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THE STAR AND THE GARTER
THE STAR &
THE GARTER
BY ALEISTER
CROWLEY
WATTS & CO. 17 JOHNSON'S COURT LONDON 1903
ΑΓΝΩΣΤΩ
ΘΕΩ
THE STAR AND THE GARTER.
I WHAT sadness closes in between Your eyes and mine to-day, my Queen? In dewfall of our glance hath come A chill like sunset’s in hot lands ’Mid iris and chrysanthemum. Well do I know the shaken sands Within the surf, the beaten bar Of coral, the white nenuphar Of moonrise stealing o’er the bay. So here’s the darkness, and the day Sinks, and a chill clusters, and I Wrap close the cloak: then is it so To-day, you rose-gleam on the snow, My own true lover? Ardently I dare not look: I never looked So: that you know. But insight keen We (laugh and) call not “love.” Now crooked The light swerves somehow. Do you mean— What? There is coldness and regret Set like the stinging winter spray Blown blind back from a waterfall On Cumbrian moors at Christmas. Wet The cold cheek numbs itself. A way Is here to make—an end of all? What sadness closes in between Your eyes and mine to-day, my Queen?
II You are silent. That we always were. The racing lustres of your hair Spelt out its sunny message, though The room was dusk: a rosy glow Shed from an antique lamp to fall On the deep crimson of the wall, And over all the ancient grace Of shawls, and ivory, and gems To cast its glamour, till your face The eye might fall upon and rest, The temperate flower, the tropic stems. You were silent, and I too. Caressed The secret flames that curled around Our subtle intercourse. Profound, Unmoved, delighting utterly, So sat, so sit, my love and I. But not to-day. Your silence stirs No answering rapture: you are proud, And love itself checks and deters The thought to say itself aloud. Oh! heart of amber and fine gold Silverly darting lunar rays! Oh! river of sweet passion rolled Adown invisible waterways! Speak! Did I wound you then unguessed? What is the sorrow unexpressed That shadows those ecstatic lids? A word in season subtly rids The heart of thoughts unseasonable. You are silent. Do they speak in hell?
III Is it your glance that told me? Nay! I know you would not look that way. Seeing, you strove to see not. Fool! I have ruined all in one rash deed. Learnt I not in discretion’s school The little care that lovers need? For see—I bite my lip to blood; A stifled word of anguish hisses:— O the black word that dams thought’s flood! O the bad lip that looked for kisses! O the poor fool that prates of love! Is it a garter, or a glove?
IV A fool indeed! For why complain, Now the last five-barred gate is ope, Held by a little boy? I hope The hour is handy to explain The final secret. Have I any? Yes! the small boy shall have a penny! Now you are angry? Be content! Not fee the assistant accident That shows our quarry—love—at bay? My silver-throated queen, away! Huntress of heaven, by my side, As moon by meteor, rushing, ride! Among the stars, ride on! ride on! (Then, maybe, bid the boy begone!)
V I am a boy in this. Alas! Look round on all the world of men! The boys are oft of genus “ass.” Think yourself lucky, lady, then, If I at least am boy. You laugh? Not you! Is this love’s epitaph, God’s worm erect on Herod’s throne? “Ah, if I only had not known!” All wrong, belovéd! Truth be ours, The one white flower (of all the flowers) You ever cared for! Ignorance May set its puppets up to dance; We know who pulls the strings. No sage; A man unwashed, the bearded brute! His wife, the mother-prostitute! Behind the marionetted stage See the true Punch-and-Judy show, Turn copper so to silver! Know, And who can help forgiving? So Said some French thinker. Here’s a drench Of verse unquestionably French To follow! so, while youth is youth, And time is time, and I am I, Too busy with my work to lie, Or love lie’s prize—or work’s, forsooth!— Too strong to care which way may go The ensuing history of woe, Though I were jaw, and you were tooth; So, more concerned with seeking sense Than worried over consequence, I’ll speak, and you shall hear, the truth.
VI Truth, like old Gaul, is split in three. A lesson in anatomy, A sketch of sociology, A tale of love to end. But see! What stirs the electric flame of eyes? One word—that word. Be destiny’s Inviolate fiat rolled athwart The clouds and cobwebs of our speech, And image, integrate of thought, This ebony anthem, each to each:— To lie, invulnerable, alone, Valkyrie and hero, in the zone, Shielded by lightnings of our wit, Guarded by fires of intellect Far on the mountain-top, elect Of all the hills divinely lit By rays of moonrise! O the moon! O the interminable tune Of whispered kisses! Love exults, Intolerant of all else than he, And ecstasy invades, insults, Outshines the waves of harmony, Lapped in the sun of day; the tides Of wonder flow, the shore subsides; And over all the horizon Glows the last glimmer of the sun. Ah! when the moon arises, she Shall look on nothing but the sea.
VII O love! and were I with thee ever! Come with me over the round earth, O’er lake and fountain, sea and river! Girdle the world with angel girth Of angel voyage! Shall we roam In teeming jungles poisonous? Or make ourselves an eyrie-home Where the black ice roars ravenous In glittering avalanche? Or else Hide in some corrie on the fells Of heather and bracken, or delight In grottos built of stalactite? Or be our lonely haunt the sand Of the Sahara: let us go Where some oasis, subtly planned For love, invites the afterglow! There let us live alone, except Some bearded horseman, pennoned, ride Over the waste of ochre, swept By wind in waves, and sit beside Our tent a little, bring us news Of the great world we have lost for—this! What fool exclaims—“to lose!”? To lose? Ah! earth and heaven for one small kiss! But he shall sing beside our fire The epic of the world’s desire; How Freedom fares, how Art yet revels Sane in the dance of dogs and devils. His thunder voice shall climb and crash, Scourge liars with tongue’s lightning lash, Through ranks of smitten tyrants drive, Till bosoms heave, and eyes outflash, And it is good to be alive. He shall ride off at dawn, and we Shall look upon our life again; You old, and all your beauty be Broken, and mine a broken brain. Yet we shall know; delighting still In the sole laughter death derides In vain; the indomitable will, Still burning in the spirit, guides Our hearts to truth; we see, we know How foolish were the things he said, And answer in the afterglow How good it is that we are dead. Will you not come? Or, where the surf Beats on the coral, and the palm Sways slowly in the eternal calm Of spring, I know a mound of turf Good for our love to lie on; good For breezes, and for sun and shade; To hear the murmur of the flood; To taste the kava subtly made To rouse to Bacchic ecstasy, Since Dionysus silently Faded from Greece, now only smiles Amid the soft Hawaian isles; Good, above all the good, to keep Our bodies when we sleep the sleep.
