content! Should science cleave The veil of things and show us peace, Well:—but by wild imagining Think not a golden robe to weave! Such moulder. By fantastic ease Ye come not well to anything. Work and be sober: dotage thinks By worth of words to slay the Sphinx.
X. Things as they are—of these take hold, Their heart of wonder throb to thine! All things are matter and force and sense, No two alone. All’s one: the gold Of truth is no reward divine Of faith, but wage of evidence. The clod, the God, the spar, the star Mete in thy measure, as they are.
XI. So lifts the agony of the world From this mine head, that bowed awhile Before the terror suddenly shown. The nameless fear for self, far hurled By death to dissolution vile, Fades as the royal truth is known: Though change and sorrow range and roll, There is no self—there is no soul!
XII. As man, a primate risen high Above his fellows, work thou well! As man, an incident minute And dim in time’s eternity, Work well! As man, no toy for hell And heaven to wrangle for, be mute! Let empty speculation stir The idle fool, the craven cur!
XIII. Myself being idle for an hour I dare one thing to speculate: Namely, that life hath cusps yet higher On this our curve: a prize, a power Lies in our grasp: unthinking Fate Shall build a brain to nestle nigher Unto the ultimate Truth: I burn To live that later lives may learn.
XIV. Simple to say; to do complex! That we this higher type of man May surely generate, o’ nights Our lesser brains we vainly vex. Our knowledge lacks; we miss the plan. Fools hope our luck will set to rights Our skill that’s baulked. Yet now we know At least the way we wish to go.
XV. This task assume! Colossal mind And toil transcending, concentrate Not on the metaphysic wild; Not on the deserts vast and blind Of dark Religion; not on Fate, The barren ocean; but the Child Shows us a beacon in the night; A lens to lure and lend the light.
XVI. Wisdom and Love, intenser glow! Beauty and Strength, increase and burn! Be brothers to the law of life! Things as they are—their nature know! Act! Nor for faith nor folly turn! The hour is nigh when man and wife, Knowing, shall worship face to face, Beget and bear the royal race.
THE WHITE CAT.
Hail, sweet my sister! hail, adulterous spouse, Gilded with passionate pomp, and gay with guilt: Rioting, rioting in the dreary house With blood and wine and roses splashed and spilt About thy dabbling feet, and aching jaws Whose tongue licks mine, twin asps like moons that curl, Red moons of blood! Whose catlike body claws, Like a white swan raping a jet-black girl, Mine, with hysteric laughter! O white cat! O windy star blown sideways up the sky! Twin cat, twin star, ’tis night; the owl and bat Hoot, scream; ’tis us they call—to love or die. Twin cat, our broomsticks wait: we’ll fly afar! We’ll blaze about the unlighted sky, twin star!
ALI AND HASSAN.
FROM THE ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH.
Ali bade Hassan to his house to sup. They ate, passed round the full forbidden cup, Till, in an interval of dance and song, Hassan forgot his manners—loud and long. Struck with confusion, forth he fares, takes ship To utmost Ind and far-off Serendip. Full forty years he there abides: at last, Rich and respected, he contemns the past:— “If I declare myself, there’s hope, I wot, Hassan’s remembered, and his fault forgot!—” Determines to revisit home. Sweet airs Accomplishing the voyage, he repairs Unto the barber. “Tell me of the state! Haroun still holds the royal Caliphate?” “Nay,” said the barber, “long ago he passed Where all delights are ’stinguished at the last, And all good things forgotten, wallahy! He died—aha now!—no—yes—let me see! Ten years, three months, four days, as I’m a sinner, Since Hassan let the—shame—at Ali’s dinner.”
AL MALIK.
A GHAZAL OF AL QAHAR.
Al Malik the magnificent Was sitting in his silken tent.
But when he saw the boy Habib I wis his colour came and went.
Quoth he: By Allah, ’tis a star Struck from the azure firmament!
Habib: I pour the wine of love For Al Awaz the excellent.
The king: I envy him thy shape, Thy voice, thy colour, and thy scent.
Habib: In singing of his slave Hath Al Awaz grown eminent.
The king: But I, to taste thy lip, My kingdom willingly had spent.
Habib: Asylum of the World! My master bade me to present
My loveliness to thee, whose brows Like to a Scythian bow are bent.
The king accepted him to bear His cup of wine, and was content.
Let Al Qahar their praises sing: Three souls, one love, one element.
Note.—This poem is very much taboo in Persia, as it is supposed to be little better than a pamphlet in favour of Christianity. The later work of Al Qahar, and especially his master-piece, the Bagh-i-Muattar, are however, if not quite above suspicion, so full of positive piety of the Sufi sort that even the orthodox tolerate what the mystic and the ribald silently or noisily admire.
SONG.
I. Dance a measure Of tiniest whirls! Shake out your treasure Of cinnamon curls! Tremble with pleasure, O wonder of girls!
II. Rest is bliss, And bliss is rest, Give me a kiss If you love me best! Hold me like this With my head on your breast!
ANICCA.
He who desires desires a change. Change is the tale of life and death. Matter and motion rearrange Their endless coils; the Buddha saith: “Cease, O my sons, to desire! Change is the whole that we see By the light of a chaos on fire. Cease to desire—you are free!” Your words, good Gotama, are brave and true; Easy to say, but difficult to do!
TARSHITERING.
NEPALI LOVE-SONG.
O kissable Tarshitering! the wild bird calls its mate—and I? Come to my tent this night of May, and cuddle close and crown me king! Drink, drink our full of love at last—a little while and we shall die, O kissable Tarshitering!
Droop the long lashes: close the eyes with eyelids like a beetle’s wing! Light the slow smile, ephemeral as ever a painted butterfly, Certain to close into a kiss, certain to fasten on me and sting!
Nay? Are you coy? Then I will catch your hips and hold you wild and shy Until your very struggles set your velvet buttocks all a-swing, Until their music lulls you to unfathomable ecstasy, O kissable Tarshitering!
Note.—This poem is probably the original of the well-known Hindu love song:
“Thora thairo, Tenduk, thora thairo, tum! Thora thairo, thairo thora, thora thairo tum!”
A FRAGMENT.1
“In the midst of the desert of Libya, on a mound of sand, lieth a young man alone and naked. Nightfall.”
