THE SOUL OF OSIRIS

 

 

 

 

THE SOUL OF OSIRIS

 

A HISTORY

 

 

BY

 

ALEISTER CROWLEY

 

 

LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH,

TRÜBNER AND COMPANY, LTD.

 

1901

 

All rights reserved

 

 

 

 

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.

TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS.

 

Prologue

The Court of the Profane:

     Fame

     The Altar of Artemis

     To Richard Wagner

     “The Two Emotions”

     Asmodel

     “The Sonnet”

     Jezebel. Part I.

                 Part II.

     Wedlock

     Love at Peace

     Lot

     Sonnet for Gerald Kelly's Jezebel

     The May Queen

     A Saint's Damnation

     “Many Waters Cannot Quench Love”

     Love, Melancholy, Despair

The Gate of the Sanctuary:

     “The Two Minds”

     “The Two Wisdoms”

     “The Two Loves”

     To Laura

     The Nameless Quest

     “A Religious Bringing Up”

     “The Law of Change”

     Synthesis

     The Holy Place:

     The Neophyte

     The Name

     Cerberus

     The Evocation

     “The Rose and the Cross”

     Happiness

The Holy of Holies:

     The Palace of the World

     The Mountain Christ

     To Allan Macgregor

     The Rosicrucian

     The Athanor

     The Chant to be said or sung unto our Lady Isis

     A Litany

 

 

 

 

PROLOGUE.

 

OBSESSION.

 

TO CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.

 

     “Car ce que ta bouche cruelle

     Eparpille en l’air,

     Monstre assassin, c’est ma cervelle,

     Mon sang et ma chair!”

 

THY brazen forehead, and its lustre gloom,

     Great angel of Night’s legion-chosen chief,

Beam on me like the hideous-fronted tomb,

     Whereon are graven strange words of misbelief;

Thy brazen forehead, and its lustre gloom.

 

Sinister eyes, you burn into my breast,

     Creating an infernal cavern of woe,

Where strange sleek leopards lash them in unrest,

     And furtive serpents crawling to and fro—

Sinister eyes, you burn into my breast!

 

All hell, all destinies of death are written

     Like litanies blaspheming in those eyes;

And where the lightning of high God hath smitten,

     Lie the charred brands of monstrous infamies,

Wherein all destinies of death are written.

 

Thou cam’st to obsess me first that Easter Eve,

     When, from the contemplation of His pain,

I turned to look into my own heart’s heave,

     And saw the bloody nails made fast again.

Thou cam’st to obsess me first that Easter Eve!

 

The lustre of old jet was over thee,

     And through thy body coursed the scented blood;

Thy flesh was full of amorous ecstasy:

     Polished, and gloomier than some black full flood,

The lustre of old jet was over thee!

 

In thy great brazen blackness I am bathed;

     Through all thy veins, like curses, my blood runs;

In all thy flesh my naked bones are swathed,

     My womb is pregnant with mad moons and suns.

In thy great brazen blackness I am bathed!

 

Imminent over me thy hatred hangs,

     Thy slow blood trickles on my swollen sides,

Thy curdling purple where those poison-fangs

     Struck, slays desire and only death abides.

Imminent over me thy hatred hangs!

 

Thy jet smooth body clung to mine awhile,

     Descending like the thunder-pregnant Night,

Ominous, black, thy secret cruel smile

     Lured me. We lay like death; until the light

Thy jet smooth body clung to mine awhile!

 

Thou wast a lion as an angel then,

     In copper-glowing lands that gnaws the prey

He has regotten from the tribes of men.

     We lay like passion all that deadly day—

Thou wast a lion as an angel then!

 

Great angel of the brazen brows, great lover,

     Great hater of my body as my soul,

To whom I gave my life and love thrice over,

     Fill me one last caress—the poison-bowl!

Great angel of the brazen brows, great lover!

 

 

 

 

THE COURT OF THE PROFANE.

 

 

 

 

FAME.

 

O IF these words were swords, and I had might

     From some old prophet in whose tawny hair

The very breath of the Jehovah were

To smite the Syrian, and to smite, and smite,

And splash the sun’s face with the blood, for spite

     Of his downgoing, till I had made fair

     All glories of my master, I could bear

To sink myself in the abundant night.

 

O if these words were lightnings, and their flame

Deluged the world, and drowned the seed of shame

     In these ill waters where alone Truth’s ark

     May float, where only lovers may embark,

I were contented to abandon fame

     And live with love for ever in the dark.

 

 

 

 

THE ALTAR OF ARTEMIS.

 

WHERE, in the coppice, oak and pine

     And mystic yew and elm are found,

Sweeping the skies, that grow divine

     With the dark wind’s despairing sound,

     The wind that roars from the profound,

And smites the mountain-tops, and calls

Mute spirits to black festivals,

     And feasts in valleys iron-bound,

     Desolate crags, and barren ground;—

There in the strong storm-shaken grove

Swings the pale censer-fire for love.

 

The foursquare altar, rightly hewn,

     And overlaid with beaten gold,

Stands in the gloom; the stealthy tune

     Of singing maidens overbold

     Desires mad mysteries untold,

With strange eyes kindling, as the fleet

Implacable untiring feet

     Weave mystic figures manifold

     That draw down angels to behold

The moving music, and the fire

Of their intolerable desire.

 

For, maddening to fiercer thought,

     The fiery limbs requicken, wheel

In formless furies, subtly wrought

     Of swifter melodies than steel

     That flashes in the fight: the peal

Of amorous laughters choking sense,

And madness kissing violence,

     Rings like dead horsemen; bodies reel

     Drunken with motion; spirits feel

The strange constraint of gods that dip

From Heaven to mingle lip and lip.

 

The gods descend to dance; the noise

     Of hungry kissings, as a swoon,

Faints for excess of its own joys,

     And mystic beams assail the moon,

     With flames of their infernal noon;

While the smooth incense, without breath,

Spreads like some scented flower of death,

     Over the grove; the lover’s boon

     Of sleep shall steal upon them soon,

And lovers’ lips, from lips withdrawn,

Seek dimmer bosoms till the dawn.

 

Yet on the central altar lies

     The sacrament of kneaded bread,

With blood made one, the sacrifice

     To those, the living, who are dead—

     Strange gods and goddesses, that shed

Monstrous desires of secret things

Upon their worshippers, from wings

     One lucent web of light, from head

     One labyrinthine passion-fed

Palace of love, from breathing rife

With secrets of forbidden life.

 

But not the sunlight, nor the stars,

     Nor any light but theirs alone,

Nor iron masteries of Mars,

     Nor Saturn’s misconceiving zone,

     Nor any planet’s may be shone,

Within the circle of the grove,

Where burn the sanctities of love:

     Nor may the foot of man be known,

     Nor evil eyes of mothers thrown

On maidens that desire the kiss

Only of maiden Artemis.

 

But horned and huntress from the skies,

     She bends her lips upon the breeze,

And pure and perfect in her eyes,

     Burn magical virginity’s

     Sweet intermittent sorceries.

When the slow wind from her sweet word

In all their conchéd ears is heard.

     And like the slumber of the seas,

     There murmur through the holy trees

The kisses of the goddess keen,

And sighs and laughters caught between.

 

For, swooning at the fervid lips

     Of Artemis, the maiden kisses

Sob, and the languid body slips

     Down to enamelled wildernesses.

     Fallen and loose the shaken tresses;

Fallen the sandal and girdling gold,

Fallen the music manifold

     Of moving limbs and strange caresses,

     And deadly passion that possesses

The magic ecstasy of these

Mad maidens, tender as blue seas.

 

Night spreads her yearning pinions,

     The baffled day sinks blind to sleep;

The evening breeze outswoons the sun’s

     Dead kisses to the swooning deep.

     Upsoars the moon; the flashing steep

Of heaven is fragrant for her feet;

The perfume of the grove is sweet

     As slumbering women furtive creep

     To bosoms where small kisses weep,

And find in fervent dreams the kiss

Most memoried of Artemis.

 

Impenetrable pleasure dies

     Beneath the madness of new dreams;

The slow sweet breath is turned to sighs

     More musical than many streams

     Under the moving silver beams,

Fretted with stars, thrice woven across.

White limbs in amorous slumber toss,

     Like sleeping foam, whose silver gleams

     On motionless dark seas; it seems

As if some gentle spirit stirred

Their lazy brows with some swift word.

 

So, in the secret of the shrine,

     Night keeps them nestled, so the gloom

Laps them in waves as smooth as wine,

     As glowing as the fiery womb

     Of some young tigress, dark as doom,

And swift as sunrise. Love’s content

Builds its own mystic monument,

     And carves above its vaulted tomb

     The Phœnix on her fiery plume,

To their own souls to testify

Their kisses’ immortality.

 

 

 

 

TO RICHARD WAGNER.

 

(BEFORE HEARING “SIEGFRIED”)

 

O MASTER of the ring of love, O lord

     Of all desires, and king of all the stars,

     O strong magician, who with locks and bars

Dost seal that kingdom silent and abhorred

That stretches out and binds with iron cord

     The hopes and lives of men, and makes and mars!

     O thou thrice noble for the deadly scars

That answered vainly thy victorious sword!

 

Wagner! creator of a world of light

     As beautiful as God’s, bend down to me,

          And whisper me the secrets of thy heart,

That I may follow and dispel the night,

     And fight life through, a comrade unto thee,

          Under Love’s banner with the sword of Art!

 

 

 

 

“THE TWO EMOTIONS.”

 

HOW barren is the Valley of Delight!

Swift the gaunt hounds that nose the warm close trail

Of all my love’s content; in vain I veil

My secret of remorse; from their keen sight

And scent my poor deception takes to flight.

I borrow perfume from young loves waxed pale;

I borrow music from the nightingale.

In vain: she knows me, that I hate her quite.

 

Not altogether: in my patchwork brain

Some rag of passion tears its woof asunder.

Strange, that its own insatiable pain

Should find an opiate in her eyes of wonder!

Yes, though I hate her well enough to kill,

I know that then my soul would love her still.

 

 

 

 

ASMODEL.

 

CALL down that star whose tender eyes

     Were on thy bosom at thy birth!

Call, one long passionate note that sighs!

     Call, till its beauty bend to earth,

Meet thee and lift thee and devise

     Strange loves within the gleaming girth,

And kisses underneath the star

Where on her brows its seven rays are.

 

Call her, the maiden of thy sleep,

     And fashion into human shape

The whirling fountains fiery and deep,

     The incense-columns that bedrape

Her glimmering limbs, when shadows creep

     Among blue tresses that escape

The golden torque that binds her hair,

Whose swarthy splendours drench the air.

 

She comes, she comes, the spirit glances

     In quick delight to hold her kiss;

The fuming air shimmers and dances;

     The moonlight’s trembling ecstasies

Swoon, and her soul, as my soul, trances,

     Knowing no longer aught that is;

Only united, moving, mixed,

A music infinitely fixed.

 

Music that throbs, and soars, and burns,

     And breaks the possible, to dwell

One moving monotone, nor turns,

     Making hell heaven, and heaven hell,

The steady impossible song that yearns

     And brooks no mortal in its swell—

This monotone immortal lips

Make in our infinite eclipse!

 

Formless, above all shape and shade;

     Lampless, beyond all light and flame;

Timeless, above all age and grade;

     Moveless, beyond the mighty name;

A mystic mortal and a maid,

     Filled with all things to fill the same,

To overflow the shores of God,

Mingling our proper period.

 

The agony is passed: behold

     How shape and light are born again;

How emerald and starry gold

     Burn in the midnight; how the pain

Of our incredible marriage-fold

     And bed of birthless travail wane;

And how our molten limbs divide,

And self and self again abide.

 

The agony of extreme joy,

     And horror of the infinite blind

Passions that sear us and destroy,

     Rebuilding for the deathless mind

A deathless body, whose alloy

     Is gold and fire, whose passions find

The tears of their caress a dew,

Fiery, to make creation new.

 

This agony and bloody sweat,

     This scarring torture of desire,

Refine us, madden us, and set

     The feast of unbegotten fire

Before our mouths, that mingle yet

     In this; the mighty-moulded lyre

Of many stars still strikes above

Chords of the mastery of love.

 

This subtle fire, this secret flame,

     Flashes between us as she goes

Beyond the night, beyond the Name,

     Back to her unsubstantial snows;

Cold, glittering, intense, the same

     Now, yesterday, for aye! she glows

No woman of my mystic bed;

A star, far off, forgotten, dead.

 

Only to me looks out for ever

     From her cold eyes a fire like death;

Only to me her breasts can never

     Lose the red brand that quickeneth;

Only to me her eyelids sever

     And lips respire her equal breath;

Still in the unknown star I see

The very god that is of me.