VIII Make me a roseleaf with your mouth, And I will waft it through the air To some far garden of the South, The herald of our happening there!
Fragrant, caressing, steals the breeze; Curls into kisses on your lips:— I know interminable seas, Winged ardour of the stately ships,
Space of incalculable blue And years enwreathed in one close crown, And glimmering laughters echoing you From reverend shades of bard’s renown:—
Nature alive and glad to hymn Your beauty, my delight: her God Weary, his old eyes sad and dim In his intolerable abode.
All things that are, unknown and known, Bending in homage to your eyes; We wander wondering, lift alone The world’s grey load of agonies.
Make me a roseleaf with your mouth, That all the savour steal afar Unto the sad awaiting South, Where sits enthroned the answering Star.
IX Will you not come: the unequal fever Of Paris hold our lives for ever? Were it not better to exceed The avenging thought, the unmeaning deed, Make one strong act at least? How small, How idiot our lives! These folk That think they live—which dares at all To act? The suicide that broke His chain, and lies so waxen pale In the Morgue to-day? Did he then fail? Ay, he was beaten. But to live, Slink on through what the world can give, That is a hound’s life too. For me, The suicide stands grand and free Beside these others. Was it fear Drove him to stand upon the bank? The Paris lights shone far and drear; The mist was down; the night was dank; The Seine ran easily underneath; The air was chill: he knew the Seine By pain would put an end to pain, And jumped,—and struggled against death, I doubt not. Ye courageous men That scorn to flee the world, ye slaves Of commerce, ye that ply the pen, That dig, and fill, and loathe your graves! Ye counter-jumpers, clergy, Jews, All Paris, smug and good, that use To point the index scorn, deride The courage of that suicide— I ask you not to quit us quite, But—will you take a bath to-night? Money might make you. Well: but he, What was his wage, what was his fee? Fear fiercer than a mortal fear. Be silent, cowards, leave him here Dead in the Morgue, so waxen pale! He failed: shall ye not also fail? Ah! love! the strings are little; The cords are over strong; The chain of life is brittle; And keen the sword of song. Will you not seize in one firm grip Now, as I hold you, lip to lip, The serpent of Event, hold hard Its slipping coils, its writhe retard, And snap its spine? Delicate hands You have: the work is difficult; Effort that holds and understands May do it: shall our foes exult, The daughters of Philistia laugh, The girls of Askalon rejoice, Writing for us this epitaph: “They chose, and were not worth the choice”? You are so pure: I am a man. I will assume the courage tried Of yonder luckless suicide, Any you—awaken, if you can, The courage of the courtezan!
X To sea! To sea! The ship is trim; The breezes bend the sails. They chant the necromantic hymn, Arouse Arabian tales.
To sea! Before us leap the waves; The wild white combers follow. Invoke, ye melancholy slaves, The morning of Apollo!
There’s phosphorescence in the wake, And starlight o’er the prow. One comet, like an angry snake, Lifts up its hooded brow.
The black grows grey toward the East: A hint of silver glows. Gods gather to the mystic feast On interlunar snows.
The moon is up full-orbed: she glides Striking a snaky ray Across the black resounding tides, The sepulchre of day.
The moon is up: upon the prow We stand and watch the moon. A star is lustred on your brow; Your lips begin a tune,
A long, low tune of love that swells Little by little, and lights The overarching miracles Of love’s desire, and Night’s.
It swells, it rolls to triumph-song Through luminous black skies; Thrills into silence sharp and strong, Assumes its peace, and dies.
There is the night: it covers close The lilies folded fair Of all your beauty, and the rose Half hidden in your hair.
There is the night: unseen I stand And look to seaward still: We would not look upon the land Again, had I my will.
The ship is trim: to sea! to sea! Take life in either hand, Crush out its wine for you and me, And drink, and understand!
XI I am a pretty advocate! My speech has served me ill. Perchance Silence had served: you now look straight On that clear evidence of France, The embroidered garter yonder. Wait! I had some confidence in fate Ere I spoke thus. For while I spoke The old smile, surely helpless, broke On your tired lips: the old light woke In your deep eyes: but silence falls Blank, blank: the species that appals, Not our old silence. I devise A motto for your miseries: “There an embroidered garter lies, And here words—they lie too?” I see Your intuition of the truth Is still in its—most charming—youth. You need that physiology!
XII I love you. That seems simple? No! Hear what the physiologist Says on the subject. To and fro The motor axis of the brain Hits on the cerebellum hard, Makes the medulla itch: the bard Twitches his spinal cord again, Excites Rolando’s fissure, and Impinges on the Pineal gland. Then Hippocampus major strikes The nerves, and we may say “He likes,” But if the umbilical cord Cut the cerebrum like a sword, And afferent ganglia, sensory bones, Shake in the caecum: then one groans “He likes Miss What’s your Name.” And if The appendix vermiformis biff The pericardium, pleura shoves The femur—we may say: “He loves.” Here is the mechanism strange (But perfectly correct) to change My normal calm—seraphic dew! Into an ardent love for you.
XIII Is there a soul behind the mask? What master drives these slaves to task Thus willing? Physiology Wipes the red scalpel, scorns reply. My argument to please you swerves, Becomes a mere defence of nerves. Why they are thus, why so they act, We know not, but accept the fact. How this for my peccation serves? Marry, how? Tropically! Pact I bind with blood to show you use For this impertinence—and add A proverb fit to make you mad About the gander and the goose, Till you riposte with all your force A miserable pun on sauce. The battle when you will! This truce I take in vantage, hold my course. I see mechanic causes reach Back through eternity, inform The stellar drift, the solar storm, The protoplasmic shiver, each Little or great, determinate In law for Fate, the Ultimate. If this be meaningless, much more Vacant your speech and sophic skill (My feminine and fair Escobar!) To prove mere circumstance is no bar Against the freedom of the will. However this may be, we are Here and not otherwhere, star to star! Hence then act thou! Restrain the “Damn!” Evoked by “I am that I am.” Perpend! (Hark back to Hamlet!) If You stand thus poised upon the cliff Freewill—I await that will; (One) laughter; (Two) the old kiss; (Three) silence after. No? Then vacate the laboratory! Psychology must crown the event, And sociology content, Ethics suffice, the simple story! (Oh! that a woman ever went Through course of science full and whole, Without the loss of beauty’s scent, And grace, and subtlety of soul. Ah God! this Law maketh hearts ache, “Who eateth shall not have his cake.”)
