THE MANTRA YOGI

Published in the U.K. Vanity Fair

London, England

3 March 1909

How should I seek to make a song for thee

When all my music is to moan thy name?

That long, sad monotone—the same—the same—

Matching the mute insatiable sea

That throbs with life’s bewitching agony

Too long to measure and too fierce to tame.

A hurtful joy, a fascinating shame

Is this great ache that grips the heart of me.

Even as a cancer, so this passion gnaws

Away my soul, and will not ease its jaws

Till I am dead. Then let me die! Who knows

But that this corpse committed to the earth

May be the occasion of some happier birth:

Spring’s earliest snowdrop? Summer’s latest rose?

Aleister Crowley