Night the voluptuous, night the chaste Spreads her dark limbs, a vaulted splendour, Above the intolerable waste. Night the august one, night the tender Queens it and brides it unto me. I am the soul serenely free; I dare to seek the austere ordeal That drags the hoodwink of the Real Back from the Maker’s livid eyes Lustred with hate. At noon I came Blind in the desert, saw the sun Leap o’er the edge, a fury of flame Shouting for rapture over his prize, The maiden body of earth. Outrun The violent rays; the dawn is dashed In one swift moment into dust. Long lies the land with sunlight splashed, Brutally violate to his lust. Alone and naked I watched through The appalling hours of noon; I parched; I blistered: all the ghastly crew Of mind’s sick horror mocked me; arched The flaming vault of hell and pressed Its passionate murder in my breast. Seven times I strove to slay me: filled My mouth with sand to choke my breath. In vain! No loftier purpose willed The iron miracle of death. So, blind and strangled, I survive. So, with my skin a single scar, I hail the night, the night alive With Hathor for the evening star. O beauty! See me broken, burned Lone on the languorous Lybian plain! Is there one lesson to be learned From this my voluntary pain, My dread initiation, long Desired and long deferred? The Master— Is he the secret of the song, Portent of triumph or disaster The night wind breathes upon the air Still shimmering from the fearful heat? Can I still trust who have learned to dare? All others I have known effete, Bid them await. Who knows to-day The purpose of the dread essay? Surely I, earlier, further fared! I knew the deed that closes clay, Division’s sword by sense unbared, A living lie. The deep delusion! Dividuality—confusion! These I unmasked of yore. To-day The hideous blue, the hideous gold Of sky and sand their wrath unrolled, Their agony and hate proclaimed. Is it that night shall kiss to peace The furious carnival that flamed Its ruinous ardour from the sun! Nay, let all light, all things, but cease! Sense is the seal of double rule. The million oracles that run Out of the mouth of God the fool Are not myself. To nothing turn! To nothing look! Then, then!—discern Nothing, that one may one remain. So I am paid the horrible pain That these my brothers ordered me. I look upon their brows—I see Signs many and deep of torture past; A star, yon star, true peace at last.
(There approacheth an aged man, riding upon an ass, with a led ass, and a Nubian servant.)
The Adept. In the name of God, the One, the Great, Merciful and compassionate, Acclaim the perfect period Of ordeal past! The Neophyte. There is no God! A. Rise! in the name of obscure Fate, Ruthless and uncompassionate. N. Of endless life, of toil and woe I am the burned and branded foe. I came to this torture to endure That I might make my freedom sure. A. No soul is free. N. There is no soul. See yonder gleams the starry shoal Of orbs incalculably vast. They are not present: they are past, Since the long march of shuddering light Made years the servants of its might. There is no soul. A. These star thou seest Are but the figuring of thy brain. N. Then of all things the soul were freest. A. Move then the centre of thy pain! N. ’Tis done. A. A trick to cheat a child. N. It is the truth that I am naught. Hear what I have gathered in the wild, Flowers of imperishable thought With glory and with rapture clothed. This being, thinking, loved or loathed, Hath attributes. This sand is gold:— Deem’st thou a gilder lurks within The atom? What should Nature hold Of aureate save a mind begin Colour-conception? Then we win To think our thought itself a chance Grafted upon the circumstance Of cerebrin and lethicin. A. Ill fares the rifleman that holds The muzzle to his eye. Yon gold’s Mental: enough! the mind is all. N. No: this is but a slave in thrall To matter’s motion. We deny A causeless cause, an entity Beyond experience, that tricks Our folly with his idle claim To be because we feel it. A. Sticks The reason there? N. We choose a name To cover all the host of facts Comprised in thought. A. (aside) The elixir acts. Then backward work; the name becomes With pomp of metaphysic drums A causa causans—God, soul, truth. So raves the riot, age and youth, The cart before the horse. Revered And reverend master, is your beard Darwin’s survival of some tail? Who rants of soul were best to saddle His face, his arms the ass to straddle Since for his voice the part thus bare Would serve as well to scent the air. A. Where reverence ceases, ribald jest Breaks forth, the wise allow the rest. The perfect master stands confessed. N. Why! I supposed your wrath would burst; My name and number stand accurst In the great Order of the West! A. Nay: Buddha smiles; ’twas Jesus wept! Arise, O brother and adept! N. Master! A. The torture-hours are past. N. The peace of pain is mine at last. A. Ere the moon rise, the brethren meet. Come, let us turn toward the South. N. Lord, I embrace thy holy feet. A. Nay, let me kiss thee on the mouth.
1 Intended as the prologue to a history of an initiate in semi-dramatic form.
THE STUMBLING-BLOCK.
I almost wonder if I ought To hymn this height of human pain: To enter into Jones’s thought I’d have to work with Jones’s brain.
Terrestrial speech is wholly vain To carry meaning as it ought:— To enter into Jones’s thought I’d have to work with Jones’s brain.
This is the High God’s cruel sport: To enter into Jones’s thought And make its inner meaning plain, I’d have to work with Jones’s brain.
WOODCRAFT.
The poet slept. His fingers twine In his wife’s hair. He dreams. Divine His dream! Nay then, I’ll tell you it.
He wandered in a forest dim. A woodcutter encountered him Where a felled oak required his wit. This man with a light axe did lop The little branches at the top. Then said the poet: “Thus why tax Your force? This double-handed axe Were better laid to the tree-trunk.” “Friend, are you natural, or drunk?” Replied the woodsman; “leaf and twig Divert the impact of the big Axe; chop them first, the trunk is fit For a fair aim, a certain hit. How do your work yourself?” He spoke To empty space—the poet woke; And catching up a caring-knife He slit the weasand of his wife.
A NUGGET FROM A MINE.
A miner laboured in a mine. (The poet dreamed) By coarse and fine He shovelled dust into a trolley. “But this” (the poet said) “is folly! Take up your pick, engage in shock At the foundation of the rock!” The miner swore. “You —— fool! You clever ——! go to school And college and be ——! Strike you! There ain’t no sense in forty like you! If I don’t clear this muck, the pick Will foul and jam, slip, swerve, or stick. Clear off the chips, the blow goes true. Now, mister, off, my —— to you!” The last oath faded in the air. The poet woke and was aware Of property and children. Claims His breech a vesta. Up the flames Leap; he stalks forth, free among men, With just a notebook and a pen.
AU CAVEAU DES INNOCENTS. 28th Oct., 1904.
Night, like a devil, with lidless eyes, Stands avenging over the Halls. Sleep there is none, for day awaits Tokens of toil; there is none that dies, Death being rest; there is none that calls, Voice being human; only the Fates Rattle the dice at a sombre game, Game without goal of peace or fame. Sinister, sombre, horrors and hates Lurk in the shadows, under the walls. Light deceives, and the darkness lies.
Love there is none; he is child of peace: Joy there is none; she is bride of force: Thought there is none; it is birth:—there fell Ages ago all hope of these. Lust is awake, and its friend remorse. Crime we snatch, between spell and spell. Man is aglare, and is off unheard. Woman hath speech, of a single word. Hell may be heaven, for earth is hell! So do I laugh, and the hideous coarse Peals like applause re-echo and cease.
Here in the close and noisome cave, Drunk on the breath of the thieves and whores Close as they cram in the maw of the pit, Sick with the stench of the kisses that rave Round me, surfeiting sense, in scores; Mad with their meaning, I smoke and sit Riming at random through my teeth, Gray with the mire of the slough beneath, Deep in the hearts that revel in it, Drowned in the breath of the hell that pours In the heart of Paris its infamous wave.