XIV Accept me as I am! I give All you can take. If you dislike Some fragments of the life I live, They are not yours: I scorn to strike One sword-swift pang against your peace. See! I’m a mountaineer. Release That spirit from your bonds: or come With me upon the mountains, cease This dull round, this addition sum Of follies we call France: indeed Cipher! And if at times I need The golden dawn upon the Alps, The gorges of Himalayan rock, The grey and ancient hills, the scalps Of hoary hills, the rattling shock Of avalanche adown the hills— Why, what but you, your image, fills My heart in these? I want you there. For whom but you do I ply pen, Talk with unmentionable men Of proofs and types—dull things!—for whom But you am I the lover? Bloom, O flower, immortal flower, love, love! Linger about me and above, Thou perfumed haze of incense-mist! The air hath circled me and kissed Here in this room, on mountains far, Yonder to seaward, toward yon star, With your own kisses. Yes! I see The roseate embroidery Yonder—I know: it seems to give The lie to me in throat and teeth. That is the surface: underneath I live in you: in you I live.
XV Will you not learn to separate The essential from the accidental, Love from desire, caprice from fate, The inmost from the merely mental? Our star, the sun, gives life and light: Let that decay, the aeons drown Sense in stagnation; death and night Smite the fallen fragments of the crown Of spring: but serves the garter so? What wandering meteor is this Across the archipelago Luminous of our starry bliss? Let that be lost: the smile disputes The forehead’s temple with the frown, When gravitation’s arrow shoots, And stockings happen to slip down. You are my heart: the central fire Whereby my being burns and moves, The mainspring of my life’s desire, The essential engine that approves The will to live: and these frail friends, The women I shall draw you, fail Of more importance to earth’s ends Than to my life a finger-nail. ’Twere pain, no doubt, were torn away One, a minute distemperature. I spend a fraction of the day Plying the art of manicure. But always beats the heart: the more I polish, tint, or carve, I ask Strength from the heart’s too generous store To bend my fingers to the task. Cease: I am broken: nought remains. The brain’s electric waves are still; No blood beats eager in the veins; The mind sinks deathward, and the will. It is no figure of boy’s speech, Lover’s enthusiasm, rhyme Magniloquent of bard, to reach Truth through the husk of space and time: No truth is more devout than this: “In you I live: I live in you.” Had Latmos not known Artemis, Where were the faint lights of that dew Of Keats? O maiden moon of mine, Imperial crescent, rise and shine!
XVI I was a fool to hide it. Here Phantoms arise and disappear, Obedient to the master’s wand. The incense curls like a pale frond Of some grey garden glory about This room; I take my sceptre out, My royal crown; invoke, evoke These phantoms in the glimmering smoke; And you shall see—and take no hurt— The very limb yon garter girt.
XVII I am a man. Consider first What we may learn, if but we will, From that small lecture I rehearsed With very Huxley’s strength and skill And clarity. What do I mean, Admitting manhood? This: to-day I fed on oysters, ris-de-veau, Beefsteak and grapes. Will you repay My meal with anger, rosy grow With shame because instead of you I went to feed chez Lavenue? The habit anthropophagous, Nice as it is, is not for us. I love you: will you share my life, Become my mistress or my wife? Agreed: but can your kisses feed me? Is it for dinner that you need me? But think: it is for you I eat. Even as the object that I see, The brain ’tis pictured in; the beat Of nerves that mean the picture are Not like it, but dissimilar. How can a nervous current be Like that Velasquez? So I find Dinner a function of the mind, Not like you, but essential to (Even it) my honest love of you. Consider then yon broidered toy In the same aspect! Steals no joy Glittering beneath the sad pale face?
XVIII Still grave, my budding Arahat? I see the crux of my disgrace Lies in the mad idea that—that!— Is not dissimilar, usurps The very function I have given Blissful beyond the bliss of heaven— Aha! there is a bird that chirps Another song. Here’s paint and brush And canvas. I will paint anon The limb yon garter once was on; Sketch you a nude—my soul—and nude The very human attitude We all assume—or else are posers. Such winners are the surest losers. I paint her picture, recognise— Dare you? one glimmer of her eyes Like yours, one shimmer of her skin Like that your flesh is hidden in, One laugh upon her lips enough Like yours for me to recollect, Remind, recall, hint? Never! Stuff! You are, as aye, alone, elect. Shall we then dive in Paris sewers? Ay! but not find you there, nor yet Your likeness. Did you then forget You are my love? Arise and shine! It was your blasphemy, not mine.
XIX A faint sweet smell of ether haunts Yet the remembrance. Hear the wizard His lone and melancholy chaunts Roared in the rain-storm and the blizzard! The ancient and devoted dizzard! Appear, thou dream of loveliness! She wore a rose and amber dress, With broidery of old gold. Her hair Was long and starry, gilded red. Her face was laughter, shapen fair By the sweet things she thought and said. Her whiteness rustled as she walked. Her hair sang tunes across the air. She sighed, laughed, whispered, never talked. She smiled, and loves devout and rare Flickered about the room. She stayed Still in the dusk: her body sang Out full and clear “O love me!” Rang The silver couplets undismayed, Bright, bold, convincing. In her eyes Glittered enamelled sorceries. She was a piece of jewel work Sold by a Christian to a Turk. She had fed on air that day: the flowers About her curled, ambrosial bowers Of some divine perfume: the soul Of ether made her wise; control Of strong distilled delight. She showered Wit and soft laughter and desire About her breasts in bliss embowered, And subtle and devouring fire Leapt in live sparks about her limbs. Her spirit shields me, and bedims My sight: she needs me: I need her. She is mine: she calls me: sob and stir Strange pulses of old passionate Imperial ecstasies of fate. Destiny; manhood; fear; delight; Desire; accomplishment; ere night Dipped her pale plumes to greet the sun She was not; all is past and done. A dream? I wake from blissful sleep, But is it real? Well, I keep An accidental souvenir Whence thus to chronicle small beer; There is the garter. Launched our boat, The stately pinnace once afloat, You shall hear all; we will not land On this or that mediate strand, Until the voyage be done, and we Pass from the river to the sea, And find some isle’s secluded nook More sacred than we first forsook.
