THE ROCK

By Michael Fairfax [Aleister Crowley]

Published in the English Review

New York, New York, U.S.A.

October 1922

(pages 285-286)

Seaward my terrace—seaward from

Is open; iris and geranium

Fledge it; beyond, the wardens of my will,

Stand olive, mulberry, almond; stern and still

Cypress and ilex. Then uprears its dumb

Portent the Rock, the town's Palladium—

Callous to its man-vermin's good or ill

For æons past, for chiliads to come!

The sea's eternal siege, the sky's disdain,

The earth's convulsions have not stirred its base.

The generations in their senseless pain,

Their aimless effort, their blind dreams insane

Have left but orts of rubble on its face.

Was this a temple? That a market place?

Here fortress? Cistren there? Beshrew thee, brain!

Guess, fancy, rhetoric cannot cloud the case!

Man—canst not thou hold memory of man?

Canst thou not read, thine own sires' testament?

Scornful, I spurn the ruins, and I scan

Sea, sky, and rock; I scrutinise the plan

Of Nature—is some Titan hugely pent

Under that bulk in rage by Vulcan rent?

Is it a God's throne? An Olympian

Altar? Or all planned? Gross accident?

I search my heart, I count life, scar by scar,

Explore the ruins of age on age of thought

And act—few years, but full—my fame, a star,

My love, aflame, my work, a tower—that are

Yet extant. But their meaning? They are naught.

I knew not what I did, nor what I sought.

Intelligence? Insuperable bar

To the enjoyment of all manly sport!

Its ruins fret not, wear not the rock.

Eternity ignores Time's trickle of sands.

Space compensates all motion, pens the flock

Of stars in silence. The event will mock

The agitation of the gods, whose hands

Twist, untwist, tangle, disentangle strands

To end where they began—shock counters shock—

I build life and I wreck it. The soul stands.