Damning the soul of God, I rise, Stumble among the dissolute bands, Grope to the steep inadequate stairs Scrawled with villainous names. My eyes Loathe the flare of the flickering brands. Out I climb through the greasy airs Into the cold and desolate road. Horror is sure of a safe abode Here in this heart, too pale for prayers, While over the Halls avenging stands Night, like a devil, with lidless eyes.
ROSA INFERNI.
Ha ha! John plucketh now at his rose To rid himself of a sorrow at heart. Lo,—petal on petal, fierce rays unclose; Anther on anther, sharp spikes outstart; And with blood for dew, the bosom boils; And a gust of sulphur is all its smell. And lo, he is horribly in the toils Of a coal-black giant flower of hell! Browning, Heretic’s Tragedy, ix.
I. Rose of the world! Ay, love, in that warm hour Wet with your kisses, the bewitching bud Flamed in the starlight; then our bed your bower Heaved like the breast of some alluring flood Whereon a man might sleep for ever, until Death should surprise him, kiss his weary will Into the last repose, profounder power Than life could compass. Now I tax my skill To find another holier name, some flower Still red, but red with the ecstasy of blood. Dear love, dear wife, dear mother of the child Whose fair faint features are a match for mine, Lurks there no secret where your body smiled, No serpent in the generous draught of wine? Did I guess all, who guessed your life well given Up to my kiss? Aha! the veil is riven! Beneath the smiling mask of a young bride Languorous, luscious, melancholy-eyed; Beneath the gentle raptures, hints celestial Of holy secrets, kisses like soft dew, Beneath the amorous mystery, I view The surer shape, a visage grim and bestial, A purpose sly and deadly, a black shape, A tiger snarling, or a grinning ape Resolved by every devilish device Upon my murder. This I clearly see Now you are—for an hour—away from me. I see it once; no need to tell me twice!
II. Some Yankee yelled—I tag it to a rime— “You can’t fool all the people all the time.” So he of politics; so I of love. I am a-many folk (let Buddha prove!) And many a month you fooled the lot of us— Your spell is cracked within the ring! Behold How Christ with clay worth more than any gold Cleared the man’s eyes! So the blind amorous Is blinded with the horror of the truth He sees this moment. Foolish prostitute! You slacked you kiss upon the sodden youth In some excess of confidence, decay Of care to hold him—can I tell you which? Down goes the moon—one sees the howling bitch! The salmon you had hooked in fin and gill You reel unskilfully—he darts away. Alas! you devil, but you hold me still!
III. O first and fairest of Earth’s darling daughters! How could I sing you?—you have always seemed Unto the saucy driveller as he dreamed Like a rich sunset seen on tropic waters— (Your eyes effulgent from a thousand slaughters Looked tenderly upon me!) all the red Raving round you like a glory shed Upon the excellent wonder of your head; The blue all massed within your marvellous eyes; The gold a curtain of their harmonies As in a master canvas of de Ryn;1 But ever central glowed the royal sun, A miracle cartouche upon the edge Of the opalescent waters slantwise seen. This oval sealed with grave magnificence Stamped you my queen. Thus looked your lips to one Who stood a casual on life’s slippery ledge, A blind bat hanging from the tree of sense Head downward, gorged with sweet banana juice, Indifferent to—incapable of—aught Beyond these simple reflexes. Is thought, Even the highest thought, of any use?
IV. We are not discussing metaphysics now. I see below the beautiful low brow (Low too for cunning, like enough!) your lips, A scarlet splash of murder. From them drips This heart’s blood; you have fed your fill on me. I am exhaust, a pale, wan phantom floating Aimless in air, than which I am thinner. You I see, more brilliant, of that sanguine hue (If anything be true that I can see). Full fed; you smile, a smile obscenely gloating On the voluptuous wreck your lust hath wrought. See the loose languor of precipitate thought These versicles exhale! How rude the rime! There is no melody; the tune and time Are broken. Thirteen centuries ago They would have said, “Alas! the youth! We know This devil hath from him plucked the immortal soul.” I say: you have dulled my centres of control!
V. If you were with me, I were blind to this: Ready to drain my arteries for your kiss, Feel your grasp tighten round my ribs until You crush me in the ecstasies that kill. Being away and breathing icy air I am half lover, caring not to care; Half-man again—a mere terrestrial ball Thus breaking up a spiritual thrall— Eh, my philosophers?—half-man may yet determine To get back manhood, shake the tree from bats: To change the trope a shade—get rid of vermin By using William Shakespeare’s “Rough on Rats.”
VI. Ah, love, dear love, sole queen of my affection, Guess you not yet what wheel of thought is spun? How out of dawn’s tumultuous dejection And not from noon springs up the splendid sun? Not till the house is swept and garnished well Rises seven other devils out of hell.
VII. This is the circle; as the manhood rises And laughter and rude rhyme engage my pen; As I stalk forth, a Man among mere men, The balance changes; all my wit surprises That I who saw the goblins in your face, That I who cursed you for the murderous whore Licking up life as a cat laps its milk, Now see you for a dream of youth and grace, Relume the magic aura that begirt you, Bless you for purity and life—a store! An ever-running fountain-head of virtue To heal my soul and buckler it and harden! Your body is like ivory and silk! Your lips are like the poppies in the garden! Your face is like a wreath of flowers to crown me! Your eyes are wells wherein I long to drown me! Your hair is like a waterfall above me, A waterfall of sunset! In your bosom I hear the racing of a heart to love me. Your blood is beating like a wind-blown blossom With rapture that you mingle it in mine! Your breath is fresh as foam and keen as wine! Intoxicating glories are your glances! Your bodily beauty grips my soul and dances Its maddening measures in my heart and brain! Is it that so the wheel may whirl again, That some dull devil in my ear may show me: “For John the Baptist’s head—so danced Salome!”?
VIII. Then, in God’s name forbear! It does not matter. Life, death, strength, weakness, are but idle chatter. Nothing is lost or gained, we know too well. For heaven they balance as an equal hell. We discard both; an infinite Universe Remains; we sum it up—an infinite curse. So—am I man? I lack my wife’s embrace. Am I outworn? I see the harlot’s face. Is the love better and the knowledge worse? Shall I seek knowledge and count love disgrace? Where is the profit in so idle a strife? The love of knowledge is the hate of life.
1 Rembrandt.
DIOGENES.
“All things are good” exclaimed the boy. Who taste the sweetmeat find it cloy.
“All things are ill” the dotard sang. Who stir the serpent feel the fang.
“All is a dream!” the wise man spake. Who grasp the bubble find it break.
Aye, to all three the saga saith: There is no joy in life but death.
There is this limit set to lust: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
O fools and blind that sickly strive To amass, to glut yourselves, to swive,
To drink to acquire respect and praise:— These visions perish as you gaze.
Eternal mockery is the real; Eternal falsehood, the ideal.
Choose: nay, abstain from choice of these. Go, be alone, and be at ease!
Retire: renounce: the hermit’s cell Hath all of earth, and naught of hell.