XX Yes, there are other phases, dear! Here is a pocket-book, and here Lies a wee letter. Floral thyrse? Divine-tipped narthex of the pine, Or morphia’s deceitful wine? The French is ill, the spelling worse!— But this is horrible! This, me? The upholder of propriety, Who actually proposed to form A club to shield us from the swarm Of common people of no class Who throng the Quartier Montparnasse! I wear a collar: loudly shout That folk are pigs that go without,— And here you find me up a tree To make my concierge blush for me! A girl “uncombed, so badly dressed, So rudely mannered—and the rest; Not at all proper. Fie! away! What would your lady mother say?” I tell you, I was put to it To wake a wonder of my wit Winged, to avail me from the scorn Of my own concierge. Adorn The facts I might; you know them not; But that were just the one black blot On this love’s lesson: still, to excuse Myself to you, who could not choose But make some weak apology Before the concierge’s eye! True, you are far too high to accuse— Perhaps would rather not be told? You shall hear. Does a miner lose If through the quartz he gets to gold? Yes: Nina was a thing of nought, A little laughing lewd gamine, Idle and vicious, void of thought, Easy, impertinent, unclean— Utterly charming! Yes, my queen! She had a generous baby soul, Prattled of love. Should I control, Repress perhaps the best instinct The child had ever had? I winked At foolish neighbours, did not shirk. Such café Turc I made her drink As she had never had before; Set her where you are sitting; chatted; Found where the fires of laughter lurk; Played with her hair, tangled and matted; Fell over strict nice conduct’s brink, Gave all she would, and something more. She was an honest little thing, Gave of her best, asked no response. What more could Heaven’s immortal king Censed with innumerous orisons? So, by that grace, I recognized A something somewhere to be prized Somewhat. What portress studies song? My worthy concierge was wrong.
XXI Then let not memory shrink abashed, Once started on this giddy whirl! Hath not a lightning image flashed Of my divine boot-button girl? She is a dainty acrobat, Tailor-made from tip to toe; A tiniest coquettish hat, A laughing face alight, aglow With all the fun of life. She comes Often at morning, laughs aloud At the poor femm de ménage; hums Some dancing tune, invades my cloud Of idle dreams, sits poised upon The couch, and with a gay embrace Cries out “Hullo, my baby!” Shone Such nature in a holier face? We are a happy pair at least: Coffee and rolls are worth a feast, And laughing as she came she goes! The dainty little tuberose! She has a lithe white body, slim And limber, fairy-like, a snake Hissing some Babylonian hymn Tangled in the Assyrian brake. She stole upon me as I slept: Who wonders I am nympholept? Her face is round and hard and small And pretty—hence the name I gave her Of the boot-button girl. Appal These words? Ah, would your spirit save her? She’s right just as she is: so wise You look through hardly-opened eyes One would believe you could do better. Ma foi! And is your God your debtor? So, my true love, I paint you three Portraits of women that love me.
XXII These portraits, darling, are they yours? And yet there sticks the vital fact That these, as you, are women. Lures The devil of the inexact With subtle leasing? Nay! O nay! I’ll catch him with a cord, draw out By a bent fish-hook through his snout, Give to my maiden for a play. You, they, and dinner and—what else?— However unlike, coincide In composition verified Of final protoplasmic cells. Shall this avail to stagger thought, Confuse the reason, bring to nought The rosebud, in reflecting: Hem! What beauty hath the flower and stem? Carbon we know, and nitrogen, And oxygen—are these a rose? But this though everybody knows, That this should be the same for men They know not. Death may decompose, Reduce to primal hyle perchance— I shall not do it in advance! So let the accidental fact That these are women, fall away To black oblivion: be the pact Concluded firm enough to-day, Not thus to err. So you are not In essence or in function one With these, the unpardonable blot On knighthood’s shield, the sombre spot Seen on the photosphere of sun.
XXIII “Nay! that were nothing,” say you now, Poor baby of the weary brow, Struggling with metaphysic lore? “But these, being women, gave you more: “You spoke of love!” Indeed I did, And you must counter me unbid, Forgetting how we must define This floral love of yours and mine. That love and this are as diverse As Shelley’s poems and my verse. And now the bright laugh comes in spite Of all the cruel will can do. “I take,” you say, “a keen delight In Shelley, but as much in you.” There, you are foolish. And you know The thing I meant to say. O love! What little lightnings serve to show Glimpses of all your heart! Above All, and beneath all, lies there deep, Canopied over with young sleep, Bowered in the lake of nenuphars, Watched by the countless store of stars, The abiding love you bear me. Hear How perfect love casts flying fear Forth from its chambers! Those and this Are utterly apart. The bliss Of this small quarrel far exceeds That dervish rapture, dancer deeds Strained for egregious emphasis. These touch you not! You sit alone Passionless upon passion’s throne, And there is love. Look not below, Lest aught disturb the silver flow Of harmonies of love! Awake! Awake for love’s own solar sake! Diverse devotion we divide From the one overflowing tide. Despise this fact! So lone and far Lies the poor garter, that I gaze Thither; it casts no vivid rays. But hither? I behold the star!
Now your grave eyes are filled with tears; Your hands are trembling in my own; The slow voice falls upon my ears, An undulating monotone. Your lips are gathered up to mine: Your bosom heaves with fearful breath; Your scent is keen as floral wine, Inviting me, and love, to death. You, whom I kept, a sacred shrine, Will fling the portals to the day; Where shone the moon the sun shall shine, Silver in scarlet melt away. There is a yet a pang: they give me this Who can; and you who could have failed? Is it too late to extend the kiss? Too late the goddess be unveiled? O but the generous flower that gives Her kisses to violent sun, Yet none the less in ardour lives An hour, and then her day is done. Back from my lips, back from my breast! I hold you as I always will, You unprofaned and uncaressed, Silent, majestical, and still. Back! for I love you. Even yet Do you not see my deepest fire Burn through the veils and coverings set By fatuous phantoms of desire? Back! O I love you evermore. But, be our bed the bridal sky! I love you, love you. Hither, shore Of far unstained eternity! There we will rest. Beware! Beware! For I am young, and you are fair. Nay! I am old in this, you know! Ah! heat of God! I love you so!
XXV O what pale thoughts like gum exude From smitten stem of tropic tree! I talk of veils, who love the nude! Witness the masterpieces three Of Rodin that make possible Life in prosaic Paris, stand About the room, its chorus swell From the irritating to the grand. Shall we, who love the naked form, The inmost truth, to ourselves fail, Take shelter from love’s lightning-storm Behind some humbug’s hoary veil? Ah! were it so, love, could the flame Of fast electric fervour flash, Smite us through husk of form and name, Leave of the dross a little ash, One button of pure fusèd gold Identical—O floral hour! That were the bliss no eyes behold, But Christ’s delighted bridal dower Assuming into God the Church. But—oh! these nudes of Rodin! I Drag one more linnet from its perch That sang to us, and sang a lie. Did Rodin strip the clothes, and find A naked truth fast underneath? Never! Where lurks the soul and mind? What is the body but a sheath? Did he ply forceps, scalpel, saw, Tear all the grace of form apart, Intent to catch some final law Behind the engine of the heart? He tried not; whoso has, has failed. So, did I pry beneath the robe, Till stubborn will availed, nor quailed, Intimate with naked probe? I know the husks to strip; name, form, Sensation, then perception, stress Of nature thither; last, the swarm Of honey-bees called consciousness. These change and shape a myriad shapes. Diverse are these, not one at all. What gain I if my scalpel scrapes, Turning before some final wall Of soul? Not so, nothing is there. The qualities are all: for this I stop as I have stopped; intrude No science, for I love the fair; No wedlock, for I love the kiss; No scalpel, for I love the nude. And we await the deep event. Whate’er it be, in solitude; Silent, with ecstasy bedewed; Content, as Rodin is content.
