THE CAMP FIRE

Published in the U.K. Vanity Fair

London, England

26 May 1909

(page 655)

The meer is haunted, berylline that lies

Upon the enchaunted moor, bare to the skies.

Far as the eye leaps, there is nothing seen

But Mystery, the horizon hungry and lean

Like a slim snake encompassing the air.

Subtly the lake woos, like a virgin’s prayer.

No moon there was; no stars could pierce the blind

O’ertoppling mass of heaven; there was no wind.

There was no man, no beast; no sound or sight

Broke thy swart span, O brooding vulture, Night!

Where the tarn dwindled, was lost altogether,

I piled, I kindled the sparse twigs of heather

On one squat square stark rock; I struck my steel.

The sparks splash: flares the pyre, a wildering wheel

Of light that rolled, and lit the meer, and showed

A glint of gold in that inane abode.

Thus then I sate, and warmed me at the blaze,

Brooding like Fate upon my desert days.

Before the dawn, the pyre burnt through to ash,

The god withdrawn; effaced the golden gash!

I sate and shivered; so this pregnant breath

Must be delivered at the door of Death!

Poor petty torch to which our spirits flutter

Our wings to scorch! Ah, shall no angel utter

Some word to allay the universal doom?

All swept away into a dusty tomb!

My friend! who dreamt that dream of Permanence?

Are we exempt from any common sense?

Was not my fire warm while it burned? Am I

No living lyre because my songs must die?

Is not Becoming Being’s twin? Be mute!

Is Death’s low drumming louder than Life’s lute?

More, canst thou tell what god may watch thy beacon,

Feed it from hell or heaven ere it weaken

From some anointed scepter, fiery dew

For this appointed, that my soul win through?

Nay! all we know not anything. Yet raise

Though we must throw our hearts to feed its blaze,

The aspiring flame, the passionate glow, the bloom

Whose root is shame, whose fruit the trackless tomb.

I wail “I know not” louder and livelier

Who laugh, and go not, shaveling sinister!

To you for help, who snarl “I know” and grasp,

Mean mongrel! whelp! my bulging sporran’s clasp.

So, Swinburne sleep! That which is written is written.

I will not weep. The torch of song is smitten

Into dry stray leaves elsehow doomed for sure

To damp decay, Victorian manure,

Miasmal squelch, black slough to mire the Sun,

The stink and belch and snivel of Tennyson!

Hail and farewell, my brother! I am he

To plant in hell thy sunkissed sea-lily.

Thou hast lived! As I live, stars in midnight’s deep.

Thou hast died. All die; why boggle at the leap?

Serene and splendid blazed thy fire, night’s sun:

Thy task is ended, brother, thy work done,

There is no more to say that that; no dirge

Drone on thy shore, no pæan stir thy surge,

A period to life, death, heaven, and hell!

There is no God: hail, brother! and farewell!

Aleister Crowley.