Renouncing all, keep naught enshrined A lurking serpent in the mind.
Deem not to catch some goodlier gain Than these; the goodliest prize were pain.
Know that the utmost heaven is void Of aught save star or asteroid!
Or, an it please thee, idly dream A God therein, a force supreme,
A heart of love, a crown of light, An infinite music of delight;—
This, but no more; let fancy sway But never fix the transient ray!
All things are lawful, so they be At most a marshalled imagery.
Dream of Earth’s glories higher and higher, Mounting the minaret, desire;
Never attaining to the sky, Realization—lest thou die.
So dream, possessing all; so dream, Possessing nothing: I esteem
These twain as one, since dreams they are. Thus mayst thou journey far and far
And far! to climes unguessed, to seas Proud with seignorial argosies,
To mountains strange with golden snows, To gardens green with many a rose,
To secrets past the sense of sense, Skies virgin of experience,
Untrodden avenues of mind, Things far from hurrying humankind.
Thus spins out life its splendid charm:— Live, love, enjoy yet do no harm.
No rose of thought may bear or breed The poisonous thorn of word and deed.
Call “homo sapiens” him who thinks; Talkers and doers—missing links!
. . . . . . .
Such songs are twilight’s, when I stretch My limbs, and wander down to fetch
My water from the cool cascade, My wood from the enchanted glade,
My berries from the rustling bough:— Return, and eat, and sleep. Allow
For me, the silence and the night; Life, peace; and death, a welcome wight.
The spears of the night at her onset Are lords of the day for a while, The magical green of the sunset, The magical blue of the Nile. Afloat are the gales In our slumberous sails On the beautiful breast of the Nile.
We have swooned through the midday, exhausted By the lips—they are whips—of the sun, The horizon befogged and befrosted By the haze and the greys and the dun Of the whirlings of sand Let loose on the land By the wind that is born of the sun.
On the water we stand as a shadow, A skeleton sombre and thin Erect on the watery meadow, As a giant, a lord of the Djinn Set sentinel over Some queen and her lover Beloved on the Gods and the Djinn.
We saw the moon shudder and sink In a furnace of tremulous blue; We stood on the mystical brink Of the day as it sprang to us through The veil of the night, And the babe of the light Was begotten in the caves of the dew.
My lover and I were awake When the noise of the dawn in our ears Burst out like a storm or a snake Or the rush of the Bedawi spears. Dawn of desire! But thy kiss was as fire To thy lovers and princes and peers.
Then the ruin of night we beheld As the sun stormed the heights of the sky With his myriad swords, and compelled The pale tremblers, the planets, to fly. He drave from their place All the stars for a space, From their bastioned towers in the sky.
Thrilled through to the marrow with heat We abode (as we glode) on the river. Every arrow he launched from his seat, From the white inexhaustible quiver, Smote us right through, Smote us and slew, As we rode on the rapturous river.
Sweet sleep is perfection of love. To die into dreams of my lover, To wake with his mouth like a dove Kissing me over and over. Better sleep so Than be conscious, and know How death hath a charm to discover.
Ah! float in the cool of the gloaming! Float wide in the lap of the stream With his mouth ever roving and homing To the nest where the dove is adream. Better wake so Than be thinking, and know That at best it is only a dream.
So turn up thy face to the stars! In their peace be at peace for awhile! Let us pass in their luminous cars As a sob, as a sigh, as a smile! Love me and laze Through the languorous days On the breast of the beautiful Nile!
May, 1905.
EPILOGUE.
PRAYER.
The light streams stronger through the lamps of sense. Intelligence Grows as we go. Alas: its icy glimmer Shows dimmer, dimmer The awful vaults we traverse. Were the sun Himself the one Glory of space, he would but illustrate The night of Fate. Are not the hosts of heaven in vain arrayed? Their light dismayed Before the vast blind spaces of the sky? O galaxy Of thousands upon thousands closely curled! Your golden world Incalculably small, its closest cluster Mere milky lustre Staining the infinite darkness! Base and blind Our minion mind Seeks a great light, a light sufficient, light Insufferably bright, Hence hidden for an hour: imagining This vast vain thing, We called it God, and Father. Empty hand And prayer unplanned Stretch fatuous to the void. Ah! men my friends, What fury sends This folly to intoxicate your hearts? Dread air disparts Your vital ways from these unsavoury follies, Black melancholies Sit straddled on your bended backs. The throne Of the unknown Is fit for children. We are too well ware How vain is prayer, How nought is great, since all is immanent, The vast content Of all the universe unalterable. We know too well How no one thing abides awhile at all, How all things fall, Fall from their seat, the lamentable place, Before their face, Weary and pass and are no more. So we, Since hope must be, Look to the future, to the chance minute That life may shoot Some flower at least to blossom in the night, Since vital light Is sure to fail us on the hideous way. What? Must we pray? Verily, O thou littlest babe, too weak To stir or speak, Capable hardly of a thought, yet seed Of word and deed! To thine assured fruition we may trust This weary dust. We who are old, and palsied, (and so wise!) Lift up our eyes To little children, as the storm-tossed bark Hails in the dark Some hardly visible harbour light; we hold The hours of gold To our own breasts, whose hours are iron and brass:— So swift they pass And grind us down:—we hold the wondrous light Our scattering sight Yet sees, the one star in a night of woe. We trust, and so Lift up our voices in the dying day Indeed to pray: O little hands that are so soft and strong, Lead us along!
IMAGES OF DEATH
PROLOGUE.
PATCHOULI.
Like memories of love they come, My perfumes in the silver vase: The fragrant root, the odorous gum, Myrrh, aloes, or olibanum:— Anon, like memories of love, they pass!
They pass, and all the wonder-web Of thought and being is unrolled Like sombre tides there flow and ebb Wonderful things! not to be told: Beautiful things! and images of gold.
The touch of brown Habiba’s breast, The brimming lip, the cheek of down, The dainty dovelet in its nest: These fade, as ever a palimpsest Like autumn vanishes from gold to brown.
Zuleikha, on whose marble knees My bearded head is lazily lain, Shows like some stirring of the breeze Fluctuant in the poppied grain, No more at all: the vulgar sense is slain.
Of all the world alone abides The faint perfume of Patchouli, That subtle death in love; it glides Across the opening dream, derides The fetich folly, immortality.
Awake, O dream! Let distant bells And vague muezzins haunt the ear, Gaunt camels kneel by dusky wells, Imagination greyly hear: Allahu akbar! Allahu kabir!
Over inhospitable sands Let the simoom its columns spin! In snowy vales, untrodden lands, Let there be storm, and bearded bands Of robbers pass around the bubbling skin!
Let there be caves of treasure rare Deep hidden in sepulchral seas; And birds unheard-of darken air With royal wings, like argosies Sailing beneath magnific promontories!
Let Caliphs mete fantastic law And ebon eunuchs swing the sword So swift, so curved,—let voiceless awe Sit on the palace dome, to draw Some god’s destruction on its smiling lord!
