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L'INVITATION AU VOYAGE
Published in the U.K. Vanity Fair London, England 7 April 1909 (page 439)
Translated by Aleister Crowley
My sister, my child, How sweet to the wild To travel and live there together! At leisure to lie, To love and to die In thine own strange native weather! The watery suns Of those hot horizons Have the mystical charm of the years That mysterious lies In thy traitorous eyes As they glitter behind their tears.
There all is peace and ecstasy; Pleasure, calm, and luxury!
Furniture fine That the years make shine Shall stand in our own bedchamber. The rarest flowers Shed their scented flowers To tinge the vague rapture of amber. Arabesque is the ceiling, The mirrors revealing An Orient shining in splendor. How it all whispers The Spirit’s vespers In its speech—slow, secret, and tender!
There, all is peace and ecstasy; Pleasure, calm, and luxury!
The canals? See yonder Ships (glad to wander) Sleep sound with their wings close-furled: It is to fulfil Thy lightest will That they come from the end of the world. The sun as it falls Clothes the fields, the canals, The city itself in a robe Of azure and gold— The warm light shall enfold With slumber the passionate globe.
There, all is peace and ecstasy; Pleasure, calm, and luxury!
Translated by Aleister Crowley. |