 

The day’s pale countenance is lifted,

     The rude sun’s forehead he uncovers;

No soft delicious clouds have drifted,

     No wing of midnight’s bird that hovers;

Yet still the hard blind blue is rifted,

     And still my star and I as lovers

Yearn to each other through the sky

With eyes half closed in ecstasy.

 

Night, Night, O mother Night, descend!

     O daughter of the sleeping sea!

O dusk, O sister-spirit, lend

     Thy wings, thy shadows, unto me!

O mother, mother, mother, bend

     And shroud the world in mystery

That secrets of our bed forbidden

Cover their faces, and be hidden.

 

O steadfast, O mysterious bride,

     O woman, O divine and dead!

O wings immeasurably wide,

     O star, O sister of my bed!

O living lover, at my side

     Clinging, the spring, the fountain-head

Of musical slow waters, white

With thousand-folded rays of light!

 

Come! Once again I call, I call,

     I call, O perfect soul, to thee,

With chants, and murmurs mystical,

     And whispers wiser than the sea:

O lover, come to me! The pall

     Of night is woven: fair and free,

Draw to my kisses, let thy breath

Mingle for love the wine of death.

 

 

 

 

“THE SONNET.”

 

I.

 

THE solemn hour, and the magnetic swoon

     Of midnight in a poet’s lonely hall!

     Grave spirits answer (angels if he call)

The invocations of his lofty tune.

Thus in his measures nature craves the boon

     To be reflected; and his rhymes appal

     Or charm mankind as tides that flow or fall,

Waxes or wanes the tempestival moon.

 

Her course is measured in the sonnet’s tether,

     Waxes the eight-fold ecstasy; exceeds

     The minor sestet, where some passion bleeds

          Or truth discourses: or eclipse may end,

          Proof against thought; but if man comprehend

The stars in all their stations sing together.

 

II.

 

What power or fascination can there lie

     In this fair garden of the straight-kept rows,

     The sonnet? Surely some archangel knows

Why, having written in mere ecstasy

One sonnet-thought, the metre cannot die

     But urges, but compels me to compose

     More and still more, and still my spirit goes

Striving up glittering steeps of symphony.

 

There is an angel who is guardian.

     Surely her wings are rosy, and her feet

          Black as the wind of frost; but oh! her face!

Whoso may know it is no more a man,

     But walks with God, and sees the Lady sweet

          Whose body was the vehicle of grace.

 

III.

 

Eternal beauty in eternal truth,

     Isis! And Thoth, the scribe of destiny,

     And Mary’s excellent virginity!

Ye are the witness of the ageless youth

That crowns the sonnet. In your wondrous eyes

     Lie hidden all the secrets of the world,

     And as the lightning of your look is hurled

So glean I something of life’s harmonies.

 

Look then upon me! Let my insight pierce

The clouds of this material universe

     Unto your splendour that no mortal eye

May see and live. Even so, how small the price!

My soul accepts its own sweet sacrifice:

     Let me but strike one perfect chord—and die.

 

 

 

 

JEZEBEL.

 

PART I.

 

A LION’S mane, a leopard’s skin

     Across my dusty shoulders thrown;

A swart fierce face, with eyes where sin

     Lurks like a serpent by a stone.

A man driven forth by lust to seek

Rest from himself on Carmel’s peak.

 

A prophet with wild hair behind,

     Streaming in fiery clusters! Yea,

Tangled with vehemence of the wind,

     And knotted with the tears that slay;

And all my face parched up and dried,

And all my body crucified.

 

Ofttimes the Spirit of the Lord

     Descends and floods me with his breath;

My words are fashioned as a sword,

     My voice is like the voice of death.

The thunder of the Spirit’s wings

Brings terror to the hearts of kings.

 

Anon, and I am driven out

     In desert places by desire;

My mouth is salt and dry; I doubt

     If hell hath such another fire;

If God’s damnation can devise

A lust to match these agonies.

 

The desert wind my body burns,

     The voice of flesh consumes my soul;

My body towards the city turns,

     My spirit seeks its fierier goal;

In wells of heaven to quench my thirst,

And take God’s hand among the first.

 

I conquered self, I grew at last

     A prophet chosen of the Lord;

I blew the trumpet’s iron blast

     That called on Zimri Omri’s sword;

My voice inflamed the fiery steel

That was to smite upon Jezreel.

 

And now, I haste from yonder sands,

     With fervour filled, to say God’s doom

To Ahab of the bloody hands,

     The spoiler of his father’s tomb,

The slayer of the vineyard king.

God’s judgment, and his fate, I bring.

 

The city gleams afar, I see

     Samarina’s white walls on high;

The mountains echo back to me

     The vengeful murmur of the sky;

All heaven and earth on me attend

To prophesy the tyrant’s end.

 

The gates are closed because of night,

     Whose heavy breath infects the air;

The dog-star gleams, a devilish light:

     I thought I saw behind me glare

The eyes of fiends; I thought I heard

An evil laugh, a mocking word.

 

The gates swing open at The Name,

     Without a warder roused from sleep;

I pass, with face of burning flame,

     That is not quenched, although I weep.

(For even my tears are tears of fire,

For loathing, madness, and desire.)

 

Ah God! the traps for fervent feet!

     The morrow beaconed, and I came

By where the golden groves of wheat

     In summer glories fiercely flame;

To those white courts, by princes trod,

Where Ahab sat, and mocked at God.

 

Where Ahab sat, but lo! I saw

     No king, no tyrant to be curst;

But she, who filled me with blind awe,

     She, for whose blood my thin veins thirst;

The blossom of a painted mouth

And bare breasts tinctured with the South.

 

For lo! the harlot Jezebel,

     Her hands dropped perfume, and her tongue

(A flame from the dark heart of hell,

     The ivory-barred mouth, that stung

With unimaginable pangs)

Shot out at me, and Hell fixed fangs.

 

Her purple robes, her royal crown,

     The jewelled girdle of her waist,

Her feet with murder splashed, and brown

     With the sharp lips that fawn and taste,

The crimson snakes that minister

To those unwearying lust of her.

 

And all her woman’s scent did drift

     A steam of poison through the air;

The haze of sunshine seems to lift

     And toil in tangles of black hair,

The hair that waves, and winds, and bites,

And glistens with unholy lights.

 

For lo! she saw me, and beheld

     My trembling lips curled back to curse;

Laughed with strong scorn, whose music knelled

     The empire of God’s universe.

And on my haggard face upturned

She spat! Ah God! how my cheek burned!

 

Then, as a man betrayed, and doomed

     Already, I arose and went,

And wrestled with myself, consumed

     With passion for that sacrament

Of shame. From that day unto this

My cheek desires that hideous kiss.

 

Her hate, her scorn, her cruel blows,

     Fill my whole life, consume my breath;

Her red-fanged hatred in me glows;

     I lust for her, and hell, and death;

I see that ghastly look, and yearn

Toward the brands of her that burn.

 

Sleep shuns me; dreams divide the night

     (My parched throat thirsty for her veins),

That she and I with deep delight

     Suck from death’s womb infernal pains,

Whose fire consumes, destroys, devours

Through night’s insatiable hours.

 

And altogether filled with love,

     And altogether filled with sin,

The little sparks and noises move

     About the softness of her skin.

Her pleasures and her passions purr,

For the delight I have of her.

 

Aching with all the pangs of night

     My shuddering body swoons; my eyes

Absorb her eyelids’ lazy light,

     And read her bosom to devise

Fresh blossoms of the heart of hell,

And secret joys of Jezebel.

 

Her lips are fastened to my breast

     To suck out blood in feverish tides;

The token of her I possessed

     Still on my withered cheek abides.

Thus slowly the desire grows

To kill and have her yet—who knows?

 

 

PART II.

 

I KNOW. When Ramoth-Gilead’s field

     Grew bloody with hot ranks of dead,

I smote amain with sword and shield,

     My brows with mingled blood were red;

And on my cheek the kiss of hell,

The hatred of my Jezebel.

 

I waited many days. At last

     The rushing of a chariot grew

Frightful through all the city vast,

     Men were afraid. But I—I knew

Jehu was here, whose sword should dip

Deep in my love’s adulterous lip.

 

The spirit filled me. And behold!

     I saw her dead stare to the skies;

I came to her; she was not cold,

     But burning with old infamies.

On her incestuous mouth I fell,

And lost my soul for Jezebel.

 

I followed him afoot, afire;

     Beneath her window he drew rein;

She looked forth, clad in glad attire,

     Haggard and hateful, once again;

And taunted him. His bastard blood

Quailed, but his violent soul withstood.

 

He blenched, and then with eyes of flame,

     “Who is on my side? Who?” he said.

Three eunuchs, passionless, grown tame,

     Grinned from behind her laughing head.

“Throw down that woman!” And my breath

Caught as they flung her out to death.

 

I think I died that moment. He,

     Foaming for vengeance and blood-lust,

Laughed his coarse laugh of hideous glee.

     Her sweet bad body in the dust

He trampled. Royal from the womb,

A martyred murderess lacks a tomb!

 

A tigress woman, clad with sin,

     And shod with infamy, who pressed

The bloody winepress of my skin,

     And plucked the purple of my breast—

Her lovers in their hearts shall keep

Her memory passionate and deep.

 

They cast her forth on Naboth’s field

     Still living, in her harlot’s dress;

Her belly stript, her thighs concealed,

     For shame’s sake and for love’s no less.

Night falls; the gaping crowds abide

No longer by her stiffening side.

 

I crept like sleep toward the place

     That held for me her evil head;

I bent like sin above her face

     That dying she might kiss me dead.

I whispered: “Jezebel.” She turned,

And her deep eyes with hatred burned.

 

“Ah! prophet, come to mock at me

     And gloat on mine exceeding pain?”

“Nay, but to give my soul to thee,

     And have thee spit at me again!”

She smiled—I know she smiled—she sighed,

Bit my lips through, and drank, and died!

 

Her murders and her blasphemies,

     Her whoredoms, God has paid at last;

Upon my bosom close she lies,

     Her carnal spirit holds me fast.

My blood, my infamy, my pain,

Seal my subjection and her reign.

 

My veins poured out her marriage cup,

     For holy water her cruel tongue;

For blessing of white hands raised up,

     These perfumed infamies unsung;

For God’s breath, her sharp tainted breath;

For marriage bed, the bed of death.

 

The hounds that scavenge, fierce and lean,

     Snarl in the moonlight; in the sky

The vulture hangs, a ghost unclean;

     The lewd hyæna’s sleepless eye

Darts through the distance; these admit

My lordship over her—and it.

 

The host is lifted up. Behold

     The vintage spilt, the broken bread!

I feast upon the cruel cold

     Pale body that was ripe and red.

Only, her head, her palms, her feet,

I kissed all night, and did not eat.

 

So, and not otherwise, the word

     Of God was utterly fulfilled.

So, and not otherwise. I heard

     Her spirit cry, by death not stilled:

“My sin is perfect in thy blood,

And thou and I have conquered God.”

 

Now let me die, at last desired,

     At last beloved of thee my queen;

Now let me die, with blood attired,

     Thy servant naked and obscene;

To thy white skull, thy palms, thy feet,

Clinging, dead, infamous, complete.

 

Now let me die, to mix my soul

     With thy red soul, to join our hands,

To weld us in one perfect whole,

     To link us with desirous bands.

Now let me die, to mate in hell

With thee, O harlot Jezebel.

 

 

 

 

WEDLOCK.

 

A SONNET.

 

I SAW the Russian peasants build a ring

     Of glowing embers of the bubbling pine.

     In the green heart o’ th’ salamander line

They scatter roses. Now the youngsters spring

Within, who with hard-shut eyes hope to bring

     From out the fiery circle one divine

     Blossom of rose, as from a poisonous mine

Gold comes to gird the palace of a king.

 

Envious I sprang—and found the last rose gone.

     So in the fiery ring of wedlock, blind,

     Mad, one may leap, no rose perhaps to find

(Or, if no rose, good fortune finds no thorn),

     But—mark the difference—palpable and plain

     Rose or no rose, one leaps not out again.

 

 

 

 

LOVE AT PEACE.

 

THE valleys, that are splendid

With sun ere day is ended

     And love-lutes take to tune,

See joyless and unfriended

The perfect bowstring bended,

     Whose bow is called the moon.

They see the waters slacken

And all the sky’s blue blacken,

While in the yellow bracken

     Love lies in death or swoon.

 

The stars arise and brighten;

The summer lightnings lighten,

     Faint and as midnight mute;

And far white snowfields tighten

The iron bands that frighten

     No fairy’s tender foot.

Across the stiller river

Stray flowers of ice may shiver,

Before the day deliver

     The murmur of its lute.