May many a maiden comely clad Revolve in convoluted curls, Till from each pliant pose I had (By virtue of her wondrous whirls) The illusion of a thousand dancing-girls!
Let harlots robed in gold and green Sit slowly waving ivory plumes And wings of palm; the while their queen Lurks in some horror-house unseen, Damned to be smothered in divine perfumes!
Let there be scenes of blood and pain, Some Slav beneath the Cossack knout, Some mother ripped, some baby slain, Let lust move silently about:— Soft laughter hid in all, song whispering out!
Then let these things of form decay, Some subtler dream dissolve their form, As I have seen a cloudlet lay Its forehead on the sea, and pray Some idle prayer to sunset, or the storm!
Yea! as a cloud in worship-trance Swoons in invisible delight, Let slave and king, let death and dance Shake off their forms, and clothe their light In shrouds of sepulchre, the starless night!
Let song and cry leave tune and tone, Perish uncried and die unsung! Nature, the monotonic moan Roared by the river, thunder alone:— The Hoang-Ho, its note, the monstrous Kung!
Or let Kailasha’s godded peak Summon the oread and the gnome To leave their toils, the word to speak That shakes its azure-splitting dome With the reverberation—listen!—Aum!
Let olive fail, and mangostin! O’erturn the dark forbidden draught! Give me the taste, the taste unclean Of human flesh and blood that mean Some infinite horror to the light that laughed!
So let the scent of lily and rose, Of jasmine, taggara, pass away! Let patchouli, patchouli, repose My nostrils with your odour gray, Dead darlings exquisite in your decay!
So, silk and velvet, fur and skin, Your sensuous touch shall quit me quite: I am at swiving strain with sin— I’ll touch the stars, the blood run thin From the torn breast of Night, my mother Night.
Nor shall the mind revoke at ease These myriad cressets from the sun; Constrained in sober destinies Thought’s river shall its ripples run Into the one, the one, the one, the one.
Bursting the universe, a grip Girds me to God; aha! the bliss! Begone, frail tortures wrung from whip, Weak joys sucked hard from leman’s lip, Ye are naught at all, are naught at all, in this!
. . . . . . .
But brown Habiba’s fawn-wide gaze And white Zuleikha’s drowsy glance Woo me to waking unto day’s Delight from night’s unmeasured trance:— To drink to dally, to desire, to dance.
Ah! beautiful and firm your hips, Habib! ah! coolthsome your caress, Zuleikha! soft your honey lips— The tongue of pleasure subtly sips The wine that age distils, and calls distress.
Enough! when all is ended, when The poppied pleasure purples pain— Death—shall I laugh or smile? Amen! I’ll wake, one last fond cup to drain, And then—to sleep again, to sleep again!
There is an idol in my house By whom the sandal alway steams. Alone, I make a black carouse With her to dominate my dreams. With skulls and knives she keeps control (O Mother Kali!) of my soul.
She is crowned with emeralds like leaves, And rubies flame from either eye; A rose upon her bosom heaves, Turquoise and lapis lazuli. She hath a kirtle like a maid:— Amethyst, amber, pearl, and jade!
Her face is fashioned like a moon; Her breasts are tongues of pointed jet; Her belly of opal fairly hewn; And round about her neck is set The holy rosary, skull by skull, Polished and grim and beautiful!
This jewelled shape of gold and bronze Is seated on my bosom’s throne; She takes my muséd orisons To her, to her, to her alone. Oh Kali, Kali, Kali, quell This hooded hate, O Queen of Hell!
Her ruby-studded brow is calm; Her eyes shine like some sleepy flood; Her breast is oliban and balm; Her tongue lolls out, a-dripping blood; She swings my body to and fro; She breaks me on the wheel of woe!
To her eternal rapture seems Mere nature; underneath the crown Of dusky emeralds there streams A river of bliss to sluice me down With blood and tears, to drown my thought, To bring my being into naught.
The cruel teeth, the steady sneer, The marvellous lust of her, I bring Unto my body bright and clear (Dropped poison in a water spring!) To fill me with the utmost sense Of some divine experience.
For who but she, the adulterous queen, Made earth and heaven with all its stars, The storm, the hunger epicene, The raging at invisible bars, The hideous cruelty of the whole?— These are of Kali, O my soul!
The sterile force of bronze and gold Bends to my passion, as it grips With feverish claws the metal cold, And burns upon the brazen lips That, parted like a poppy bud, Have gemméd curves like moons of blood.
The mazes of her many arms Delude the eye; they seem to shift As if they spelled mysterious charms Whereby some tall gray ship should drift Out to a windless, tideless sea Motionless from eternity.
This then I seek, O woman-form! O god embowelled in curves of bronze! The shuddering of a sudden storm To mix me with thy minions The lost, who wait through endless night, And wait in vain, to see the light.
For I am utterly consumed In thee, in thee am broken up. The life upon my lips that bloomed Is crushed into a deadly cup, Whose devilish spirit squats and gloats Upon the thirst that rots our throats.
Gape wide, O hideous mouth, and suck This heart’s blood, drain it down, expunge This sweltering life of mire and muck! Squeeze out my passions as a sponge, Till naught is left of terrene wine But somewhat deathless and divine!
Not by a faint and fairy tale We shadow forth the immortal way. No symbols exquisitely pale Avail to lure the secrets gray Of his endeavour who proceeds By doing to abolish deeds.
Not by the pipings of a bird In skies of blue on fields of gold, But by a fierce and loathly word The abomination must be told. The holy work must twist its spell From hemp of madness, grown in hell.
Only by energy and strife May man attain the eternal rest, Dissolve the desperate lust of life By infinite agony and zest. Thus, O my Kali, I divine The golden secret of thy shrine!
Death from the universal force Means to the forceless universe Birth. I accept the furious course, Invoke the all-embracing curse. Blessing and peace beyond may lie When I annihilate the “I.”
Therefore, O holy mother, gnash Thy teeth upon my willing flesh! Thy chain of skulls wild music clash! Thy bosom bruise my own afresh! Sri Maharani! draw my breath Into the hollow lungs of death!
There is no light, nor any motion. There is no mass, nor any sound. Still, in the lampless heart of ocean, Fasten me down and hold me drowned Within thy womb, within thy thought, Where there is naught—where there is naught!
THE JILT.
“Who is that slinkard moping down the street, That youth—scarce thirty—bowed like sixty” “Oh, A woman jilted him.” “Absurd!” “Conceit! Some youths take life—are Puritans, you know!”
I heard it, sitting in the window—glowed, Rushed to my wife and kissed her. Lithe and young The rapture of some ardent madness flowed; And—bye-and-bye—its miracle found tongue.
. . . . . . .
Guess, guess the secret why I burn for you These years so cold to woman as I was! Guess why your laugh, your kiss, your touch run through My body, as it were a tunéd glass!
You cannot guess?—false devil that you are! To Cruelty’s add calm’s analysis! You love me? Yes—then crown me a bearded Sar Bull-breasted by my sleek Semiramis!
