A SLIM GILT SOUL

To Lord A——

     The pamphlet Writing on the Ground: Notes on a Speech made in the course of a Debate on “Honesty in Love” by Elizabeth Gwendolen Otter (E.G.O.) was privately published in 1913 by Aleister Crowley. Part of this pamphlet contained Crowley’s poem “A Slim Gilt Soul” and his review of Lord Afred Douglas’ 1896 book of verse, The City of the Soul. Crowley’s review was originally read before the Dilettante Society before publication in this pamphlet and was later dropped from the second edition after being deemed libelous.

Few men are given, ’twixt heaven and hell,

To play one part supremely well.

On all time’s tablets there are few

Who make a first-rate show of two,

While those who perfectly play three

We knew not, until you were he.

For what were lovelier on the lawn

Than you, pearl-naked to the dawn,

Wrapped in a scarlet dressing-gown

Not thirty miles from London town,

The “observed of all observers”— save

That Scotland Yard, serene and suave,

When trouble came, went tramping by;

Closed one, and winked the other eye.

How pleasantly you must have smiled:

“I left them, and I left them wild”:

Though certainly they had abhorred

The task of locking up a lord.

For a more tragic role you played

Your master neatly who betrayed.

His shame and torture turned your leer

To a snarl!—your drab’s smile to a sneer,

Quickened, when afterwards your help

He needed, to a currish yelp.

Now—so the wheel of Fortune whirls!—

Your kindly love for little girls

And ardour for the fine old faith

Makes all that past a wisp, a wraith.

You patronise our Sunday schools,

Pronounce on Grammar’s darkest rules,

Rebuke bad taste, irreverence,

Heresy, humbug, and pretence.

Your tepid verses come like boons

To cheer Suburban afternoons;

While Asquith, were he only wise,

Would bid a Board of Morals rise;

Sure no one like yourself can be

Past-Master in Virginity.

Stay! if so well you play the roles,

Why not enact dramatic scrolls?

You would be welcome on the stage

To amuse and to instruct the age

—A shining light in Opera-Bouffe:

Giton, and Judas, and Tartufe!