 

The sleep of bird and flower

Proclaims that Heaven has power

     To guard its gentlest child.

The lover knows the hour,

And goes with dew for dower

     To wed in woodland wild.

The silvern grasses shake,

And through the startled brake

Glides the awakened snake,

     Untamable and mild.

 

The song of stars; the wail

Of women wild and pale,

     Forlorn and not forsaken;

The tremulous nightingale;

The waters wan that fail

     By frost-love overtaken,

Make sacred all the valley;

And softly, musically,

The breezes lull and rally,

     The pine stirs and is shaken.

 

Beneath whose sombre shade

I hold a lazy maid

     In chaste arms and too tender.

Lo! she is fair! God said;

And saw through the deep glade

     How sweet she was and slender.

But I—could I behold her

Curved shapeliness of shoulder?

I, whose strong arms enfold her

     Immaculate surrender.

 

Pure as the dawns that quicken

On snow-topped mountains stricken

     By first gray light that grows,

By beams that gather, thicken,

A web of fairy ticken,

     To make a fairy rose:

Pure as the seas that lave

With phosphorescent wave

The sombre architrave

     Of Castle No-man-knows.

 

Pure as the dreams, undreamt

(That men have in contempt,

     That wise men yearn to see),

Of angel forms exempt

From mockeries that tempt

     Who fly about the lea;

Proclaiming things unheard,

Unknown to brightest bird,

Things, whose unspoken word

     Is utmost secrecy.

 

So pure, so pale we lie,

Like angels eye to eye,

     Like lovers lip to lip.

So, the elect knight, I

Keep vigil to the sky,

     While the dumb moments slip.

So she, my bride, my queen,

So virginal, so keen,

Swoons, while the moon-rays lean

     To fan their silver ship.

 

No sleep, but precious kisses

In those pale wildernesses,

     Mark the dead hours of night,

No sleep so sweet as this is,

Whose pulse of purple blisses

     Beats calm and cool and light.

No life so fair with roses,

No day so swift to close is;

No cushion so reposes

     Fair love so sweet and slight.

 

Sleep greets the morn and takes us;

The wood that wonders makes us

     Soft noises heard above.

The sunny snake forsakes us,

The noon sun lastly wakes us,

     To watch the wooing dove;

And day draws on delighted

To leave us there benighted,

Once more divinely plighted

     In perfect moon of love.

 

 

 

 

LOT.

 

“And while he lingered . . . they brought him forth, and set him without the city.”

—Gen. xix. 16.

 

TURN back from safety, in my love abide,

Whose lips are warm as when, a virgin bride

I clung to thee ashamed and very glad,

Whose breasts are lordlier for the pain they had,

Whose arms cleave closer than thy spouse’s own!

Thy spouse—O lover, kiss me, and atone!

All my veins burst for love, my ripe breasts beat

And lay their bleeding blossoms at thy feet!

Spurn me no more! O bid these strangers go;

Turn to my lips till their cup overflow;

Hurt me with kisses, kill me with desire,

Consume me and destroy me with the fire

Of bleeding passion straining at the heart,

Touched to the core by sweetnesses that smart

Bitten by fiery snakes, whose poisonous breath

Swoons in the midnight, and dissolves to death!

Ah! let me perish so, and not endure

Thy falsehood who have known thy love was sure,

Built up by sighs a palace of long years—

Lo! it was faery, and the spell of tears

Dissolves it utterly. O bid them go,

These white-faced boys, where calmer rivers flow,

And birds less passionate invoke the spring,

And seek their loves with weaker, wearier wing.

Turn back from safety—Let God’s rivers pour

Brimstone and fire, and all his fountains roar

Lava and hail of hell upon my head,

So be he leave us altogether dead,

Burnt in that shameful whirlwind of his ire,

Consumed in one tall pyramid of fire

Whose bowers of flame shall tell the sky of God

How we despised his feet with thunder shod,

And conquered, clasping, all the host of death.

Turn to me, touch me, mix thy very breath

With mine to mingle floods of fiery dew

With flames of purple, like the sea shot through

With golden glances of a fiercer star.

Turn to me, bend above me; you may char

These olive shoulders with an old-time kiss,

And fix thy mouth upon me for such bliss

Of sudden rage rekindled. Turn again,

And make delight the minister of pain,

And pain the father of a new delight,

And light a lamp of torture for the night

Too grievous to be borne without a cry

To rend the very bowels of the sky

And make the archangel gasp—a sudden pang,

Most like a traveller stricken by the fang

Of the black adder whose squat head springs up,

A flash of death, beneath a cactus cup.

Ah turn, my bosom for thy love is cold;

My arms are empty, and my lips can hold

No converse with thee far away like this.

O for that communing pregnant with a kiss

That is reborn when lips are set together

To link our souls in one desirous tether,

And weld our very bodies into one.

Ah fiend Jehovah, what then have we done

To earn thy curse? Is love like ours too strong

To dwell before thee, and do thy throne no wrong?

Art thou grown jealous of the fiery band?

Lo! thou hast spoken, and thy strong command

Bade earth and air divide, and on the sea

Thy spirit moved—and thou must envy me!

Gird all thy godhead to destroy a man

Whose little moment is a single span,

Whose small desire is nothing—and thy power

Must root from out his bosom the fair flower

Of passion! Listen to thine own voice yet:

“A rich man many flocks and herds did get,

“And took the poor man’s lamb.” Thou art the man!

Our love must lie beneath thy bitter ban!

Thou petty, envious God! My king, be sure

His brute force shall not to the end endure;

Some stronger soul than thine shall wrest his crown

And thrust him from his own high heaven down

To some obscure forgetful hell. For me

Forsake thy hopes in him. We worship, we,

Rather the dear delights we know and hold;

The first cool kiss, within the water cold

That draws its music from some bubbling well,

Looks long, looks deadly, looks desirable,

The touch that fires, the next kiss, and the whole

Body embracing, symbol of the soul,

And all the perfect passion of an hour.

Turn to me, pluck that amaranthine flower,

And leave the doubtful blossoms of the sky!

You dare not kiss me! dare not draw you nigh

Lest I should lure you to remain! nor speak

Lest you should catch the blood within your cheek

Mantling. You dared enough—so long ago!—

When to my blossom body clean as snow

You pressed your bosom till desire was pain,

And—then—that midnight! you did dare remain

Though all my limbs were bloody with your mouth

That tore their flesh to satiate its drouth,

That was not thereby satisfied! And now

A pallid coward, with sly, skulking brow,

You must leave Sodom for your spouse’s sake

Coward and coward and coward! who would take

The best flower of my life and leave me so,

Still loving you—Ah! weak—and turn to go

For fear of such a God! O blind! O fool!

To heed these strangers and to be the tool

Of their smooth lies and monstrous miracles.

O break this bondage and cast off their spells!

Five righteous! Thou a righteous man! A jest!

A righteous man—you always loved me best,

And even when lured by lips of wanton girls

Would turn away and sigh and touch my curls,

And slip half-conscious to the old embrace.

And now you will not let me see your face

Or hear your voice or touch you. Ah! the hour!

He moves. Come back, come back, my life’s one flower!

Come back. One kiss before you leave me. So!

Stop—turn—one little kiss before you go;

It is my right—you must. Oh no! Oh no!

 

 

 

 

SONNET FOR GERALD KELLY’S

JEZEBEL.

 

LIFT up thine head, disastrous Jezebel!

     Fire and black stars are melted in thine hair

     That curls to Hell, as in Satanic prayer;

Thy mouth is heavy with its riper smell

Than clustered pomegranates beside a well;

     The cruel savour of thy lust lies there,

     That blood may tinge thy kisses unaware

To fill thy children with the hope of Hell.

 

O evil beauty! Heart of mystery

     Wherein my being toils, and in the blood

     Mixed with thy poison finds its subtle food,

Intoxicating my divinity!

     Disdainful hands behind thee, I may take

     What joys I will—but thou wilt not awake.

 

 

 

 

THE MAY QUEEN.

 

(OLD STYLE)

 

IT is summer and sun on the sea,

     The twilight is drawn to the world:

We linger and laugh on the lea,

The light of my spirit with me,

     Sharp limbs in close agony curled.

 

The noise of the music of sleep,

     The breath of the wings of the night,

The song of the magical deep,

The sighs of the spirits that weep,

     Make murmur to tune our delight.

 

Slow feet are our measures that move;

     Swift songs are more soft than the breeze;

Our mouths are made mute for our love;

Our eyes are made soft as the dove;

     We mingle and move as the seas.

 

The light of the passionate dawn

     That kissed us, and would not awaken,

Grew golden and bold on the lawn,

The rays of the sun are withdrawn

     At last, and the blossoms are shaken.

 

Oh, fragrant the breeze is that stirs

     The grasses around us that lean!

Oh, sweet is the whisper that purrs

From those wonderful lips that are hers,

     From the passionate lips of a queen.

 

A queen is my lover, I say,

     With a crown of the lilies of light—

For a maiden they crowned her in May,

For the Queen of the Daughters of Day

     That are flowers of the forest of Night.

 

They crowned her with lilies and blue,

     They crowned her with yellow and roses,

They gave her a sceptre of rue,

And a girdle of laurel and yew,

     And a basket of pansies in posies.

 

They led her with songs by the stream,

     They brought her with tears to the river,

They danced as the maze of a dream,

They kissed her to roses and cream,

     And they cried, “Let the queen live for ever!”

 

They took her, with all of the flowers

     They had girded her with for God’s daughter;

They cast her from amorous bowers

To the river, the horrible powers

     Of the Beast that lurks down by the Water!

 

My way was more swift than a bow

     That flings out its barb to the night:

My sword struck the infinite blow

That smote him, and blackened the flow

     Of the amorous river of light.

 

I plunged in the stream, and I drew

     My queen from the clasp of the water;

I crowned her with roses and blue,

With yellow and lilies anew;

     I called her my love and God’s daughter!

 

I gave her a sceptre of may,

     I gave her a girdle of green,

I drew her to music and day,

I led her the beautiful way

     To the land where the Winds lie between.

 

So still lingers sun upon sea,

     Still twilight draws down to the world;

The light of my spirit is she,

The soul of her love is in me;

     Lithe kisses with music are curled.

 

Like light on the meadows we dwell;

     Like twilight clings heart unto heart;

Like midnight the depth of the spell

Our love weaves, and stronger than hell

     The guards of our palace of art.

 

We are one as the dew that is drawn

     By the sun from the sea: we are curled

In curves of delight and of dawn,

On the lone, the immaculate lawn,

     Beyond the wild way of the world.

 

 

 

 

A SAINT’S DAMNATION.

 

YOU buy my spirit with those shameless eyes

     That burn my soul, you loose the torrent stream

Of my desire, you make my lips your prize,

 

And on them burns the whole life’s hope: you deem

     You buy a heart; but I am well aware

How my damnation dwells in that supreme

 

Passion to feed upon your shoulders bare,

     And pass the dewy twilight of our sin

In the intolerable flames of hair

 

That clothe my body from your head; you win

     The devil’s bargain; I am yours to kill,

Yours, for one kiss; my spirit for your skin!

 

O bitter love, consuming all my will!

     O love destroying, that hast drained my life

Of all those fountains of dear blood that fill

 

My heart! O woman, would I call you wife?

     Would I content you with one touch divine

To flood your spirit with the clinging strife

 

Of perfect passionate joy, the joy of wine,

     The drunkenness of extreme pleasure, filled

From sin’s amazing cup. Oh, mine, mine, mine,

 

Mine, if your kisses maddened me or killed,

     Mine, at the price of my damnation deep,

Mine, if you will, as once your glances willed!

 

Take me, or break me, slay or sooth to sleep,

     If only yours one hour, one perfect hour,

Remembrance and despair and hope to steep

 

In the infernal potion of that flower,

     My poisonous passion for your blood! Behold!

How utterly I yield, how gladly dower

 

Our sin with my own spirit’s quenchéd gold,

     Clothe love with my own soul’s immortal power,

Give thee my body as a fire to hold—

     O love, no words, no songs—your breast my bower!

 

 

 

 

“MANY WATERS CANNOT

QUENCH LOVE.”

 

IN my distress I made complaint to Death:

     Thy shadow strides across the starry air;

     Thou comest as a serpent unaware,

Striking love’s heart and crushing out man’s breath:

Thy destiny is even as God saith

     To mark the impotence of human prayer,

     Choke hope, sting all but Love; and never care

If man or flower or sparrow perisheth.

 

Thee, I invoke thee, though no mercy move

     Thy heart! No power is to thy hate assigned

          On love (sing, poets! shrill, Pandean reeds!).

          But me, look on me, how my bosom bleeds—

     Invoke new power of cruelty; be kind,

And ask authority to quench my love!