XXVI I will not, and you will not. Stay! Do you recall that night of June When from the insufferable day Edged out the dead volcanic moon Solemn into midnight? You Shown your inviolate violet eyes Into my eyes less sad, and drew Back from the slender witcheries Of word and song: and silence knew What splendour in the silence lies, The soul drawn back into itself. It was the deep environing Wood that then shielded us: the elf And fairy in an emerald ring, And hamadryad of the trees, And naiad of the sleepy lake, That watched us on the mossy leas Look on each other’s face, and take The secret of the universe To sleep with us: you knew, and I, The purport of the eternal curse, The ill design of destiny. You know, and I, O living head Of love! the things that were not said.
XXVII Do you recall? Could I forget? How once the full moon shone above, Over the houses, and we let Loose rein upon the steeds of love? How kisses fled to kisses, rain Of fiery dew upon the soul Kindled, till ecstasy was pain; Desire, delight: and swift control Leapt from the lightning, as the cloud Disparted, rended, from us twain, And we were one: the aerial shroud Closed on us, shall not lift again For aught we do: O glamour grown Inseparable and alone! And then we knew as now the tune Our lives were set to, and sang back Across the sky toward the moon Into the cloud’s dissolving wrack, Vanished for ever. And we found Coprolite less than chrysolite, Flowers fairer than their food, the ground; We knew our destiny, saw how Man’s fate is written on his brow, And how our love throughout was hewn And masked and moulded by the moon.
XXVIII And who is then the moon? Bend close, And clothe me in a silken kiss, And I will whisper to my rose The secret name of Artemis. Words were not needed then: to-day Must I begin what never I thought To do: mould flowers in common clay? Mud casket of mere words is nought, When by love’s miracle we guess What either always thinketh. Yes?
XXIX So, love, not thus for you and me! And if I am man, no more, expect I shall remain so, till, maybe, The anatomist, old Time, dissect Me, nerve from flesh, and bone from bone, And raise me spiritual, changed In all but love for you, my own; The little matter rearranged, The little mind refigured. This Alone I hope or think to keep:— The love I bear you, and the kiss Too soft to call the breath of sleep. And, if you are woman, even there I do decline: we stand above. I ask not, and will take no share With you in what mankind call love. We know each other: you and I Have nought to do with lesser things. With them—’tis chance or destiny: With us, we should but burn our wings. We love, and keep ourselves apart: Mouth unto mouth, heart unto heart, Thus ever, never otherwise. The soul is out of me, and swings In desperate and strange surmise About the inmost heart of things. This is all strange: but is not life, Death, all, most strange, not to be told, Not to be understood by strife Of brain, nor bought for gleaming gold, Nor known by aught but love? And love Far from resolving soul to sense, Stands isolated and above Immaculate, alone, intense, Concentrate on itself. But should The lesser leave me, as it might; The lesser never touch you; would Your will be one with my delight? Leave all the thoughts and miseries! Invade the glowing fields of sun! Cross bleak inhospitable seas, Until this hour be past and done, And we in some congenial clime Are then reborn, where danger’s nought To mock the old Parisian time When fear was still the child of thought! So we could love, and love, and fate Never clang brutal on the gong, And lunch, man-eating tiger, wait Crouched in the jungles of my song; My gaze be steadfast on the star And never to the garter glide, And I on rapture’s nenuphar Sit Buddha-like above the tide.
XXX O bluebell of the inmost wood, Before whose beauty I abase My head, and bind my burning blood, And hide within the moss my face, I would not so—or not for that Would so: the gods knew well to save The mountain summit from the flat, Youth’s laughter from its earlier grave. It is a better love, exists Only because of these below it: Mountains loom grander in the mists: The lover’s foolish to the poet. I know. Far better strive and earn The rest you give me than remain Ever upon the heights that burn Sunward, and quite forget the plain. Beauteous and bodiless we are; Rapture is our inheritance; You shine, an everlasting star, I, the rough nebula: but whence, Whither, we know not. But we know That if our joy were always so We might not know it. Strange indeed This earth where all is paradox, Pushed to the truth: what lies succeed When every truth essential mocks Its truth in figure of a phrase? How should I care for this, and tire Body by will to sing thy praise, Who take this lute, throw down the lyre As I have done to-day, to win No guerdon differing from the toil, Were that accomplished: pain and sin Are needed for the counterfoil Of joy and love: if only so All men had these in keen excess Those were forgotten: indigo Is amber’s shadow, but—confess For all men but ourselves the tint Of all the earth is dull and black! Only some glints of love bestow The knowledge of what meteor wrack Trails pestilence across the sky. But we are other—you and I! So shall we live in deep content, Unchanging bliss, despise them still Groping on isle and continent Wreathed in the mesh of woe and ill? Ah! Zeus! we will not: be the law Of uttermost compassion ours! Our snows it shall not come to thaw, Nor burn the roses from our bowers.
XXXI Ay! There’s a law! For this recede, Hide with me in the deepest caves Of some volcanic island; bleed Our hearts out by the ambient waves Of Coromandel; live alone, Hermits of love and pity, far Where tumbled banks of ice are thrown, Watched by yon solitary star, Sirius; there to work together In sorrow and in joy but one, In black inhospitable weather, Or fronting the Numidian sun, Equally minded; till the hour Strike of release, and we obtain The passionless and holy power, Making us masters over pain, And lords of peace: the rays of light We fling to the awakening globe; The cavern of the eremite Shall glow with inmost fire, a robe Of diamond energy, shall flash Even to the confines of wide space; Comets their tails in fury lash To look on our irradiate face. And we will heal them. Dragon men And serpent women, worm and clod, Shall rise and look upon us then, And know us to be very God, Finding a saviour in the sight Of power attaining unto peace, And meditation’s virgin might Pregnant with twins—love and release. Are you not ready? Let us leave This little Paris to its fate! Our friends a little while may grieve, And then forget: but we, elate, Live in a larger air: awake, Compassion in the Halls of Truth! Disdain love for love’s very sake! Take all our beauty, strength, and youth, And melt them in the crucible To that quintessence at whose gleam Gold shudders and grows dull; expel The final dross by intimate steam Of glowing truth, our lunar light! Are you not ready? Who would stay? Arise, O Queen, O Queen of Night! Arise, and leave the little day!