Did you not hear those men below? They spoke Of one I think you have forgotten long; Talked of his ruined life—half as a joke— But I—But I—it is my whole heart’s song!
I love you when I think of his pale lips Twitching, and all his curls of gold awry; Your smile of poison as he sighs and sips; Your half-scared laughter as his heart-beats die—
Let him creep on, a shattered, ruined thing! A ship dismasted on a dreadful sea! And you—afar—some word of largesse fling Pitifully worded for more cruelty!
His death lends savour to our passionate life; His is the heart I taste upon your tongue; His death-spasms our love-spasms, my wife; His death-songs are the love-songs that you sung!
Ah! Sweet, I love you as I see him stagger On with hell’s worm a-nuzzling to his heart, With your last letter, like a poisoned dagger, Biting his blood, burning his bones apart.
Ah! Sweet, each kiss I drink from you is warm With the dear life-blood of a man—a man! The scent of murder lures me, like a charm Tied by some subtlety Canidian.
Ay! as you suck my life out into bliss, Its holier joy is in the deadlier thirst That drank his life out into the abyss Of torture endless, endless and accurst.
I know him little; liking what I know. But you—you offer me his flesh and blood. I taste it—never another vintage owe, Nor bid me sup upon another food!
This is our marriage; firmer than the root Of love or lust could plant our joy, my wife, We stand in this, the purple-seeded fruit Of yon youth’s fair and pitiable life.
. . . . . . .
Do I not fear that you may treat me so? One day your passion slake itself somehow, Seek vigour from another murder? No! You harlot, for I mean to kill you—now.
THE EYES OF PHARAOH.
Dead Pharaoh’s eyes from out the tomb Burned like twin planets ruby-red. Enswathed, enthroned, the halls of gloom Echo the agony of the dead.
Silent and stark the Pharaoh sate: No breath went whispering, hushed or scared. Only that red incarnate hate Through pylon after pylon flared.
As in the blood of murdered things The affrighted augur shaking skries Earthquake and ruinous fate of kings, Famine and desperate destinies,
So in the eyes of Pharaoh shone The hate and loathing that compel In death each damnèd minion Of Set, the accursed lord of Hell.
Yea! in those globes of fire there sate Some cruel knowledge closely curled Like serpents in those halls of hate, Palaces of the Underworld.
But in the hell-glow of those eyes The ashen skull of Pharaoh shone White as the moonrays that surprise The invoking Druse on Lebanon.
Moreover pylon shouldered round To pylon an unearthly tune, Like phantom priests that strike and sound Sinister sistrons at the moon.
And death’s insufferable perfume Beat the black air with golden fans As Turkis rip a Nubian’s womb With damascenéd yataghans.
Also the taste of dust long dead Of ancient queens corrupt and fair Struck through the temple, subtly sped By demons dominant of the air.
Last, on the flesh there came a touch Like sucking mouths and stroking hands That laid their foul alluring smutch Even to the blood’s mad sarabands.
So did the neophyte that would gaze Into dead Pharaoh’s awful eyes Start from incalculable amaze To clutch the initiate’s place and prize.
He bore the blistering thought aloft: It blazed in battle on his plume: With sage and warrior enfeoffed, He rushed alone through tower and tomb.
The myriad men, the cohorts armed, Are shred like husks: the ensanguine brand Leaps like a flame, a flame encharmed To fire the pyramid heaven-spanned
Wherein dead Pharaoh sits and stares Swathed in the wrappings of the tomb, With eyes whose horror flits and flares Like corpse-lights glimmering in the gloom
Till all’s a blaze, one roar of flame, Death universal, locked and linked:— Aha! one names the awful Name— The twin red planets are extinct.
BANZAI!
There lept upon a breach and laughed A royally maniac man. A bitter craft Is mine, he saith, O soldiers of Japan! I am the brothel-knave of death, The grimly courtesan.
Now who will up and kiss her lips, Or grip her breast and bone? The subtle life she shears and snips Is harder gained than gone; The lover’s laughter whom she clips Is but a dying groan.
She lieth not on a gilded bed In the city without the city. One kiss is hers full rank and red— Do you sip at her lip? Hell hangs on her fangs! She loves; love laughs at pity!
Then who will up to taste her mouth? Who on her mount and ride? Look to the North, the West, the South! There is carnage vulture-eyed. Then who will suck the breath of death, The swift and glittering bride? The bride that clings as a snare with springs To the warrior’s stricken side?
A shudder struck the hidden men As the maniac’s mouthings ceased. Then, kindling, rose a roar: “Spread, spread the furtive feast! The wine of agony pour! The fruit of valour pluck! The meat of murder suck!
“Sweet are the songs of her throat! Soft are the strokes of her fan! She hath love by rime and rote, She is subtle and quick to man! She danceth? Say she doth float! Rapture is gold in her eyes! She sigheth honey-sweet sighs Of the glory of Japan! Red are her lips and large, The delicate courtesan!”
Then the officer’s voice Caught in his throat for joy. Like birds in spring that rejoice, Clearly and softly the boy Whispered: “Now, let us charge!” Then leaping sheer o’er trench and mound, They rise as a single man; They bound like antelopes over the ground For the glory of Japan.
With glittering steel they wheel—they reel? They are steady again and straight! The dull brute Christians red with the weal Of the knout—they will not wait! The ringing cries of the victors peal In, in at the captured gate!
. . . . . . .
Then o’er the field the maniac passed And closed the dead men’s eyes. “They are sleeping close with death at last!” The wanton warrior cries. But he who saw the dead man’s jaw Grind at the last was aware That the harlot’s kiss was Paradise That the soldier tasted there. And beyond the magnificent joy of death Shears through the sky, as a flame Ripping the air, the lightning breath Of the nation’s resonant fame. Hail! to the Hachiman deed well done! To the virile strength of a man! To the stainless blaze of the Rising Sun The glory of Japan!
LE JOUR DES MORTS.
At Paris upon Dead Man’s Day I danced into the cemetery. The air was cool; the sun was gay; The scent of the revolving clay Made me most wondrous merry.
Earth, after an agonising bout, Had swallowed up a widow clean. The issue hung for long in doubt:— —Oh! anybody can make out The mystery I mean.
The dead were dancing with the worms; The live were laughing with their lemans; The dead-alive were making terms With God, and notaries, and germs, With house-agents and demons.
All Paris keeping sacrament Of musing or of melancholy, Impatient of the next event, To spend, to barter, to be spent;— I chuckled at the folly.
“I would that I were dead and damned,” Thinks every wiser human. “Corpses have room, and men are jammed; Those offer food, and these are crammed:— And cheaper, too, is woman!”
I, being neither God nor ghost, A mere caprice of matter, Hop idly in the hideous host, Content to chaff the uttermost, To cackle and to chatter.
They bring their wreaths to deck the dead, As skipping-ropes that devils use them. One through the immortelles perks his head. [These sights to ghosties are as bread; The luckless living lose them.]