 

 

 

 

          “La cour d’appel de la volonté de l’homme—

          C’est le ventre!”—Old proverb.

 

The worst of meals is that we have to meet.

     They trick my purpose and evade my will,

     Remind my conscience that I love her still,

And pull my spirit from its lofty seat.

For I withdraw myself: my stealthy feet

     Seek half-ashamed the alembic which I fill

     To the epic-mark—one sonnet to distil,

In this poor miracle—my love to cheat.

 

Dinner clangs cheerily from my lady’s gong.

A man must eat in intervals of song!

     Swift feet run back to hide my hate of her.

And then—that hate flies truant, as my thought

Rests (surely it beseems the overwrought)

     And I am left her slave and minister.

 

 

 

 

LOVE, MELANCHOLY, DESPAIR.1

 

DEEP melancholy—O, the child of folly!—

     Looms on my brow, a perched ancestral bird;

Black are its plumes, its eyes are melancholy,

     It speaks no word.

 

Like to a star, deep beauty’s avatar

     Pales in the dusky skies so far above:

Seven rays of gladness crown its passionate star,

     One heart of love.

 

The fringing trees, marge of deep-throated seas,

     Move as I walk: like spectres whispering

The spaces of them: let me leave the trees—

     It is not spring!

 

Spring—no! but dying autumn fast and flying,

     Sere leaves and frozen robins in my breast!

There is the winter—were I sure in dying

     To find some rest!

 

There is a shallop—how the breakers gallop,

     Grinding to dust the unresisting shore,

A moon-mad thought to wander in the shallop!

     Act—think no more!

 

Pale as a ghost I leave the sounding coast,

     The waters white with moonrise. I embark,

Float on to the horizon as a ghost,

     Confront the dark.

 

The cadent curve of Dian seems to swerve,

     Eluding helmcraft: let me drift away

Where sea and sky unite their clamorous curve

     In praise of Day.

 

Is it an edge? Some spray-bechiselled ledge?

     Some sentry platform to an under sky?

Let me drift onward to the azure edge—

     I can but die!

 

The moon hath seen! An arrow cold and keen

     Brings some cold being from the water chill,

Rises between me and the world—unseen,

     Most terrible.

 

Dawns that unheard-of terror! Never a word of

     The spells that chain ill spirits I remember.

And oh! my soul! What hands of ice unheard-of

     Disturb, dismember!

 

It hath no shape; and I have no escape!

     It wraps around me, as a mist, despair.

Fear without sense and horror without shape

     Most surely there!

 

O melancholy! charming child of folly,

     Where is thy comfort told without a word?

Where are thy plumes, beloved melancholy,

     Familiar bird?

 

O emerald star, deep beauty’s avatar,

     Are thy skies dim? What throne is thine above?

Where is the crown of thee—thy sevenfold star,

     My heart of love?

 

Then from the clinging mist there came a singing,

     A dirge re-echoes to the poet prayer:

“I am their child to whom thy soul is clinging,

     I am Despair!”

 

 

1 This poem is partially composed on Mr. Poe’s scheme of verse–vide

“ The Philosophy of Composition.”

 

 

 

 

THE GATE OF THE SANCTUARY.

 

 

 

 

“THE TWO MINDS.”

 

“THEY SHALL BE NO MORE TWAIN, BUT ONE

FLESH.”

 

WELL have I said, “O God, Thou art, alone,

     In many forms and faces manifest!

Thou, stronger than the universe, Thy throne!

     Thou, calm in strength as the sea’s heart at rest!”

But I have also answered: “Let the groan

     Of this Thy world reach up to Thee, and wrest

Thy bloody sceptre: let the wild winds own

     Man’s lordship, and obey at his behest!”

 

Man has two minds: the first beholding all,

     As from a centre to the endless end:

The second reaches from the outer wall,

     And seeks the centre. This I comprehend.

But in the first: “I can—but what is worth?”

     And in the second: “ I am dust and earth!

 

 

 

 

“THE TWO WISDOMS.”

 

SOPHIE! I loved her, tenderly at worst.

Yet in my passion’s highest ecstasy,

     When life lost pleasure in desire to die

And never taste again the deadly thirst

For those caresses; even then a curst

     Sick pang shot through me: looking afar on high,

     Beyond, I see Σοφια in the sky.

The pretty bubble of Love’s pipe is burst!

 

Yea! through the portals of the dusky dawn

     I see the nameless Rose of Heaven unfold!

Yea! through rent passion and desire withdrawn

     Burns in the East the far ephemeral gold.

O Wisdom! Mother of my sorrow! Rise!

And lift my love to thine immortal eyes!

 

 

 

 

“THE TWO LOVES.”

 

WHAT is my soul? The shadow of my will.

     What is my will? The sleeper’s sigh at waking.

Osiris! Orient godhead! let me still

     Rest in the dawn of knowledge, ever slaking

My lips and throat where yon rose-glimmering hill,

     The Mountain of the East, its lips is taking

To Thy life-lips: I hear Thy keen voice thrill;

     Arise and shine! the clouds of earth are breaking!

 

The clouds are parted: yes! And there above

     I bathe in ether and self-shining light;

My soul is filled with the eternal love;

I am the brother of the Day and Night.

     I AM! my spirit, and perhaps my mind!

But O my heart! I left thy love behind!

 

 

 

 

TO LAURA.

 

MISTRESS, I pray thee, when the wind

     Exults upon the roaring sea,

Come to my bosom, kissed and kind,

     And sleep upon the lips of me.

 

Dream on my breast of quiet days,

     Kindled of slow absorbing fire.

Sleep, while I ponder on the ways

     And secret paths of my desire.

 

Dream, while my restless brain probes deep

     The mysteries of its magic power,

The secrets of forgotten sleep,

     The birth of knowledge as a flower.

 

Slow and divine thy gentle breath

     Woos my warm throat: my spirit flies

Beyond the iron walls of death,

     And seeks strange portals, pale and wise.

 

My lips are fervent, as in prayer,

     Thy lips are parted, as to kiss:

My hand is clenched upon the air,

     Thy hand’s soft touch, how sweet it is!

 

The wind is amorous of the sea,

     The sea’s large limbs to its embrace

Curl, and thy perfume curls round me,

     An incense on my eager face.

 

I see, beyond all seas and stars,

     The gates of hell, the paths of death

Open: unclasp the surly bars,

     Before the voice of him that saith:

 

“I will!” Droop lower to my knees!

     Sink gently to the leopard’s skin!

I must not stoop and take my ease,

     Or touch the body lithe and thin.

 

Bright body of the myriad smiles,

     Sweet serpent of the lower life,

The smooth silk touch of thee defiles,

     The lures and languors of a wife.

 

Slip to the floor, I must not turn:

     There is a lion in the way!

The star of morning rise and burn:

     I seek the dim supernal day!

 

Sleep there, nor know me gone: sleep there

     And never wake, although God’s breath

Catch thee at midmost of the prayer

     Of sleep—that so dream turns to death.

 

Pass, be no more! The beckoning dawn

     Woos the white ocean: I must go

Wither my soul’s desire is drawn.

     Whither? I know not. Even so.

 

 

 

 

THE NAMELESS QUEST.

 

THE king was silent. In the blazoned hall

Shadows, more mute than at a funeral

True mourners, waited, waited in the gloom;

Waited to hear what child was in the womb

Of his high thoughts. As dead men were we all;

As dead men wait the trumpet in the tomb.

 

The king was silent. Tense the high-strung air

Must save itself by trembling—if it dare.

Then a long shudder ran across the space;

Each man ashamed to see his fellow’s face,

Each troubled and confused. He did not spare

Our fear—he spake not yet a little space.

 

After a while he took the word again:

“Go thou then moonwards on the great salt plain;

So to a pillar. Adamant, alone,

It stands. Around it see them overthrown,

King, earl, and knight. There lie the questing slain,

A thousand years forgotten—bone by bone.

 

“No more is spoken—the tradition goes:

‘There learns the seeker what he seeks or knows,’

Thence—none have passed. The desert leagues may keep

Some other secret—some profounder deep

Than this one echoed fear: the desert shows

Its ghastly triumph—silence. There they sleep.

 

“There, brave and pure, there, true and strong, they stay

Bleached in the desert, till the solemn day

Of God’s revenge—none knoweth them: they rest

Unburied, unremembered, unconfessed.

What names of strength, of majesty, had they?

What suns are these gone down into the West?

 

“Even I myself—my youth within me said:

Go, seek this folly; fear not for the dead,

And God is with thine arm. I reached the ridge,

And saw the river and the ghastly bridge

I told you of. Even then, even there, I fled.

Nor knight, nor king—a miserable midge!

 

“Yet from my shame I dare not turn and run.

My oath grows urgent as my days are done.

Almost mine hour is on me: for its sake

I tell you this, as if my heart should break,

The infinite desire—a burning sun.

The listening fear—the sun-devouring snake!”

 

The king was silent. None of us would stir.

I sat, struck dumb, a living sepulchre.

For—hear me! in my heart this thing became

My sacrament, my pentecostal flame.

And with it grew a fear—a fear of Her.

What Her? Shame had not found itself a name.

 

Simply I knew it in myself. I brood

Ten years—so seemed it—O! the bitter food

In my mouth nauseate! In the silent hall

One might have heard God’s sparrow in its fall.

But I was lost in mine own solitude—

I should not hear Mikhael’s trumpet-call.

 

Yet there did grow a clamour shrill and loud:

One cursed, one crossed himself, another vowed

His soul against the quest; the tumult ran

Indecorous in that presence, man to man.

Stilled suddenly, beholding how I bowed

My soul in thought: another cry began.

 

“Gereth the dauntless! Gereth of the Sea!

Gereth the loyal! Child of royalty!

Witch-mothered Gereth! Sword above the strong,

Heart pure, head many-wiled!” The knightly throng

Clamour my name, and flattering words, to me—

If they may ’scape the quest—I do them wrong;

 

They are my friends—Yet something terrible

Rings in the manly music that they swell.

They are all caught in this immense desire

Deeper than heaven, tameless as the fire.

All catch the fear—the fear of Her—as well,

And dare not—even afraid, I must aspire.

 

A spirit walking in a dream, I went

To the high throne—they shook the firmament

With foolish cheers. I knelt before the queen

And wept in silence. Then, as it had been

An angel’s voice and touch, her face she bent,

Lifted and kissed me—oh! her lips were keen!

 

Her voice was softer than a virgin’s eyes:

“Go! my true knight: for thither, thither lies

The only road for thee; thou hast a prayer

Wafted each hour—my spirit will be there!”

Too late I knew what subtle Paradise

Her dreams and prayers portend: too fresh, too fair!

 

I turned more wretched than myself knew yet.

I told my nameless pain I should forget

Its shadow as it passed. The king did start,

Gripped my strong hands, and held me to his heart,

And could not speak a moment. Then he set

A curb of sorrow and subdued its dart.

 

“Go! and the blessing of high God attend

Thy path, and lead thee to the doubtful end.

No tongue that secret ever may reveal.

Thy soul is God-like and thy frame is steel;

Thou mayst win the quest—the king, thy friend,

Gives thee his sword to keep thee—Gereth, kneel!

 

“I dub thee Earl; arise! ” And then there rings

The queen’s voice: “ Shall my love not match the king’s?

Here, from my finger drawn, this gem of power

Shall guard thee in some unimagined hour.

It hath strange virtue over mortal things.

I freely give it for thy stirrup’s dower.”

 

I left the presence. Now the buffeting wind

Gladdens my face—I leave the court behind.

Am I Stark mad? My face grows grim and grave;

I see—O Mary Mother, speak and save!

I stare and stare until mine eyes are blind—

There was no jewel in the ring she gave!

 

Oh! my pure heart! Adulterous love began

So subtly to identify the man

With its own perfumed thoughts. So steals the grape

Into the furtive brain—a spirit shape

Kisses my spirit as no woman can.

I love her—yes; and I have no escape.

 

I never spoke, I never looked! But she

Saw through the curtains of the soul of me,

And loved me also! It is very well.

I am well started on the road to Hell.

Loved, and no sin done! Ay, the world shall see

The quest is first—a love less terrible.

 

Yet, as I ride toward the edge of snow

That cuts the blue, I think. For even so

Comes reason to me: “Oh, return, return!

What folly is it for two souls to burn

With hell’s own fire! What is this quest of woe?

What is the end? Consider and discern!”

 

Banish the thought! My working reason still

Is the rebellious vassal to my will.

Because I will it. That is God’s own mind.

I cast all thought and prudence to the wind:

On, to the quest! The cursed parrot hill

Mocks on, on, on! The thought is left behind.

 

Night came upon me thus—a wizard hand

Grasping with silence the reluctant land.