XXXII Lady, awake the dread abyss Of knowledge in impassioned eyes! Fathom the gulphs of awful bliss With the poised plummet of a kiss!
Love hath the arcanum of the wise; Love is the elixir, love the stone; The rosy tincture shall arise Out of its shadowy cadences.
Love is the Work, and love alone Rewards the ingenious alchemist. Chaste fervours chastely overthrown Awake the infinite monotone.
So, Lady, if thy lips I kissed; So, lady, if in eyes of steel I read the steady secret, wist Of no gray ghosts moulded of mist;
I did not bid my purpose kneel, Nor thine retire: I probe the scar Of self, the goddess keen and real Supreme within the naked wheel
Of sun and moon and star and star, And find her but the ambient coil, Imagination’s avatar, A Buddha on his nenuphar
Elaborate of Indian toil; A mockery of a self; outrun Its days and dreams, its strength and spoil, As runs the conquering counterfoil.
Thou art not; thou the moon and sun, Thou the sole star in trackless night, The unguessed spaces one by one That mask their Sphinx, the horizon:
Thou, these; and one above them, light, Light of the inmost heaven and hell:— Art changed and fallen and lost to sight, Who wast as waters of delight.
And I, who am not, know thee well Who art not: then the chain divides From love-enlightened limbs, and swell The choral cries unutterable.
Out of the salt, out of the tides, The sea, whose drink is death by thirst. The triumph anthem overrides The ocean’s lamentable sides,
And we are done with life: accurst Who linger; lost who find; but we Follow the gold wake of the first Who found in losing; who reversed
The dictates of eternity. Lo! in steep meditation hearsed, Coffined in knowledge, fast we flee Unto the island from the sea.
XXXIII The note of the silence is changed; the quarrel is over That rather endeared than estranged: lover to lover Flows in the infinite river of knowledge and peace: Not a ripple or eddy or quiver: the monitors cease That were eager to warn, to awaken: a sleep is opposed, And the leaves of the rose wind-shaken are curled and closed; Gone down in the glare of the sun; and the twilight perfumes Steal soft in the wake of the One that abides in the glooms. Walking he is, and slowly; thoughtful he seems, Pure and happy and holy; as one would who dreams In the day-time of deep delights no kin to the day, But a flower new-born of the night’s in Hecate’s way. Love is his name, and he bears the ill quiver no more. He has aged as we all, and despairs; but the lady who bore Him, Eros, to ruin the ages, has softened at heart; He is tamed by the art of the sages, the magical art. No longer he burns and blisters, consumes and corrodes; He hath Muses nine for sisters; the holy abodes Of the maiden are open to him, for his wrath is grown still; His eyes with weeping are dim; he hath changed his will. We know him; and Venus sinks, a star in the West; A star in the even, that thinks it shall fall into rest. Let it be so, then! Arise, O moon of the lyrical spears! Huntress, O Artemis wise, be upon him who hears! I have heard thy clear voice in the moon; I have borne it afar; I have tuned it to many a tune; thou hast showed me a star, And the star thou hast showed me I follow through uttermost night. I have shaken my spear at Apollo; his ruinous might I have mocked, I have mastered. All hail to the Star of Delight That is tender and fervid and frail, and avails me aright! Hail to thee, symbol of love, assurance and promise of peace! Stand fast in the skies above, till the skies are abolished and cease! And for me, may I never forget how things came well as they are! It was long I had wandered yet ere my eyes found out the star. Be silent, love, and abide; the wanton strings must go To the vain tumultuous tide of the spirit’s overflow. I sing and sing to the world; then silence soon Be about us clasped and furled in the light of the moon. Forget not, never forget the terrible song I have sung; How the eager fingers fret the lute, and loose the tongue Tinkles delicate things, faint thoughts of a futile past— We are past on eagle wings, and the silence is here at last. The last low wail of the lyre, be it soft with a tear For the children of earth and fire that have brought us here. Give praise, O masterful maid, to Nina, and all as they die! The moon makes blackest of shade; the star’s in the swarthiest sky. Be silent, O radiant martyr! Let the world fade slowly afar! But—had it not been for the Garter, I might never have seen the Star.
ON ΟϒΝ ΑΓΝΟΩΝ ΕϒΣΕΒΕΙΣ
TOϒTON ΕΓΩ ΡΟΔΟΣ ΚΑΤΑΓΓΕΛΛΩ ΣΟΙ
APPENDIX
À MADEMOISELLE LE MODÈLE—DITE JONES
(To serve as Prelude to a possible Part II.)
In order to avoid the misunderstanding, which I have reason to believe exists, I append this simple personal explanation: let it serve, more-over, as the hors d’oeuvre to a new feast. For it is not manifest that who wrote so much when all was mystery, should write yet more now all is clear? It is perhaps due to you, the bedrock of my mountains of idealism, that I attained the magical force to make all those dreams come true: for that, then, this.
Further, should Nietzsche play you false, and supply no key to this Joseph confection; a kid glove and an ortolan are alike to him—and, if this be a haggis, much more is this the case!—you may apply to the only educated man in your neighbourhood, as you applied before in the matter of the Bruce Papyrus (I do not refer to Bruce Papyrus which all who run may read—all honour to the scribe!), and he will take pleasure in explaining it to you line by line, and letter by letter, if that will serve.
Possess yourself in patience, that is to say, and, should I return from the wilds into which my restless destiny so continually drives me, you may hope for a second part which shall excel the former as realism always must excel idealism.
I have no hope for your brain, and, I am sorry to add, as little for your heart; but there must be a sound spot in you somewhere [could you not be natural?—But no, no!], and that spot may yet be touched and healed by the Homocea1 of irritable, if never yet by the Lanoline2 of amoroso-emasculatory, verse. With this, then, farewell!
I
There is an eye through which the Kabbalist Beholds the Goat. There is an eye that I have often kissed. (That hath a throat.) There is an eye that Arab sages say Weeps never enough. There is an eye whose glances make the day The day of Love. There is an eye that is above all eyes, That is no eye. (Stood proud Anatta on the Bridge of Sighs And thundered “Why?”) Which eyes are mine, which thine, poor ape, discover, And even yet thou hast not lost thy lover.
II.