Grotesque and grim the pageant struts; We sit a-straddle on the crosses. Our soulless missiles take for butts The passers’ hats, or in their guts Disturb their dinner’s process.
Thus one man’s work is one man’s play; The melancholy help the merry. All tread the ordered stupid way At Paris, upon Dead Man’s Day, In Père Lachaise his cemetery.
AVE MORS.
O Virgin! O my sister! Hear me, death! The tainted kisses of the harlot life Sicken me; hers is foul and fevered breath, This noisome woman I have made my wife. She lies asweat, aslime. O hear me, thou! Wash with thy tears this desecrated brow! With cool chaste kisses cleanse me! Lay me out, Wrapped in a spotless winding-sheet, and soothe These nerves ill nuzzled by the black swine’s snout With thine eternal anodyne of truth!
The foul beast grunts and snorts; but hear me, death! Thy wings are wind-white as her hoofs are dunged. Thy songs are faint and pale with honey breath, Honey and poppy! as her mouth hot-tongued Spews out its hideous lust. O loathéd life! Thou nameless horror of the bestial strife Of love and hate. I straitly charge thee quit This bed of nastiness, this putrid sea; For not by any amorous tricks of wit Shalt thou regain thine empire over me.
O virgin, O my sister! Hear me, death! Thou hast a sleep compelling soul and mind. Thine is the sweet insufferable breath That comes like Bessarabia’s twilight wind To bring a quiet coolth from day’s long heat, Peace to the belly gorged with blood and meat; Stars for the sun that smote, for fire slow streams, For the simoom the zephyr’s cooing kiss, Deep sleep at last from all the evil dreams, And rest, the possibility of bliss.
THE MORIBUND.
I. The Seven Wise Men of Martaban Sate round the dying man.
They were so still, one would have said: If he were dying, they were dead!
The first was agéd; in his beard He muttered never a weird.
The next was beautiful and gay: He had no word to say.
The third was wroth and rusty red, Yet not a word he said.
The fourth was open and bold: His silence girt him like fine gold.
The fifth was ruddy and fair of face; He held his tongue a space.
The sixth was many-coloured, but He kept his lips well shut.
The last was like a full great moon; He knew, but uttered not, his rune.
II. Now when the time was fully come The dying man was dumb,
But with his failing hand did make A sign: my heart doth ache.
At that the kingly man, the fourth, Rose up and spat against the North.
Then made the dying man a sign: My head is running like strong wine.
The agéd man lifted his mouth And spat against the South.
He clutched his throat in pang of death, As if he cried for breath.
Whereat the second beat his breast And frowned upon the West.
Then the man sighed, as if to say: The glow of life is gone away.
At this the rusty and wroth released His eyes against the East.
Then the man touched his navel, as He felt his life thence pass.
Also he smote his spine; the base Of life burnt up apace.
Then rose the many-coloured sage; He was right sad with age.
With him arose the ruddy and fair; He was right debonair.
They twain to upper air and lower Advanced the eyes of power.
Ay! but above the dead man’s head A lotus-flower was spread.
Thence dripped the Amrita, whereby Life learneth not to die.
The seventh in silence tended it Against the horror of the pit.
III. Thus in a cage of wisdom lay The dead man, live as they.
They hold him sacred from the sun, From death and dissolution.
Within the charméd space is naught Possible unto thought.
There in their equilibrium They float—how still, how numb!
There must they rest, there will they stay Innocent of the judgment day.
Remote from cause, effect retires. Act slays its dams and sires.
There is no hill, there is no pit. They have no mark to hit.
It is enough. Closed is the sphere. There is no more to hear.
They perish not; they do not thrive. They are at rest, alive,
The Seven Wise Men of Martaban; And, moribund, the man.
THE BEAUTY AND THE BHIKKHU:
A TALE OF THE TENTH IMPURITY.
(From the Pali.)
I. Listen! The venerable monk pursued His path with downcast eyes; his thought revolved Ever in closer coils serenely screwed About the Tenth Impurity. Dissolved All vision of his being but of one Thing only, his sun-whitened skeleton.
II. A dainty lady sick of simple life, Chained to the cold couch of some vapid man, Put on her jewels, off the world of wife, Resolved to play the painted courtesan; So ran along the village path. Her laughter Wooed all the world to follow tumbling after.
III. Then when she met the venerable monk Her shamelessness desired a leprous wreath Of poisonous flowers, seducing him. He shrunk Back from her smile, seeing her close white teeth. Bones! he exclaimed, and meditating that, From a mere Bhikkhu grew an Arahat.
IV. Her husband found her gone, in fury followed Lashing the pale path with his purple feet, Heedless of stones and serpents. Hail! he halloaed To the new Rahan whom he bowed to greet Kissing the earth: O holy master, say If a fair female hath passed by this way!
V. The Bhikkhu blessed the irritated man. Then the slow sloka serpentine began: “Friend! neither man nor woman owns This being’s high perception, owed Only to Truth; nor beams nor stones Support the Arahat’s abode. Who grasps one truth, beholds one light, Becomes that truth, that light; discedes From dark and deliquescent night, From futile thoughts and fatuous deeds. Your girl, your gems, your mournful tones Irk not perfection with their goad. One thing I know—a set of bones Is travelling on upon this road!”
IMMORTALITY
From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences:—Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else. And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life; the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident are distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or training or both was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead; and the fat will remain fat; and so on; and the dead man who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the same in the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be distinguish-able after death, either perfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time. And I should imagine that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body, all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view. —Plato, Gorgias.
IMMORTALITY.
I. I moved. Remote from fear and pain The white worms revelled in my brain. Who travelled live may travel dead; The soul’s no tenant of the head. They had hanged my body by the neck; Bang went the trap. A little speck Shot idly upon consciousness Unconscious of the head’s distress When with dropped jaw the body swung So queer and limp; the purple tongue Shooting out swollen and awry. Men cheered to see the poisoner die. Not he! He grinned one visible grin, The last; then, muffled in his sin, He lived and moved unseen of those Nude souls that masquerade in clothes, Confuse the form and the sensation, And have the illusion, incarnation. I bore myself. Death was so dull. The dead are strangely beautiful To the new-comer; it wears off.
II. They told me I was damned. The Shroff1 Gave me ten dollars Mex. (For ease Of English souls the dead Chinese Are taxed) to pay my way in hell. On one pound sterling one lives well. For luxuries are cheaply paid Since Satan introduced Free Trade; And necessaries—woe is me!— Are furnished to the damned soul free.
III. God’s hell, Earth’s heaven, are not so far. Dinner brought oysters, caviar, Anchovies, truffles, curried rabbit (Bad for the apoplectic habit), While ancient brandy and champagne Washed down the dainties. Once again I seemed to haunt the Continental. A saucy little elemental Flitted across; I heard it sneer; “You won’t get water, though, I fear.” That’s hell all over. Good-bye, greens, Water, cold mutton, bread, and beans! They feed us well, like gentlemen, On chilis, seasoned with cayenne. Worse, one must finish every course. ’S truth, I had rather eat boiled horse!