Through night I clomb—behind me grew the light

Reflected in the portal of the night.

I reached the crest at dawn—pallid I stand

Uncomprehending of the sudden sight.

 

The river and the bridge! The river flows,

Tears of young orphans for its limpid woes.

The red bridge quivers—how my spirit starts,

Its seeming glory built of widows’ hearts!

And yet I could disdain it—heaven knows

I had no dear ones for their counterparts.

 

Yet the thought chilled me as I touched the reins.

Ah! the poor horse, he will not. So remains,

Divided in his love. With mastered tears

I stride toward the parapet. My ears

Catch his low call; and now a song complains.

The bridge is bleeding and the river hears.

 

Ah! God! I cannot live for pity deep

Of that heart-quelling chant—I could not sleep

Ever again to think of it. I close

My hearing with my fingers. Gently goes

A quivering foot above them as they weep—

I weep, I also, as the river flows.

 

Slowly the bridge subsides, and I am flung

Deep in the tears and terrors never sung.

I swim with sorrow bursting at my breast.

Yet I am cleansed, and find some little rest.

Still from my agonised unspeaking tongue

Breaks: I must go, go onward to the quest.

 

Again the cursed cry: “What quest is this?

Is it worth heaven in thy lover’s kiss?

A queen, a queen, to kiss and never tire!

Thy queen, quick-breathing for your twin desire!”

I shudder, for the mystery of bliss;

I go, heart crying and a soul on fire!

 

“Resolve all question by a moonward tread.

Follow the moon! ” Even so the king had said.

My thought had thanked him for the generous breath

Wherewith he warned us: for delay were death.

And now, too late! no moon is overhead—

Some other meaning in the words he saith?

 

Or, am I tricked in such a little snare?

I lifted up my eyes. What soul stood there,

Fronting my path? Tall, stately, delicate,

A woman fairer than a pomegranate.

A silver spear her hands of lotus bear,

One shaft of moonlight quivering and straight.

 

She pointed to the East with flashing eyes:

“Thou canst not see her—but my Queen shall rise.”

Bowed head and beating heart, with feet unsure

I passed her, trembling, for she was too pure.

I could have loved her. No: she was too wise.

Her presence was too gracious to endure.

 

“She did not bid me go and chain me to her,”

I cried, comparing. Then, my spirit knew her

For One beyond all song—my poor heart turned:

Then, ’tis no wonder. And my passion burned

Mightier yet than ever. To renew her

Venom from those pure eyes? And yet I yearned.

 

Still, I stepped onward. Credit me so far!

The harlot had my soul: my will, the star!

Thus I went onward, as a man goes blind,

Into a torrent crowd of mine own kind;

Jostlers and hurried folk and mad they are,

A million actions and a single mind.

 

“What is thy purpose, sweet my lord?” I pressed

One stalwart. “Ah! the quest,” he cried, “ the quest.”

God’s heart! the antics, as they toil and shove!

One grabs a coin, one life, another love.

All shriek, “The prize is mine!” as men possessed.

I was not fooled at anything thereof.

 

Rather I hated them, and scorned for slaves;

“Fools! all your treasure is at last the grave’s!”

Mine eyes had fixed them on the sphinx, the sky.

“Is then this quest of immortality?”

And echo answered from some unseen caves:

Mortality! I shrink, and wonder why.

 

Strange I am nothing tainted with this fear

Now, that had touched me first. For I am here

Half-way I reckon to the field of salt,

The pillar, and the bones—it was a fault

I am cured of! praise to God! What meets mine ear,

That every nerve and bone of me cries halt?

 

What is this cold that nips me at the throat?

This shiver in my blood? this icy note

Of awe within my agonising brain?

Neither of shame, nor love, nor fear, nor pain,

Nor anything? Has love no antidote,

Courage no buckler? Hark! it comes again.

 

Friend, hast thou heard the wailing of the damned?

Friend, hast thou listened when a murderer shammed

Pale smiles amid his fellows as they spoke

Low of his crime: his fear is like to choke

His palsied throat. How, if Hell’s gate were slammed

This very hour upon thy womanfolk?

 

Conceive, I charge thee! Brace thy spirit up

To drink at that imagination’s cup!

Then, shriek, and pass! For thou shalt understand

A little of the pressure of the hand

That crushed me now. Yes, yes! let fancy sup

That grislier banquet than old Atreus planned!

 

Mind cannot fathom, nor the brain conceive,

Nor soul assimilate, nor heart believe

The horror of that Thing without a Name.

Full on me, boasting, like Death’s hand it came,

And struck me headlong. Linger, while I weave

The web of mine old agony and shame.

 

A little shadow of that hour of mine

Touches thy heart? Fill up the foaming wine,

And listen for a little! How profound

Strikes memory keen-fanged; memory, the hound

That tracks me yet—a shiver takes my spine

At one half-hint, the shadow of that sound.

 

Where am I? Seven days my spirit fell,

Down, down the whirlpools and the gulfs of hell:

Seven days a corpse lay desolate—at last

Back drew the spirit and the soul aghast

To animate that clay—O horrible!

The resurrection pang is hardly past.

 

Yet in awhile I stumbled to my feet

To flee—no nightmare could be worse to meet.

And, spite of that, I knew some deadlier trap

Some worm more poisonous would set—mayhap!

I turned—the path? My horror was complete—

A flaming sword across the earthquake gap.

 

I cried aloud to God in my despair.

“The quest of quests! I seek it, for I dare!

Moonward! on, moonward! ” And the full moon shone,

A glory for God’s eyes to dwell upon,

A path of silver furrowed in the air,

A gateway where an angel might have gone.

 

And forward gleamed a narrow way of earth

Crusted with salt: I watch the fairy birth

Of countless flashes on the crystal flakes,

Forgetting it is only death that makes

Its home the centre of that starry girth.

Yet, what is life? The manhood in me wakes.

 

The absolute desire hath hold of me.

Death were most welcome in that solemn sea;

So bitter is my life. But carelessness

Of life and death and love is on me—yes!

Only the quest! if any quest there be!

What is my purpose? Could the Godhead guess?

 

So the long way seemed moving as I went,

Flashing beneath me; and the firmament

Moving with quicker robes that swept the air.

Still Dian drew me to her bosom bare,

And madness more than will was my content.

I moved, and as I moved I was aware!

 

The plain is covered with a many dead.

Glisten white bone and salt-encrusted head,

Glazed eye imagined, of a crystal built.

And see! dark patches, as of murder spilt.

Ugh! “So thy fellows of the quest are sped!

Thou shall be with them: onward, if thou wilt!”

 

So was the chilling whisper at my side,

Or in my brain. Then surged the maddening tide

Of my intention. Onward! Let me run!

Thy steed, O Moon! Thy chariot, O Sun!

Lend me fierce feet, winged sandals, wings as wide

As thine, O East wind! And the goal is won!

 

Was ever such a cruel solitude?

Up rears the pillar. Quaintly shaped and hued,

It focussed all the sky and all the plain

To its own ugliness. I looked again,

And saw its magic in another mood.

A shapeless truth took image in my brain.

 

A hollow voice from every quarter cries:

‘O thou, zelator of this Paradise,

Tell thou the secret of the pillar! None

Can hear thee, of the souls beneath the sun.

Speak, or the very Godhead in thee dies.

For we are many and thy name is One.

 

The Godhead in me! As a flash there came

The jealous secret and the guarded name.

The quest was mine! And yet my thoughts confute

My intuition; and my will was mute.

My voice—ah! flashes out the word of flame:

“Eternal Beauty, One and absolute!

 

The overwhelming sweetness of a voice

Filled me with Godhead. “Still remains the choice!

Thou knowest me for Beauty! Canst thou bear

The fuller vision, the abundant air?”

I only wept. The elements rejoice;

No tear before had ever fallen there.

 

I thought within myself a bitter thing,

Standing abased. The golden marriage ring

The queen had given—how her beauty stank

Now in mine yes, where once their passion drank

Its secret sweets of poison. Let the spring

Of love once dawn—all else hath little thank!

 

Yet resolute I put my love away.

I could not live in this amazing day.

Love is the lotus that is sickly sweet,

That makes men drunken, and betrays their feet:

Beauty, the sacred lotus: let me say

The word, and make my purity complete.

 

The whole is mine, and shall I keep a part?

O Beauty, I must see thee as thou art!

Then on my withered gaze that Beauty grew—

Rosy quintessence of alchemic dew!

The Self-informing Beauty! In my heart

The many were united: and I knew.

 

Smitten by Beauty down I fell as dead—

So strikes the sunlight on a miner’s head.

Blind, stricken, crushed! That vast effulgence stole,

Flooded the caverns of my secret soul,

And gushed in waves of weeping. I was wed

Unto a part, and could not grasp the whole.

 

Thus, I was broken on the wheel of Truth.

Fled all the hope and purpose of my youth,

The high desire, the secret joy, the sin

That coiled its rainbow dragon scales within.

Hope’s being, life’s delight, time’s eager tooth;

All, all are gone; the serpent sloughs his skin!

 

The quest is mine! Here ends mortality

In contemplating the eternal Thee.

Here, She is willing. Stands the Absolute

Reaching its arms toward me. I am mute,

I draw toward. Oh, suddenly I see

The treason-pledge, the royal prostitute.

 

One moment, and I should have passed beyond

Linked unto Spirit by the fourfold bond.

Not dead to earth, but living as divine,

A priest, a king, an oracle, a shrine,

A saviour! Yet my misty spirit conned

The secret murmur: “Gereth, I am thine!”

 

I must have listened to the voice of hell.

The earthly horror wove its serpent spell

Against the Beauty of the World: I heard

Desolate voices cry the doleful word

“Unready!” All the soul invisible

Of that vast desert echoed, and concurred.

 

The voices died in mystery away.

I passed, confounded, lifeless as the clay,

Somewhere I knew not. Many a dismal league

Of various terror wove me its intrigue,

And many a demon daunted: day by day

Death dogged despair, and misery fatigue.

 

Behold! I came with haggard mien again

Into the hall, and mingled with the train,

A corpse amid the dancers. Then the king

Saw me, and knew me—and he knew the ring!

He did not ask me how I sped: disdain

Curled his old lips: he said one bitter thing.

 

“You crossed the bridge—no man’s heart trod you there?”

Then crossed his breast in uttering some prayer:

“I pray you follow of your courtesy,

My lord!” I followed very bitterly.

“Likes you the sword I gave?  I did not dare

Answer one word. My soul was hating me.

 

He bade me draw. I silently obeyed.

My eye shirked his as blade encountered blade.

I was determined he should take my life.

“Went your glance back—encountering my wife?”

“Taunt me!” I cried; “I will not be afraid!”

My whole soul weary of the coward strife.

 

He seemed to see no opening I gave,

But hated me the more. Serene and suave,

He fenced with deep contempt. I stumble, slip,

Guard wide—and only move his upper lip.

“You know I will not strike, Sir pure and brave!

Fight me your best—or I shall find a whip!”

 

That stung me, even me. He wronged me, so:

Therefore some shame and hate informed the blow;

Some coward’s courage pointed me the steel;

Some strength of Hell: we lunge, and leap, and wheel;

Hard breath and laboured hands—the flashes grow

Swifter and cruel—this court hath no appeal!

 

He gladdened then. I would not slip again

And baulk the death of half its shame and pain.

I, his best sword, must fall, in earnest fight.

The old despair was coward—he was right.

Now, king, I pay your debt. A purple stain

Hides his laced throat—I sober at the sight.

 

“King, you are touched!” “Fight on, Earl Lecherer!”

I cursed him to his face—the added spur

Sticks venom in my lunge—a sudden thrust!

No cry, no gasp; but he is in the dust,

Stark dead. The queen—I hate the name of her!

So grew the mustard-seed, one moment’s lust.

 

I too was wounded: shameful runs the song.

She nursed me through that melancholy long

Month of despair: she won my life from death.

Ah God! she won that most reluctant breath

Out of corruption: love! ah! love is strong!

What waters quench it? King Shalomeh saith.

 

I am the king: you know it, friend! We wed.

That is the tale of how my wooing sped.

And oh! the quest: half won—incredible?

I am so brave, and pure—folk love me well.

But oh! my life, my being! That is dead,

And my whole soul—a whirlwind out of hell!

 

 

 

 

“A RELIGIOUS BRINGING-UP.”

 

WITH this our “Christian” parents marred our youth:

     “One thing is certain of our origin.

     We are born Adam’s bastards into sin,

Servants to Death and Time’s devouring tooth.

God, damning most, had this one thought of ruth

     To save some dozens—Us: and by the skin

     Of teeth to save us from the devil’s gin—

Repentance! Blood! Prayer! Sackcloth! This is truth.”

 

Our parents answer jesting Pilate so.