Khephra, thou Beetle-headed God! Who travellest in thy strength above The Heaven of Nu, with splendour shod Of Thoth, and girt about with Love! O Sun at midnight! in thy Bark The cynocephali proclaim Thy effulgent deity, and mark The adorations of thy name In seemly stations one by one, As thou encirclest blinder poles Than Khem or Ammon showed the sun In one-eyed sight of secret goals. So I adore, and sing: for I This magic monocle avow, Distorted from Divinity And wrought in subtler fashion now. An invocation shrined and sealed Be this! The many hear me not, Though I be vocal, thou revealed. I scorn the eye, uphold the—what Gods call the lotus poppy-hued, Brave wound of weeping Isis!—eye Of Demiourgos, understood Of none, O Lilly, ladily Laden with lays of Buddhist bard, Maiden with ways and bays of mirth, And music—is the saying hard? Shall “Cryptic Coptic” block the birth Of holy ecstasy? Forbid, Ye Gods, forbid! Posed block, you fail Of bulging heart by drooping lid. Can you not serve as finger-nail? Ay! God of scissors! barber God! My earlier mystery did you learn? Unshoe the aching pseudopod! Mysterious donkey, chew or churn Your human-kindness-milk to butter! I gave you gratis God’s advice (Since God’s responsible) to—mutter In gutter, pay your tithe to vice Since virtue kicks you down its stairs. So thus I clothed it in strange word To catch you thinking unawares. Think? do you think? Then, thinks a bird. Read your Descartes! Nietzsche demurred? To you, who give yourself such airs, This riddle cannot offer snares! “Love’s mass is holier than wine and wafer. “Thou couldst not beetle be: then, be cockchafer!” Hence my address, this swoodier Swood To Khephra, hence the ambiguous speech, The alluring analogue, the good, The loftiest heaven Art hopes to reach, The highest goal of man as man; The sly Paraprosdokian. You could not love! You could not serve The scouring of Love’s scullery! You, ῐσος Θέοισιν? Ha, you swerve Back to that subtler meaning! Few Can guess that miracle of reserve, That sacrament of mathematics, That threescore glee, that three times three, That added scream of hydrostatics! Not I, for one! Be assured, to fail With me no arrière-pensée lends. Fall once the penny, head or tail, I care not—all the less my friends! Faultlessly faulty! Regular In ice or fire, ’tis nullness counts. So, spring of those Parnassian founts, A thousand garters heralded Thy flawless solitary star: A million garters shall bested The poet’s turn, when, lone and far, All are dismissed: Some man, low brute, Cry “Shame, O star that would not shoot, And yet went out!” But I, my dear, (Good-bye!) get neither shriek nor groan: Kiss, curse, cat’s hiss, I shall not hear, My dear, for I shall be alone.
III.
What change of language! Ah, my dear, The reason is not far to seek. You know of old how oft I veer From French to Zend, from Jap to Greek. Teste der titre polyglot Del Berashith, χαλος kitab! I trust you take me, do you not? But change of thought—ay! there’s the barb To stick and quiver in your heart! Well, little lady, what of art?
IV.
All things are branded change. My thought Long ran in one delicious groove. Now newly sits the appointed court To try another case, to prove Another crime. Last week the law Dealt with the garter’s gross offence. You were the Judge, enthroned on awe: I wove that eloquent defence, Unwove that Rhadamanthine frown Which I had made myself, my star; For I was counsel for the crown, And I the prisoner at the bar. Did you not see—the sight is sad!— How tiny was the part you played, How little use the poet had Even in Maytime for a maid? Why! all’s a whirl; but I, be sure, Am axle, if at all I be; So you, if yet your light endure, Are model, and no more, to me. So well you sit, though, you shall earn Beyond your hourly increment A knowledge. Are you fit to learn, Or will you rather be content With muddled mighty talk of Teutons Evolving from the tangled Skein, Neitzsche’s research compared to Newton’s In some one’s Enervated brain. (Did I say—brain?) I’ll talk, and you Listen or not, as best beseems Your lily languor. Irish stew Shall float like dewdrops in your dreams. So shall my new Apocalypse Appear to you, my model! Once You saw a languor on my lips, A dawn of many molten suns, And laughed in springtide of delight; But now eclipse inveils your mood Of me: descends artistic night; I see a sun called solitude. So models kiss, and understand So far: the picture moves them not. By label they approve the grand; By critic’s candour rave o’er rot. But, let me hoist you Thornycroft, And cry “Behold this Rodin!” bring Some Poynter, lift the thing aloft, Announce a Morice, see you fling Your soul on knees in fervid praise:— If so—Off, Lilith! runs the phrase. Now, is no barb upon the dart? Now, little lady, What of art?
V.
Moreover (just a word) this chance I fling you over space—for luck! This Scotland yet may catch your France, My crow grow germane to your cluck. See art: see truth as I who see, (Am wellnigh fallen in the fight!) Then the last lie, duality, May break before the victor sight. Then, and then only, That. Sweet hours Of trivial passion deep as death, Ye are past: I face the solemn powers Of sex and soul, of brain and breath. For you I lift the veil: discover The actual, for I was your lover. What should such word imply? I showed Late, in the earlier dithyramb. But—in yon stone there lurks a toad!— The Quarter bleats no palinode; Goat it may be, no woolly lamb. Arithmetic assuage your wrath Should Cambridge wit write quarter 'fourth'! What said the unctuous slime of art, Scrapings of beauty’s palette, pimps Of serious studios, stews or mart Of filth, not vice? Those painter shrimps! What did they gloat upon, delight To think of better folk than they? Hear then their oracle of might, The sortes of a Balaam bray. Through muddy glasses Delphi squints; Cowards lack words and glut on hints.
VI.
Sibyl says nothing—she’s a Sphinx! I wonder, though, what Sibyl thinks. She argues “he would have her grow So fell a Trixy—point device!— His Dante to her Beatrice Should seem—let music’s language show:— Andante move to Allegro, Alas for pianissimo!” And, in return, suspects I don One glory more than Solomon: “Rocks cannot satisfy the coney; Lingerie’s always worth the money.” In fine, flop, German, from thy throne! Leave Greek and Papuan alone! What foreign tongues be worth our own? Is Armour jointed unawares? Is Canning King, as Carlyle swears? This is indeed Cumaean lore— Ah well, ’tis pity!—say no more! There’s one and twenty for your score, Ah, how your divination slewed awry, Ye purrient guttersnipes of prudery! We know as much, my girl! We laughed, And still can laugh at Barbercraft Plied thus askew. Then leave them so! Evoke the ancient afterglow Rose on our sacramental snow Of silent love, of mountain grace. Remember the old tenderness Even in these bitter words that press Their ardent breast, their iron face, Out to expression. Ay! remember The ancient phantom fire of flowers, The druid altars of December, The Virgin priestess, the dread hours Of solemn love. Then quail before The deadly import of my word! Forget your silly self, and store Its vital horror, stabbed and spurred To fearful pace and torture wild Deep in your true heart’s core, my child! For though I strip you bare, and run My red-hot iron through your flesh, There is a citadel that none May touch—not God! The rotten rest Evacuate; be seated there. Let there be music, and Rome burn! Then you may climb to be aware How well you serve my idle turn, Yet to yourself avail. There too Lies a last doubtful chance for you. Behold who dare! (Ay, you are fain!) Purblind with prejudice? No vision. Palsied with passion? Sight in vain. Stupid with sense of self? Division. Picture, not model? Then you win. I painted soul, who saw your skin:— Be soul! That saves you. If you fail, Why, then, you fail! Enough of this— (Read not again Macbeth amiss!) Give me one customary kiss— An end of it! I rend the veil. The flag falls for the Stakes of Song. Run, filly, for the odds are long!