IV. My first friend was an agéd monk. He fed on rice and water. Sunk His cheeks and cold his blood. You see The fool was a damned soul like me; He had starved himself on earth in hope In heaven to banquet with the Pope, With God and Christ on either hand And all the angels’ choral band Playing sweet music. O the fool To treat earth as a baby’s school! In hell one lives as one is wont. Punch said to would-be bridegrooms: Don’t! Might I advise the same to those Shapeless and senseless embryos Who seek to live? Yes, God is wise Enough to set a snare for lies As well as truths. The soul content On earth in his own element Will be content from flesh released. But he who strives to be a beast Or strives to be a god; would gain Long bliss for a few hours of pain, Or struggles for no matter what, Continues. I would rather not.
V. That puzzle’s grief I did not share Because on earth I did not care. I met a grave philosopher— Had sought most nobly not to err Probing God’s Nature. See his lobes Swell with hell’s torment! Still he probes The same fool’s problem. I explain The simple state of things in vain. He chose to study God, and die in it. He made his bed, and he must lie in it.
VI. After my dinner I debate (Urged to the task by habit’s Fate) The project of a poisoning. In hell one finds that everything Is easy. Poison to my hand; A cunning potion cool and bland Fit to administer the draught:— How like old times! I nodded, laughed, Poisoned my neighbour, a young girl Sent here for marrying an earl. Of course she did not die. But then On earth I never killed my men; They only die whom one forgets. Remember that each action sets Its mark still deeper in the mind!
VII. O piteous lot of humankind Whose history repeats itself! Dinner is cleared by gnome and elf; I pay the bill, take Baal’s receipt, And stroll off smoking. Soon I meet The fairest foulest whore that burns. High feeding pays: desire returns. She willing (for a copper rin)2 For any ecstasy of sin Gaily embraces me. A room Starts up in the half-light, half-gloom, Perfectly purposed for debauch. In mirrors shines a wicked nautch, And on the floor Hawaian belles Rave in a hula-hula3—Hell’s! Fragonard, Rops, had lined the walls with wild indecent bacchanals, And bawdy photographs attest The Devil’s taste to be the best.
VIII. I did not sleep at all: but she:— O face of deathless agony! O torture of hell’s worm, to wrest From peace that miserable breast! Me, me she strikes in mid-delight Staggered and shattered at the sight, The moment that she slept. I laughed Thereat: the bowl I idly quaffed Was nectar: she amused me, so. You see, my friend, I did not know. I also slept at morn. Then, then, A low voice whispered in the den: “Lucky young fellow! Brave and clever! This sort of thing goes on for ever.”
IX. On earth I dreaded impotence, Age, death. You see, I had no sense. Best be an old man ere you die; They wish insensibility, So are their pains the duller. Hell Is managed infinitely well From the peculiar standpoint of A god who says that he is Love.
X. That was the poet Crowley’s point. I think his nose is out of joint; He bet on justice being done; And here—it’s really rather fun!— The unlucky devil devil-spurred Writes, climbs, does Yoga like a bird; Just as he was before he “died,” The ass is never satisfied. He has only been here forty days, And has already writ six plays, Made eight new passes, one new peak, Is bound to do two more this week, And as for meditation! Hard he Soars from Dhyana to Samadhi; Writes wildly sloka after sloka, Storms the Arupa-Brahma-Loka, Disdains the mundane need of Khana, Slogs off, like Buddha, to Nibbana:— Poor devil!
XI. One thing makes me weep He was wise one way, and scorned sleep. Wherefore he sleeps not, does not hear That still small dreadful voice of fear. Therefore he realizes not That this is his eternal lot. Therefore he suffers not at all.
XII. Luckier is he than one, a small Wild girl, whose one desire on earth Was to—be blunt with it!—give birth To children. Here she’s fairly in it! Pumps out her fourteen babes a minute; Her (under chloroform) the voice Bids to be gleesome and rejoice: “No sterile God balks thine endeavour. This sort of thing goes on for ever.”
XIII. I was a humorous youth enough On earth; I laughed when things were rough. Therefore, I take it, now in Hades The funny side of things—and ladies— Engages my attention. Well! You know enough of life in Hell. I was an altruist, my brothers! My life one long kind though for others: For me six maidens wear the willow:— Poisoning is a peccadillo. Hence I’m disposed to give advice, Simple, if possibly not nice; Shun life! an awkward task and deep. But if you cannot, then—shun sleep!
(Suppose I thus had prophesied, Gone to my wife to bed, and died!)
1 Money-changer. Mexican dollars were long the sole currency on the Chinese coast. 2 Japanese coin worth a small portion of a penny. 3 The indecent dance of the South Seas.
EPILOGUE.
The King-Ghost is abroad. His spectre legions Sweep from their icy lakes and bleak ravines Unto these weary and untrodden regions Where man lies penned among his Might-have-beens. Keep us in safety, Lord, What time the King-Ghost is abroad!
The King-Ghost from his grey malefic slumbers Awakes the malice of his bloodless brain He marshals the innumerable numbers Of shrieking shapes on the sepulchral plain. Keep us, for Jesu’s sake, What time the King-Ghost is awake!
The King-Ghost wears a crown of hopes forgotten; Dead loves are woven in his ghastly robe; Bewildered wills and faiths grown old and rotten And deeds undared his sceptre, sword, and globe. Keep us, O Mary maid, What time the King-Ghost goes arrayed!
The Hell-Wind whistles through his plumeless pinions; Clanks all that melancholy host of bones; Fate’s principalities and Death’s dominions Echo the drear discord, the tuneless tones. Keep us, dear God, from ill, What time the Hell-Wind whistles shrill.
The King-Ghost hath no music but their rattling; No scent but death’s grown faint and fugitive; No light but this their leprous pallor batting Weakly with night. Lord, shall thee dry bones live? O keep us in the hour Wherein the King-Ghost hath his power!
The King-Ghost girds me with his gibbering creatures, My dreams of old that never saw the sun. He shows me, in a mocking glass, their features, The twin fiends “Might-have-been ” and “Should-have-done.” Keep us, by Jesu’s ruth, What time the King-Ghost grins the truth!
The King-Ghost boasts eternal usurpature; For in this pool of tears his fingers fret I had imagined, by enduring nature, The twin gods “Thus-will-I ” and “May-be-yet.” God, keep us most from ill, What time the King-Ghost grips the will!
Silver and rose and gold what flame resurges? What living light pours forth in emerald waves? What inmost Music drowns the clamourous dirges? —Shrieking they fly, the King-Ghost and his slaves. Lord, let Thy Ghost indwell, And keep us from the power of Hell!
Amen.
Kneel down, dear maiden o'mine, and let your eyes Get knowledge with a soft and glad surprise! Who would have thought you would have had it in you? Say nothing: on the contrary, continue!
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