     I am the meanest servant of the Christ:

But, were I heathen, cannibal, profane,

     My cruel spirit had not sacrificed

My children to this Moloch. I am plain?

“Blasphemer!” “Damned!”? Undoubtedly—I know!

 

 

 

 

“THE LAW OF CHANGE.”

 

SOME lives complain of their own happiness.

     In perfect love no sure abiding stands,

     In perfect faith are no immortal bands

Of God and man. This passion we possess

Necessitous; insistent none the less

     Because we know not how its purpose brands

     Our lives. Even on God’s knees and in His hands:

          The Law of Change. “Out, out, adulteress!”?

 

These be the furies, and the harpies these?

     That discontent should sum the happiest sky?

     That of all boons man lacks the greatest—rest?

Nay! But the promise of the centuries,

     The certain pledge of immortality,

          Child-cry of Man at the eternal Breast.

 

 

 

 

SYNTHESIS.

 

WHEN I think of the hundreds of women I have loved from time to time,

White throats and living bosoms where a kiss might creep or climb,

Smooth eyes and trembling fingers, faint lips or mur-derous hair,

All tunes of love’s own music, most various and rare;

When I look back on life, as a mariner on the deep

Sees, tranced, the white wake foaming, fancies the nereids weep;

As, on a mountain summit in the thunders and the snow,

I look to the shimmering valley and weep: I loved you so!

For a moment cease the winds of God upon the reverent head;

I lose the life of the mountain, and my soul is with the dead;

Yet am I not unaware of the splendour of the height,

Yet am I lapped in the glory of the Sun of Life and Light:—

Even so my heart looks out from the harbour of God’s breast,

Out from the shining stars where it entered into rest—

Once more it seeks in memory for reverence, not regret,

And it loves you still, my sisters! as God shall not forget.

It is ill to blaspheme the silence with a wicked whispered thought—

How still they were, those nights! when this web of things was wrought!

How still, how terrible! O my dolorous tender brides,

As I lay and dreamt in the dark by your shameful beautiful sides!

And now you are mine no more, I know; but I cannot bear

The curse—that another is drunk on the life that stirs your hair:

Every hair was alive with a spark of midnight’s delicate flame,

Or a glow of the nether fire, or an old illustrious shame.

Many, so many, were ye to make one Womanhood—

A thing of fire and flesh, of wine and glory and blood,

In whose rose-orient texture a golden light is spun,

A gossamer scheme of love, as water in the sun

Flecked by wonderful bars, most delicately crossed,

Worked into wedded beauties, flickering, never lost—

That is the spirit of love, incarnate in your flesh!

Your bodies had wearied me, but your passion was ever fresh:

You were many indeed, but your love for me was one.

Then I perceived the stars to reflect a single sun—

Not burning suns themselves, in furious regular race,

But mirrors of midnight, lit to remind us of His face.

Thus I beheld the truth: ye are stars that give me light;

But I read you aright and learn I am walking in the night.

Then I turned mine eyes away to the Light that is above you:

The answering splendid Dawn arose, and I did not love you.

I saw the breaking light, and the clouds fled far away:

It was the resurrection of the Golden Star of Day.

And now I live in Him; my heart may trace the years

In drops of virginal blood and springs of virginal tears.

I love you now again with an undivided song.

Because I can never love you, I cannot do you wrong.

I saw in your dying embraces the birth of a new embrace;

In the tears of your pitiful faces, another Holier Face.

Unknowing it, undesiring, your lips have led me higher;

You have taught me purer songs that your souls did not desire;

You have led me through your chambers, where the secret bolt was drawn,

To the chambers of the Highest and the secrets of the Dawn!

You have brought me to command you, and not to be denied;

You have taught me in perfection to be unsatisfied;

You have taught me midnight vigils, when you smiled in amorous sleep;

You have even taught a man the woman’s way to weep.

So, even as you helped me, blindly, against your will,

So shall the angel faces watch for your own souls still.

A little pain and pleasure, a little touch of time,

And you shall blindly reach to the subtle and sublime;

You shall gather up your girdles to make ready for the way,

And by the Cross of Suffering climb seeing to the Day.

Then we shall meet again in the Presence of the Throne,

Not knowing; yet in Him! O Thou! knowing as we are known.

 

 

 

 

THE HOLY PLACE.

 

 

 

 

THE NEOPHYTE.

 

TO-NIGHT I tread the unsubstantial way

That looms before me, as the thundering night

Falls on the ocean: I must stop, and pray

One little prayer, and then—what bitter fight

Flames at the end beyond the darkling goal?

These are my passions that my feet must tread;

This is my sword, the fervour of my soul;

This is my Will, the crown upon my head.

For see! the darkness beckons: I have gone,

Before this terrible hour, towards the gloom,

Braved the wild dragon, called the tiger on

With whirling cries of pride, sought out the tomb

Where lurking vampires battened, and my steel

Has wrought its splendour through the gates of death.

My courage did not falter: now I feel

My heart beat wave-wise, and my throat catch breath

As if I choked; some horror creeps between

The spirit of my will and its desire,

Some just reluctance to the Great Unseen

That coils its nameless terrors, and its dire

Fear round my heart; a devil cold as ice

Breathes somewhere, for I feel his shudder take

My veins: some deadlier asp or cockatrice

Slimes in my senses: I am half awake,

Half automatic, as I move along

Wrapped in a cloud of blackness deep as hell,

Hearing afar some half-forgotten song

As of disruption; yet strange glories dwell

Above my head, as if a sword of light,

Rayed of the very Dawn, would strike within

The limitations of this deadly night

That folds me for the sign of death and sin—

O Light! descend! My feet move vaguely on

In this amazing darkness, in the gloom

That I can touch with trembling sense. There shone

Once, in my misty memory, in the womb

Of some unformulated thought, the flame

And smoke of mighty pillars; yet my mind

Is clouded with the horror of this same

Path of the wise men: for my soul is blind

Yet: and the foemen I have never feared

I could not see (if such should cross the way),

And therefore I am strange: my soul is seared

With desolation of the blinding day

I have come out from: yes, that fearful light

Was not the Sun: my life has been the death,

This death may be the life: my spirit sight

Knows that at last, at least. My doubtful breath

Is breathing in a nobler air; I know,

I know it in my soul, despite of this,

The clinging darkness of the Long Ago,

Cruel as death, and closer than a kiss,

This horror of great darkness. I am come

Into this darkness to attain the light:

To gain my voice I make myself as dumb:

That I may see I close my outer sight:

So, I am Here. My brows are bent in prayer;

I kneel already in the Gates of Dawn;

And I am come, albeit unaware,

To the deep sanctuary: my hope is drawn

From wells profounder than the very sea.

Yea, I am come, where least I guessed it so,

Into the very Presence of the Three

That Are beyond all Gods. And now I know

What spiritual Light is drawing me

Up to its stooping splendour. In my soul

I feel the Spring, the all-devouring Dawn,

Rush with my Rising. There, beyond the goal,

The Veil is rent!

                         Yes: let the veil be drawn.

 

 

 

 

THE NAME.

 

SACRED, between the serpent fangs of Pain,

Ringed by the vortex of the hurricane,

Lurks the abyss of fate: the gloomy cave,

Sullen as night, and sleepy as a wave

When tempest lowers and dare not strike, gapes wide,

Vomiting pestilence; the deadly bride

Of death, Despair, grins charnel-wise: the gate

Of Hope clangs resonant: and starless Fate

Glowers like a demon brooding over death.

Monstrous and mute, the slow resurgent breath

Spreads forth its poison: the pale child at play

Coughs in his gutter; the hard slave of day

Groans once and dies: the sickly spouse can feel

The cold touch kill the unborn child, and steal

Up to her broken heart: the pale hours hang

Like death upon the aged: the days clang

Like prison portals on the folk of day.

Yet for the children of the night they play

Like fountains in the moonlight: for the few,

The sorrowful, sweet faces of the dew,

The laughter-loving daughters of the dawn,

Whose moving feet make tremble all the lawn

From Hesper to the break of rose and gold,

Where Heaven’s petals in the East unfold

The awful flower of morning: for the folk

Bound in one single patient love, a yoke

Too light for fairy fingers to have woven,

Too strong for mere archangels to have cloven

With adamantine blades from the armoury

Of the amazing forges of the sea:

The folk that follow with undaunted mein

The utmost beauty that their eyes have seen—

O patient sufferers! yet your storm-scarred brows

Burn with the star of majesty: your vows

Have given you the wisdom and the power

To weld eternities within one hour,

To bind and braid the North wind’s serpent hair,

And track the East wind to his mighty lair

Even in the caverns of the womb of dawn;

To take the South wind and his fire withdrawn

And clothe him with your kiss; to seize the West

In his gold palace where the sea-winds rest,

And hurl him ravening on the breaking foam;

To find the Spirit in his glimmering home

And draw his secret from unwilling lips;

To master earthquake, and the dread eclipse;

To dominate the red volcanic rage;

To quench the whirlpool, conquering war to wage

Against all gods not wholly made as ye,

O patient, and O marvellous! I see,

I see before me an archangel stand,

Whose flaming scimitar, a triple brand,

Quivers before him, whose vast eyebrows bend,

A million comets: for his locks extend

A million flashing terrors: on his breast

He bears a mightier cuirass: for his vest

All heaven blazes: for his brows a crown

Roars into the abyss: his mighty frown

Quells many an universe and many an age—

Yea, many eternities! His nostrils rage

With fire and fury, and his feet are shod

With all the splendours of the avenging God.

I see him and I tremble! But my hand

Still flings its gesture of supreme command

Upwards; my voice still dares to tongue the word

That hell and chaos and destruction heard

And ruined, shrieking! yea, my strong voice rolls,

That martyr-cry of many slaughtered souls,

Utterly potent both to bless and ban—

I, I command thee in the name of Man!

He trembled then. And far in thunder rolled

Through countless ages, through the infinite gold

Beyond existence, grew that master-sound

Into the rent and agonized profound,

Till even the Highest heard me: and He said,

As one who speaks alone among men dead:

“Behold, he rules as I the abyss of flame.

For lo! he knoweth, and hath said, My Name!”

 

 

 

 

CERBERUS.

 

I STOOD within Death’s gate,

     And blew the horn of Hell:

Mad laughters echoing against Fate,

     Harsh groans less terrible,

Howled from beneath the vault; in night the avenging thunders swell.

 

The guardian stood aloof,

     A monster multiform.

His armour was of triple proof,

     His voice out-shrilled the storm.

Behind him all the Furies whirl and all the Harpies swarm.

 

The first face spake and said:

     “Welcome, O King, art thou!

Await thy throne a thousand dead;

     A crown awaits thy brow,

A seven-sting scorpion; for thy rod thou hast a bauble now.”

 

The next face spake and said:

     “Welcome, O Priest, to me!

Red blood shall dye thee robes of red,

     Hell’s cries thy litany!

Thy mitre sits, divided strength, to end thy church and thee!”

 

The third face spake and said:

     “Welcome, O Man, to Death!

Thy little span of life is sped,

     Sighed out thy little breath.

The worm that never dies is thine; the fire that lingereth!”

 

“Three voices has thy frame,

     Their music is but one.

Fool-demon, slave of night and shame,

     That canst not see the sun!

I am the Lord thy God: make thou homage and orison!”

 

The wild heads sank in fear:

     Then, troubled, to those eyes

Remembrance crept of many a year,

     Barred gates of Paradise.

Again the Voice rolled in the deep, mingled with murmuring sighs:

 

“I mind me of the day

     One came from Death to me;

His soul was weary of the day,

     His look was melancholy;

He bade me open in the Name that binds Eternity.

 

“Yet though he passed within

     And plunged within the deep,

The seven palaces of sin,

     And slept the lonely sleep,

Yet came He out alone: but then I thought I heard Them weep.

 

“He passed alone, above,

     Out of the Gates of Night;

Angels of Purity and Love

     Drew to my sound and sight.

I heard Them cry that even there He fixed the eternal Light.

 

“I think beneath these groans,

     And laughters madness-born,

Tears fell that might dissolve the stones

     That grind the accurséd corn.

Beneath the deep, beneath the deep, may dwell the star of morn!

 

“Therefore, O God, I pray

     Redemption for the folk

That dread the scourging light of day,

     That bear the midnight yoke.

The Chaos was no less than this—and there the light awoke.”

 

“O Dog of Evil, yea!

     Thou hast in wisdom said.

The glory of the living day

     Shall shine among the dead.

Thy faith shall have a holier task, thy strength a goodlier stead.”

 

Then I withdrew the light

     Of mine own Godhead up,

As stars that close with broken night

     Their adamantine cup.

I sought the solar airs: my soul on its own tears might sup.