1 Latin, Homo, a man. Cea, waxen; hence, an angry man. 2 Tibetan, La, a pass; English, no, No! Greek Linos, a dirge; hence, a temporary pæan.
SLUGS ON STRAWBERRIES
“Self-abuse is no recommendation.” Possibly, but the abuse of journalism is. For this reason I reprint only adverse criticisms, not specifying the paper whence they are drawn: the breed of slug would interest only the expert: and I do not write for him.
“Mannerism and affectations predominate.”
“Leaves no very strong impression.”
“Drivel.”
“A most unsatisfactory performance.”
“The book is not one that can be recommended to the young.”
“A vein of skepticism and licentiousness.”
“Heaven forfend.”
“Absurdity.”
“Cryptic type.”
“Tends to turgidity.”
“A coming poet.”
“You have to pause, and corrugate the brow.”
“There is no need to compare the writer with any other; but if we had to elect (? select) we should declare for Milton.”
“The roar of an idol-breaker who is in danger of breaking his own head.”
“Not altogether unworthy of Mr Swinburne’s earlier muse.”
“Most offensive remarks.”
“Wordy, never deep or simple.”
“Excessively smart and clever.”
“Sins against good taste.”
“A young man.”
“A riot of words without much thought at the back of them.”
“A bad lapse of judgment.”
“More sensual than sensuous.”
“We do not like ‘dawny’ and ‘frondage.’ ”
“Full of large patriotic ideas.”
“Confused and clamorous.”
“Rampantly melodramatic.”
“Vapourish.”
“His scholarship is evident.”
“Splendid nonsense.”
“A dictionary let loose.”
“Poor pieces and many faults.”
“Share Blake’s impenetrable simplicity of form.”
“Suggest the names of Goethe and of Baudelaire.”
“By no means unworthy of Rosetti.”
“Similar preoccupations direct the muse of Mr Francis Thompson.”
“Mr Crowley’s talent.”
“Crowley and Michelet.”
“Vicious scorn of all the world.”
“Influence of Edgar Allen Poe.”
“Bathos and Banality.”
“The writer may improve.”
“Youthful affectations.”
“Windy stuff.”
“The grammar is shaky.”
“In the Shelleyan vein.”
“The boyish production of a lad with a very musical ear.”
“Incoherent.”
“Childish rubbish.”
“Beautiful with wide margins and rough edges.”
“A somewhat treacly prose aberration.”
“Butter-woman’s method.”
“The unclean is flaunted before our eyes.”
“Quite unsuitable for the perusal of the white maidens of England.”
“Ambitious verse.”
“Cannot the rose and the lily bloom side by side?”
“A book of wandering cries.”
“Not unworthy of the author of ‘Adonais.’ ”
“Not a very pretty story.”
“Not good taste.”
“Earliest and worst manner of Keats . . . one looks in vain for even a fitful glow of the poetry which makes it possible—once in a lifetime—to read to an end of Keat’s (sic) ‘prentice work.”
“Echoes of Keats, Mr Swinburne, Tennyson, and sometimes Mr Gilbert.”
“Has sought expression for the highest form of bodily love and has found it without voluptuousness, his song is as clear and free from the pollution of sensuality as ‘Songs of the Spirit’ are free from morbidness and décadence.
“Very excited verse.”
“Redolent of blood and God and kisses, sharp swords, lilies and fire.”
“Cambridge among whose sons apparently Mr Crowley is to be numbered . . . better poets than him.” (Sic! This slug I must identify; it is the Cambridge Review, the organ of the Cambridge Don!!!)
Jephthah and Other Mysteries. This is a book of verse by a Mr Crowley and I cannot conceive why some of it has been printed. Therein is one of the mysteries. (Kegan Paul & Co., p.)
But. But how different is ‘Soldierin’ by J.A.N. There are the true drum-beat, the true fife-note, the tightening of the tension of the fighting hour.
“It is strange that anybody with an ear for poetry could tolerate the last line.”
“A hero worshipper.”
“Mr W. B. Yeats and the author of ‘The Soul of Osiris.’ ”
“A clotted mass of willful emotional symbols.”
“A kind of middle-class Swinburne at second hand . . . a windbag foaming at the mouth . . . the morbid unpleasantness of Mr Crowley’s taste . . . a drama of incest, crudely and violently treated. Some of the shorter poems are worse.”
“A sinister rival to the mutoscope.”
“Veils a morbidly exaggerated Catholicism under an ultra-Egyptian passion for death.”
“A lack of virility.”
“The usual lunar influence was not abated by the sun’s interposition (sic).”
“Akin to . . . Vivon and Verlaine.”
“Tempestuous verse.”
“This histrionic hate.”
“Wearisome recurrence of ‘shameless eyes.’ ”
“This fearfully prophetic poem.”
“The poser of insanity.”
“The poet always knows what he is saying.”
“His uncompromising completeness.”
“Bizarre and turgid.”
“At once verbose and dry.”
“The manner of Swinburne mingled with that of Browning.”
“This volume demands emphatic protest from all lovers of literature and decency . . . the suggestive exposition of the obscene.” . . . etc. ad nauseaum.
And all this may be found in the Works of Aleister Crowley Which are as follows:
Aceldama. [Out of print. Songs of the Spirit. The Tale of Archais. Jephthah and other Myateries, &c. Jezebel and other Poems. [Out of print. Mostly reprinted in “The Soul of Osiris.” An Appeal to the American People. The Mother's Tragedy, &c. (Privately Printed.) Carmen Saeculare. The Soul of Osiris. Tannhäuser. [Of Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Dryden House, 43 Gerrard Street, W.
Also
Berashith. [Out of print. Reprinted in “The Sword of Song.” Summa Spess. [Out of print. Ahab. [Of the Chiswick Press, Took’s Court, E.C. (As Editor) Alice [Out of print. (As Editor) The Goetia of the Lemegeton of King Solomon The Argonauts. The Sword of Song. The God-Eater. [Of Chas. Watts, 17 Johnson’s Court, E.C.
In Preparation
The Lover's Alphabet.
PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS, EDINBURGH |