 

For in the vast profound

     Still burns the rescuing sign;

Beyond all sight and sense and sound

     The symbol flames divine.

For He shall make all life, all death, His solitary shrine.

 

 

 

 

THE EVOCATION.

 

FROM the abyss, the horrible lone world

     Of agony, more sharp than moonbeams strike

The shaken glacier, my bitter cry is hurled,

As the avenger lightning. Swiftly whirled,

     It flings in circles closing serpent-like

On the abominable devil-horde

I summon to the mastery of the sword.

 

In my white palace, where the flashing dawn

     Leaps from the girdling bastions, where the light

Flames from the talisman as if a fawn

Glode through the thickets, where the soul, withdrawn

     From every element, gleams through the night

Into that darkness palpable, where They

Lurk from the torment of the light of day.

 

Swings the swift sword in paths of vivid blue;

     Rings the sharp summons in the halls of fear;

Flames the great lamen; as a fiery dew

Falls the keen chanted music; fierce and true

     Beams the bright diamond of the crowning sphere.

None may withstand the summons: like dead flame

Flares darkness deeper, and demands its name.

 

Mine eyes peer deeper in the quivering gloom—

     What horrors crowd upon the aching sight!

Behold! the phantom! Icy as the tomb,

His head of writhing scorpions in the womb

     Of deadlier terrors: how a charnel-light

Gleams on his beetle frame! What poison drips

Of slime and blood from his disastrous lips!

 

What oceans of decaying water steam

     For his vast essence! And a voice rolls forth

With miserable fury from that stream

Of horror: “Thou hast called me by the beam

     Of glory, by the devastating wrath

Of thine accurséd godhead: tell me then

My Name! Thou hardiest of the Sons of Men!”

 

“Thy name is—stay! thou liest! I discern

     In Thee no terror that my spells evoke.

Begone, thou wandering corpse of night! return

Into thy shadowy world! My symbols burn

     Against thee, shade of terror! Go!” It spoke:

“Yea! I am human. Know my actual truth:

I am that ghost, the father of thy youth!”

 

“Poor wandering phantom!”—the exultant yell

     And wolfish howling of all damnéd souls

Peals from the ravening jaws and gulfs of hell:

Leaps that foul horror through the terrible

     Extinguished circle of the burning bowls.

Then I remember, fling the gleaming rod

Against him: “Liar, back! For I am God!”

 

Back flung the baffled corpse. But through the air

     Looms the more startling vision in the night;

The actual demon of my work is there!

Where is the glittering circle? Where, ah, where

     The radiant bowls whose flame rose fiery bright?

I am alone in the absolute abyss;

No aid; no helper; no defence—but this!

 

My left hand seeks the lamen. Once again

     Fearless I front the awful shape before me,

Fearless I speak his Name. My trembling brain

Vibrates that Word of Power. I cry amain:

     “Down, Dweller of the Darkness, and adore me!

I am thy Master, and thy God! Behold

The Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold!

 

“I am thy Saviour!” At the kindling word

     Up springs the dawn-light in the broken bowls;

Up leaps the glittering circle. Then I heard

A hoarse shrill voice, as if some carrion bird

     Shrieked, mightier than the storm that rocks and rolls

Through desolation: “Thou hast known my Name.

What is thy purpose, Master of the Flame?”

 

I made demand: through long appalling hours

     Stayed he to tempt and try my adamant

Purpose: at last the legionary powers

Behind him sank affrayed; his visage lowers

     Less menacing: his head is turned aslant

In vain: I bid him kneel and swear: the earth

Rocked with the terror of that deadlier birth.

 

He swore: he vanished: the wide sky resounds

     With echoing thunders: through the blinding night

The stars resume their courses: at the bounds

Of the four watch-towers cry the waking hounds:

     “The night is well”: slow steals the ambient light

Through all the borders of the universe

At that last lifting of my strenuous curse.

 

Slow steals the ambient light: white peace resumes

     In planet, element, and sign, her sway.

The twisted ether shapes itself: relumes

The benediction all the faded fumes

     With holier incense: in the fervid way

All nature rests: with holy calm I blend

Blessing and prayer at the appointed end.

 

 

 

 

“THE ROSE AND THE CROSS.”

 

OUT of the seething cauldron of my woes,

     Where sweets and salt and bitterness I flung;

     Where charmed music gathered from my tongue,

And where I chained strange archipelagoes

Of fallen stars; where fiery passion flows

     A curious bitumen; where among

     The glowing medley moved the tune unsung

Of perfect love: thence grew the Mystic Rose.

 

Its myriad petals of divided light;

     Its leaves of the most radiant emerald;

Its heart of fire like rubies. At the sight

     I lifted up my heart to God and called:

How shall I pluck this dream of my desire?

And lo! there shaped itself the Cross of Fire!

 

 

 

 

HAPPINESS.

 

IT is the seasonable sun of spring

     That gilds the all-rejuvenescent air—

     New buds, young birds, so happy in the rare

Fresh life of earth: myself am bound to sing,

Feeling the resurrection crown me king.

     I am so happy as men never were.

     Of sorrow much, of suffering a share,

Leave me unmoved, or leave me conquering.

 

O miserable! that it should be so!

     Lord Jesus, Sufferer for the sins of man,

     Thou didst invite me to Thy shame and loss.

And I am happy! Pity me! Bestow

     The right to work in the eternal Plan,

     The right to hang on the eternal Cross!

 

 

 

 

THE HOLY OF HOLIES.

 

 

 

 

THE PALACE OF THE WORLD.

 

THE fragrant gateways of the dawn

     Teem with the scent of flowers.

The mother, Midnight, has withdrawn

     Her slumberous kissing hours:

Day springs, with footsteps as a fawn,

     Into her rosy bowers.

 

The pale and holy maiden horn

     In highest heaven is set.

My forehead, bathed in her forlorn

     Light, with her lips is met;

My lips, that murmur in the morn,

     With lustrous dew are wet.

 

My prayer is mighty with my will;

     My purpose as a sword

Flames through the adamant, to fill

     The gardens of the Lord

With music, that the air be still,

     Dumb to its mighty chord.

 

I stand above the tides of time

     And elemental strife;

My figure stands above, sublime,

     Shadowing the Key of Life,

And the passion of my mighty rhyme

     Divides me as a knife.

 

For secret symbols on my brow,

     And secret thoughts within,

Compel eternity to Now,

     Draw the Infinite within.

Light is extended. I and Thou

     Are as they had not been.

 

So on my head the light is one,

     Unity manifest;

A star more splendid than the sun

     Burns for my crownéd crest;

Burns, as the murmuring orison

     Of waters in the west.

 

What angel from the silver gate

     Flames to my fierier face?

What angel, as I contemplate

     The unsubstantial space?

Move with my lips the laws of Fate

     That bind earth’s carapace?

 

No angel, but the very light

     And fire and spirit of Her,

Unmitigated, eremite,

     The unmanifested myrrh,

Ocean, and night that is not night,

     The mother-mediator.

 

O sacred spirit of the Gods!

     O triple tongue! Descend,

Lapping the answering flame than nods,

     Kissing the brows that bend,

Uniting all earth’s periods

     To one exalted end.

 

Still on the mystic Tree of Life

     My soul is crucified;

Still strikes the sacrificial knife

     Where lurks some serpent-eyed

Fear, passion, or man’s deadly wife

     Desire, the suicide!

 

Before me dwells the Holy One

     Anointed Beauty’s King;

Behind me, mightier than the Sun,

     To whom the cherubs sing,

A strong archangel, known of none,

     Comes crowned and conquering.

 

An angel stands on my right hand

     With strength of ocean’s wrath;

Upon my left the fiery brand,

     Charioted fire smites forth:

Four great archangels to withstand

     The furies of the path.

 

Flames on my front the fiery star

     About me and around.

Pillared, the sacred sun, afar,

     Six symphonies of sound;

Flames, as the Gods themselves that are;

     Flames, in the abyss profound.

 

The spread arms drop like thunder! So

     Rings out the lordlier cry,

Vibrating through the streams that flow

     In ether to the sky,

The moving archipelago,

     Stars in their seigneury.

 

Thine be the kingdom! Thine the power!

     The glory triply thine!

Thine, through Eternity’s swift hour,

     Eternity, thy shrine—

Yea, by the holy lotus-flower,

     Even mine!

 

 

 

 

THE MOUNTAIN CHRIST.

 

O WORLD of moonlight! Visionary vale

     Of ocean-sleeping mountains! Mighty chasm

Within whose wild abyss there chants the pale,

     The dolorous phantasm

Of wrecked white womanhood! The wizard cold

Grips the mute valley in his grasp of gold!

 

Yonder the hatred of the dismal steep

     Sweeps up to wrathful thunders, that are curled

In billowy menace, as the deadlier deep

     That menaces the world

With breaking foam: so hangs the glacier, rent

By giant sunrays, in the frost-grip pent.

 

Yonder again rears up the craggy wall

     Its cleaving head to heaven: thither I

Clomb the vast terrors, where the echoing fall

     Roars stony from the sky.

Thither I pressed at midnight, and the dawn

Saw my swift feet move faster than the fawn.

 

Pale seas of blue soft azure lie beyond,

     Far o’er the gleaming green: the smoke is risen

Out of the cloudy north; the incense-wand

     That binds dead souls in prison,

That prison of the day, when sleepless dead

Rest for awhile from agony and dread.

 

Strange! how a certain fear possesses me

     Alone amid their crag-bound solitude.

Even beyond the keen delight—to Be—

     Steals that diviner mood

Of wonder at the miracle—the plan

Of Nature crowned by the astounding Man!

 

The secret of the Lord is set with him

     That wonders at His Majesty: his praise

Wells from no trembler’s misery: his hymn

     Swells the exultant day’s.

His psalm wings upward, and reflected down

Even in Hell makes music and renown.

 

Yea! for the echo of the anthem rolls

     Down to the lost unfathomable deep.

Down, to the darkness of all shades and souls,

     The founts of music sweep.

Even the devils in the utter night

Feel it the saving, not the avenging light.

 

Yea! for the worship of my secret song

     Vibrates through every chasm of the world:

Its sound is caught by angels, and made strong:

     By sylphs, and dewed, and pearled

With fairer melodies, and borne, alone,

Aloft, to the immeasurable throne.

 

O mighty palace of immortal stone!

     O glamour of the fathomless gray snow!

O clouds! O whirlwinds of my mountain throne!

     I charge your souls to go

Unto the souls of men, and bid them rise

Toward redemption, and the unsullied eyes.

 

I charge you go and whisper unto men

     The solemn glories of your secret mind,

Making them pure, and wise; return ye then

     Unto your proper kind,

Having thus offered water, blood, and tears,

For the remission of our carrion years.

 

So deepen all the mountains: even so

     The wandering shadows close upon the day;

The sunlight burns its fading ruby glow

     On the chaotic way.

Night falls, and I must tread the dizzy steep

Again, to plunge to the devouring deep.

 

The blessing of the Highest shall be set

     On your white heads, O monarchs of the snow!

The blessing of the Highest, lightening yet

     The burdens that ye know.

So, as three golden arrows of the sun

Strike, may the threefold sacrament be One!

 

O visionary valley of my Soul!

     When shall thy beauty, even thine, be made

As pure and mighty as these hills that roll

     In mist and sun and shade?

O thou! the Highest! make my will as thine,

My consciousness, the consciousness divine!

 

 

 

 

TO ALLAN MACGREGOR.

 

O MAN of Sorrows: brother unto Grief!

     O pale with suffering, and dumb hours of pain!

     O worn with Thought! thy Godhead springs again

The Soul of Resurrection: thou art chief

And lord of all thy Soul: O patient thief

     Of God’s own fire! What mysteries find fane

     In the white shrine of thy white spirit’s reign,

Thou man of Sorrows: O, beyond belief!

 

Let God's own Peace be with thee: let thy days

     Prosper in spite of thine unselfish soul;

          And as thou lovest, so let Love increase

Upon thee and about thee: till thy ways

     Gleam with the splendour of that secret goal

          Whose long war grows the great abiding peace.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

THE ATHANOR.

 

LIBERTINE touches of small fingers creep

     Among my curls to-night: pale ghastly kisses,

Like mournful ghosts roused from their ruined sleep

     By clamorous cries of murder. Strange abysses

Loom in the vista keen eyes penetrate,

Vague forecasts of immeasurable fate.

 

O thou belovéd blood, that wells and weeps!

     O thou belovéd mouth, that beats and bleeds!

O mystic bosom where some serpent sleeps,

     Sweet mockery of a thousand saintlier creeds!

Even I, that breathe your perfume, taste your breath,

Know, even this hour, ye are not life, but death!

 

No death ye bring more godlike than desire,

     When seas roar tempest-lashed, and foam is flung

Raging on pitiless crags, and gloomy fire

     Lurks in the master-cloud; corpses are swung

Helpless and horrible in trough and crest—

That death were music, and the lord of rest.

 

No death ye bring as when the storm is rolled,

     An imminent giant on the sun-ripped snows,

Where icy fingers grip the overbold

     Son of their secrets, and like springes close

On his choked throat and frozen body—Nay!

That death were twilight, and the gate of Day!

 

No death ye bring as his, that grips the flag

     In desperate fingers, and with bloody sword

Flames up the thundering breach, while bastioned crag,

     Glacis, and pent-house belch their monstrous horde

Of hideous engines shattering—this strife

Clears the straight road of Glory and of Life!

 

Nay: but the hateful death that stings the soul

     Into rebellion; the insensate death

That chokes its own delight with words that roll

     Mightier-mouthed than the archangel’s breath;

The death that murders courage ere it drink

The soul’s own life-blood on the desperate brink!

 

So, from the languid fingers in my curls

     And dreamy worship of a woman’s eyes,

I look beyond the miserable whirls

     Of foolish measures woven in the skies;

Beyond the thoughtless stars: beyond God’s sleep:

Beyond the deep: beneath the deadly deep!

 

Infinite rings of luminous ether move

     At first amid the blackness that I seek:

Infinite motion and amazing love

     Deaden the lustre of the night. I speak

The cry of silence, that is heard unspoken;

That, being heard, rings evermore unbroken.

 

Silence, deep silence. Not a shudder stirs

     The vast demesne of unforgetful space:

No comet’s lunatic rush, no meteor whirs,

     No star dares breathe, no planet knows his place

In that supreme unquiet quietude.

I am the master of my own deep mood.

 

I am the master. Yea, no doubt I rule

     The whole mad universe by will extended—

Who whispers then, “O miserable fool!

     This night thy might and majesty are ended;

Thy soul shall be required of thee”? I heard

This voice, and knew it for my proper word!

 

Yes, mine own voice: the higher spirit speaks,

     Stemming the hands that guide, the arms that hold,

Even the infinite brain: that spirit seeks

     A loftier dawn of more ephemeral gold—

Ephemeral, and eternal: droop thine head,

O God! for thou must suffer this: I said!

 

Droop thy wide pinions, O thou mortal God!

     Sink thy vast forehead, and let Life consume

The miserable life thy feet have trod

     Beneath them, that thine own life in its doom

Fall, in its resurrection to arise;

Stoop, that its holier hope may cleave the skies.

 

Power, power, and power! O single sacrifice

     On thine own altar: let thy savour steam

Up, through the domes of broken Paradise;

     Up, by Euphrates’ unimagined stream;

Up, by strange river and mysterious lawn

To some impossible diadem of dawn!

 

So the mere orderly ruling of events

     Shall change and blossom to a finer flower

Until it serve to worlds and elements

     For aspiration in the nobler hour—

Not mere repression, but the hope and crown

Of fallen hierarchies no more cast down.

 

O misery of triple love and grief

     And hope! O joy of hatred and despair

And happiness! The little hour is brief,

     And the lithe fingers soothe the listless hair

Less, and the kisses swoon to tenderer sighs

And little sobs of sleeping ecstasies.

 

No! for the envy of the infinite

     Crushes the juice from out the poppy’s stem,

And brown-stained fingers wring the petals white,

     And weary lips seek lotus-life in them

Vainly: the lotus burns above the tomb—

Yea, but in thought’s unfathomable womb!

 

For spiritual life and love and light

     Climb the swayed ladder of our various fate

The steep rude stair that mocks the hero’s might,

     Casts off the wise, and crumbles with the great.

Yet from the highest crown no blossom fell,

Save one, to bring salvation unto Hell.

 

O angel of my spiritual desire!

     O luminous master of the silver feet!

O passionate rose of infinite white fire!

     O cross of sacrifice made bitter-sweet!

O wide-wing, star-brow, veritable lord!

O mystic bearer of the flaming sword!

 

O brows half see, O visionary star

     Seen in the fragrant breezes of the East!

O lover of my love, O avatar

     Of the All-One, O mystical High Priest!

O thou before whose eyes my weak eyes fail,

Wonderful warden of the Holy Grail!

 

O thou, mine angel, whom these eyes have seen,

     These hands have handled, and this mouth has kissed!

O thou, the very tongue of fire, the clean

     Sweet-scented presence of a holier Christ!

Listen, and answer, and behold! My wings

Droop, O thou stronger than the immortal kings!

 

My flame burns dim! O bring the broken jar

     And alabaster casket, and dispense

The oil that flows from that supernal star,

     And holy fountains of the Influence.

Bring peace, and strength, and quicken in my heart

Mastery of night-fear and the day-flung dart.

 

Yea! from the limit of the fallen day,

     And barren ocean of ungathered Time,

Bring Night, and bring Eternity, and stay

     With white wings pointing where tired feet may climb:

Even the pathway where shed blood ran deep

To build red roses in the land of Sleep.

 

O guardian of the pallid hours of night!

     O tireless watcher of the smitten noon!

O sworded with the majesty of light,

     O girded with the glory of the moon!

Angel of absolute splendour! Link of mine

Old weary spirit with the All-Divine!

 

Ship that shalt carry me by many winds

     Driven on the limitless ocean! Mighty sword,

By which I force that barrier of the mind’s

     Miscomprehension of its own true lord!

Listen, and answer, and behold my brow

Fiery with hope! Bend down, and touch it now!

 

Press the twin dawn of thy desirous lips

     In the swart masses of my hair; bend close,

And shroud all earth in masterless eclipse,

     While my heart’s murmur through thy being flows,

To carry up the prayer, as incense teems

Skyward, to those immeasurable streams!

 

Breathe the creative Sign upon my mouth

     That even the body may become the soul:

Cry, as the chained Eagle of the South,

     “A house of death,” and make my spirit whole!

Touch with pure balm the five mysterious wounds!

Come! come away! but not your mighty sounds!

 

O wind of all the world! O silent river!

     O sea of seas! O flower of all the flowers!

O fire! O spirit! Beam thou on for ever

     Through æons of illimitable hours!

Kiss thou my forehead, let thy tender breath

Woo me to life, and my desire to death!

 

I shall be ready for it by-and-by,

     That sharp initiation, when the whole

Body is torn with sundering pangs, and I,

     The very conscious essence of the soul,

Am rent with agony, as when the pale

Christ heard the shriek of the dividing veil.

 

That awful mystery, its heart torn out,

     Palpitates on the altar-stone of life:

That broken self, that hears the triumph-shout

     Of its own voice beneath the falling knife,

When, like a bad dream changing, swiftly grows

A new soul’s joy, a fuller-pettalled rose.

 

Many the spirits broken for one man;

     Many the men that perish to create

One God the more; many the weary and wan

     Old Gods that die to constitute a Fate:

How many Fates then, think you, must control

The stainless aspiration of the soul?

 

Not one. I tell you, destiny is sure,

     Yet moves no finger: though it tune my tongue,

My tongue shall tune it too: my words endure

     As destiny decays: my hands are flung

In prayer to Heaven; nay, to mine own crown,

To raise myself, and not to drag it down!

 

O holiest Lord of the divine white flame

     Of brilliance sworded in the temple sky!

O thou who knowest my most secret name,

     Who whisperest when only thou and I

Make up our universe: bestow thy kiss:

Arise! Come, let us pierce the old abyss!

 

Rise! Move! Appear! Let us go forth together,

     Into the solemn passionless profound,

Into the darkness, and the thrilling weather,

     Into the silence louder than all sound,

Into the vast implacable inane!

Come, let us journey thither once again!

 

 

 

 

THE CHANT TO BE SAID OR SUNG

UNTO OUR LADY ISIS.

 

ROLL through the caverns of matter, the world’s irremovable bounds!

Roll, ye wild billows of ether! the Sistron is shaken and sounds!

Wild and sonorous the clamour, vast in the region of death,

Live with the Fire of the Spirit, the essence and flame of the breath!

          Sound, O sound!

 

Gleam in the world of the dark, where the chained ones shall tremble and flee!

Gleam in the skies of the dusk, for the Light of the Dawn is in me!

Light on the forehead, and life in the nostrils, and love in the breast,

Shine, O thou Star of the Dawning, thou Sun of the Radiant Crest!

          Shine, O shine!

 

Flame through the sky in the strength of the chariot-wheels of the Sun!

Flame, ye young fingers of light, on the West of the Dawning that run!

Flame, O thou Meteor Car, for my fire is exalted in thee!

Lighten the darkness and herald the daylight, and waken the sea!

          Flame, O flame!

 

Crown Her, O crown Her with stars as with flowers for a virginal gaud!

Crown Her, O crown Her with Light and the flame of the down-rushing Sword!

Crown Her, O crown Her with Love for maiden and mother and wife!

Hail unto Isis! Hail! For She is the Lady of Life!

          Isis crowned!

 

 

 

 

A LITANY.

 

THE ghosts of abject days flit by;

     The bloated goblins of the past;

Dim ghouls in soulless apathy;

     Fates imminent, and dooms aghast!

O Mother Mout, O Mother Night,

Give me the Sun of Life and Light!

 

The shadows of my hopes devoured,

     The crown of my intent cast down,

The hate that shone, the love that lowered,

     Make up God’s universal frown.

O Lord, O Hormakhou, display

The rosy earnest of the day!

 

The mighty pomp of desolate

     Dead kings, a pageant, moves along;

Dead queens unite in desperate,

     Unsatisfied, unholy song.

O Khephra, manifest in flesh,

Arise, create the world afresh!

 

The silence of my heart is one

     With memory’s insatiate night;

I hardly dare to hope the sun.

     I seek the darkness, not the light.

O Lord Harpocrates, be still

The moveless centre of my will!

 

My sorrows are more manifold

     Than His that bore the sins of man.

My sins are like the starry fold,

     My hopes their desolation wan.

O Nuit, the starry one arise,

And set thy starlight in my skies!

 

In darkness, in the void abyss,

     I grope with vain despairing arms.

The silence as a serpent is,

     The rustle of the world alarms.

O Horus, Light in Darkness, bless

My failure with thine own success!

 

My suffering is keen as theirs

     That in Amenti taste of death;

Not mine own pains create these prayers:

     For them I claim the living Breath.

O Lord Osiris, bend and bring

All winters to thy sign of Spring!

 

Poor folly mine: I cannot see

     Save from one corner of one star!

So many millions over me;

     So many, and the next, how far!

O Wisdom-crowned Ta-hu-ti, lend

Thy magic: let my light extend!

 

I cannot comprehend one truth.

     My sight is biased, and my mind—

One snake-skin thought is of its youth;

     Grows old, and casts the slough behind.

O Themis, Lady of the plume,

Shed thy twin godhead in the gloom!

 

How ugly is this life of mine!

     How slimes it in the terrene mud!

Clouds hide the beauty all-divine,

     The moonlight has a mist of blood.

O Hathoor, Lady of the West,

Take thy sad lover to thy breast!

 

Even the perfumes of the dawn

     Intoxicate, deceive the soul.

Let every shadow be withdrawn!

     Let there be Light, supreme and whole!

O Ra, thou golden Lord of Day,

The Sun of Righteousness display!

 

The burden is so hard to bear.

     I took too adamant a cross;

This sackcloth rends my soul to wear;

     My self-denial is as dross!

O Shu, that holdest up the sky,

Hold thou thy servant, lest he die!

 

Nature is one with my distress.

     The flowers are dull, the stars are pale.

I am the Soul of Nothingness.

     I cannot lift the golden veil.

O Mother Isis, let thine eyes

Behold my grief, and sympathise!

 

I cannot round the perfect wheel,

     Attain not to the fuller end.

In part I love, in part I feel,

     Know, worship, will, and comprehend.

O Mother Nephthys, fill me up

Thine own perfection’s deadly cup!

 

My aspiration quails within me;

     “My heart is fixed,” in vain I cry;

The little loves and whispers win me:

     “Eli, lama sabacthani!”

O Chomse, moon-god, grant thy boon,

The silver pathway of the moon!

 

Beyond the Glory of the Dawn,

     Beyond the Splendour of the Sun,

Thy secret Spirit is withdrawn,

     The plumes of the Concealéd One.

Amoun! upon the Cross I cry,

I am Osiris, even I!

 

O Thou! the All, the many-named,

     The One in many manifest!

Let not my spirit be ashamed,

     But win to its eternal rest!

Thou Self from Nothing! bring Thou me

Unto that Self which is in Thee!

 

 

                         AMEN.

 

 

 

 

THE EPILOGUE IS

SILENCE.

 

 

 

 

CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.

TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON