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Green Alps
The poems below are from Green Alps, a volume that was never issued. It was going to be published by Leonard Smithers, however, it was never issued, since the sheets were destroyed at a fire. Only part of the page-proofs survive in a unique copy at the Warburg Institute They constitute Yorke Collection OS G1 pp 81-107 and dedicatory poem.
The page proofs include the “Dedication poem to G.G.” and pages 81 to 107, which is the Epilogue. The poems are “My Wife Dies,” published in Oracles, “A Mathilde,” “Rondel,” “A Friend of Publicans and Sinners,” and “Six Sonnets to Belle” not published elsewhere. The following translations from B together with Epilogue were published in Oracles. They include “Cain and Abel,” “The Litany of Satan,” “”Femmes Damnees,” “Carrion,” “The Denial of Saint Peter,” “Gloire et Louange,” “The Fount of Blood,” “La Beatrice,” “Le Vin du Solitaire,” and “Epilogue.” Four of the poems and six sonnets only survive in these proof sheets.
Per Crowley's Confessions:
On Page 95 of the page proofs Crowley has written:
In an undated letter to Gerald Kelly he writes:
DEDICATION
We two, crag-perched, have watched the moon revive The drowsy glaciers, and strike sharp upon Black precipice of ice, and columned stone, And seen the sun's first arrows glance, and drive The stars from their pavilion; like a hive Stirred by the lightning. The resistless sun Shatters the crags; and every bastion, With splintered rock and icicle alive, Seems to delight in morning. This we saw, Alone, together, on the mountain's edge. And now, though shadows on Arolla sink, And old Mont Collon's icy cliffs withdraw, Clear memory pencils out the little ledge, And bonds of friendship forge a fresher link.
To G. G.
MY WIFE DIES “And Marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.”—Swinburne.
The sun of love shone through my love’s deep eyes And made a rainbow of her tender tears, And on her cheeks I saw a blush arise When her lips opened to say, loverwise, “I love”—and light broke through the cloud of fears That hid her eyes.
The storm of passion woke in her red lips, When first they clung to mine and rested there; Lightnings of love were eager to eclipse That earlier sunshine, and her whole soul clips My soul—I kissed out life, within her hair Upon her lips.
We parted lips from lips and soul from soul To new strange passions in unholy lands, Where love’s breath chars and scorches like a coal. So she is dead to-day—the sweet bells toll A lost, lost soul, a soul in Satan’s bands, A lost, lost soul!
A MATHILDE
A cruel love, to rend the hoary veil Of cynic hatred of mankind, and scorn Of all things virtuous, seeing there is born Within me now, with strange desire grown pale, A newer sweetness in the nightingale, Till I see good again. Thy love has torn Philosophy's pale texture, and outworn The sophist's falsehood and the cynic's tale.
A cruel love—I find in Magdelene Seven angels with the seven devils wed! I find true love where I had not sought to find A spirit to reflect my own obscene And dead desire that scoffed at love—instead Love comes: we part: I perish: Fate is blind!
RONDEL
Yes, we are lovers, lovers at last! You, with a breast like the snowy plover's; I, with the swart hair vague and vast.— Yes, we are lovers.
Dreams go by while the darkness hovers. Light smiles come and are lightly past. Lips that are free are the freest rovers!
What care, anyway? Fate has cast Dice that the dawning of death discovers. For the hour, it is bliss if you hold me fast— Yes, we are lovers.
A FRIEND . . . OF PUBLICANS AND SINNERS
Through ivory gates there flew this dream to me: My black soul groped at the blind gates of heaven, Stained with foul longings, with bad deeds for leaven, And never a hope to lend it liberty, And groping, grew insane with sheer despair; When there came one, a spirit more than chaste, One noble figure, naked to the waste, Clad in the flashing glories of gold hair.
And she, in woe like mine, “Ah love, with thee I am one damned, and must here abide Without the portal of eternal bliss.” Then light grew on us, and there came to me The knowledge heaven was here by her sweet side, And our twain bodies were one living kiss.
SONNETS TO BELLE
I
Water's faint glimmer to the troubled sky,
II
We never spoke, but drew to either's breast;
III
Brown limbs, white breasts, and lips that bud to kiss, Soft rounded arms, dear eyes that shine with love! Sweet spirits haunt the daisies far above And look, half envious of the joy of this. Yield me once more the fierce light thereof, The fierce delight of love's forgetfulness, All-glorious passion, grant my longing eyes! My hot kiss tingling on thy lips at last After the silence of the long caress, Half wakes the ears alone with lingering sighs, Languishing sobs. The sun's embrace is cast Around the tender Orient to beget Breezes for daughters. O the night is past Through which we've loved, and are not weary yet
IV
Not weary yet, but on the vast of Sleep Steals Summer's kiss to waken into day: Rose gathers daintily upon the grey, And tinges all the blueness of the steep With the pale violet's timid lustre. Light Slowly creeps onward from the distant deep, And bathes my love's soft shining eyes with fire! Rise up, dear heart, and while the sky grows bright And kindles heaven to one almighty pyre, Lave our loosed limbs in water tinged with gold, Play in the diamond sparkles clear and cold Splashed from the fountain's depths of chrysolite: And after, kiss once more; we cannot tire. Before we part, once more fulfil desire!
V
Once more fulfil desire, and then the day Will part fond bosoms and sweet lips, and make The sun's swift rush seem but the solemn march Of weary funeral, and will take away The joy of clinging kisses. And the lake Shall seem the grave of love; and the fair larch Shall seem the willow, or the cypress' gloom; The birds shall seem but mourners at the tomb; The golden luminous pencils that may shake Through ripples on the breeze-waved pools shall parch Wearying eyes with lust of lingering night; The world of love shall sigh till sunlight fade, And only waken with the delicate shade That comes to lovers' prayer, with fingers tight.
VI
Good-bye, dear love, the heaven is not so steep The lazy sun may not assay to climb We leave our kisses trembling on the tips Of long-held fingers, while our voices weep That Love must yield his empire unto Time. O Love, before I leave thee, melt thy lips On mine, lie down once more upon the lea, As if we were but just awake from sleep, And let me kiss thee, and, caressing thee, Forget all else in Love's last ecstasy. Joy fadeth not; but I am like to die While daylight's laggard moments idly creep: Till Night's dark chariot ride upon the deep, Good-bye, dear heart, and yet again, good-bye.
TRANSLATIONS
from
BAUDELAIRE
CAIN ET ABEL
Seed of Abel, eat, drink, sleep! God shall smile complaisantly. Seed of Cain, in the muck-heap Crawl and miserably die!
Seed of Abel, thine oblation Sweet to Seraphim doth smell: Seed of Cain, shall thy damnation Ever find the bounds of Hell?
Race of Abel, see thy seed And thy cattle flourish more! Race of Cain, for hunger’s need, Like a dog thy bowels roar.
Seed of Abel, warm thy paunch At the patriarchal hall! Seed of Cain, on shivering haunch Squat in cave, despised jackal!
Seed of Abel, love and swarm! So thy gold shall also grow. Seed of Cain, heart over-warm, Guard thy lust and crush it low!
Seed of Abel, grow, well-faring Like the bugs in forest beats! Seed of Cain, at bay, despairing, Throw thy children on the streets!
II Seed of Abel, carrion Shall make fat the smoking soil. Seed of Cain, on thee has none Laid sufficient woes of toil.
Seed of Abel, this thy shame— To the boar-spear yields the sword. Seed of Cain, to heaven flame, And to earth cast Heaven’s Lord!
THE LITANY OF SATAN
O thou, of Angels fairest and most wise, God by Fate’s treachery shorn of liturgies!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
O Prince of Exile, Sufferer of wrong, Whose vengeance, conquered, rises triply strong!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Who knowest all, of under earth the king, Familiar healer of man’s suffering!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Who to the leper, even the cursed pariah, Hast taught by love the taste of heavenly fire!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Thou who on Death, thine old and strong leman, Begottest Hope—a charming madwoman!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Who knowest in which caves of envious lands God has hid precious stones with jealous hands!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Thou whose clear eye discerns the arsenals deep, Where the small folk of buried metals sleep!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Whose broad hand hides the giddy precipice From sleepers straying about some edifice!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Whose skill makes supple the old bones, at needs, Of the belated sot, ’mid surging steeds!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Who taught frail man, to make his suffering lighter, Consoling, to mix sulphur with salt nitre!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
O subtle complice, who as blatant Beast Brandest vile Croesus, him that pities least!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Who in girls’ eyes and hearts implantest deep Lust for the wound, the twain that wound bids weep!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Staff of the exiled, the inventor’s spark, Confessor of hanged men and plotters dark!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Adopted sire of whom black wrath and power Of God the Father chased from Eden Bower!
O Satan, have pity of my long misery!
Femmes Damnées
Like pensive cattle couched upon the sand They turn their eyes to ocean’s distant ring; Feet seek each other, hand desires hand, With langour sweet and bitter shuddering.
Some, hearts love-captured with long whispering, Spell out the love of timorous childhood, Where babbles in deep dell the gentle spring, And dive among the young trees of the green wood.
Other, like sisters, slowly, with grave eyes, Cross the rocks filled with apparitions dim, Where Antony beheld, like lavers, rise The nude empurpled breasts that tempted him.
Some, by the dying torch-light call thy name, In the dumb hollow of old pagan fanes, To succour feverish shriekings of fierce flame, O Bacchus, soother of men’s ancient pains.
Others, whose throat is thirsty for breast-blood, To hide a whip ’neath flowing robes are fain, Mingling in lonely night and darksome wood The foam of pleasure and the tears of pain.
O virgins, demons, monsters, O martyrs! Great souls contemptuous of reality! Seekers for the Infinite, satyrs, worshippers, Now mad with cries, now torn with agony!
You whom my soul has followed to your hell, Poor sisters, more beloved than wept by me, For your fierce woes, your lusts insatiable, And the urns of love that fill the hearts of ye!
Carrion
Recall, my soul, the sight we twain have looked upon This summer morning soft and sweet, Beside the path, an infamous foul carrion, Stones for its couch a fitting sheet.
Its legs stretched in the air, like wanton whores Burning with lust, and reeking venom sweated, Laid open, carelessly and cynically, the doors Of belly rank with exhalations foetid.
Upon this rottenness the sun shone deadly straight As if to cook it to a turn, And give back to great Nature hundredfold the debt That, joining it together, she did earn.
The sky beheld this carcase most superb outspread As spreads a flower, itself, whose taint Stank so supremely strong, that on the grass your head You thought to lay, in sudden faint.
The flies swarmed numberless on this putrescent belly, Whence issued a battalion Of lavrae, black, that flowed, a sluggish liquid jelly, Along this living carrion.
All this was falling, rising as the eager seas, Or heaving with strange crepitation— Was’t that the corpse, swollen out with a lascivious breeze, Was yet alive by copulation?
And all the carcase now sounded strange symphonies Like wind, or running water wan, Or grain that winnower shakes and turns, whene’er he plies With motion rhythmical his fan.
The shapes effaced themselves; no more their images Were aught but dreams, a sketch too slow To tint the canvas, that the artist finishes By memory that does not go.
Behind the rocks a bitch unquietly gazed on Ourselves with eye of wrathful woe, Watching her time to return unto the skeleton For tit-bits that she had let go.
Yet you are like to it, this dung, this carrion, To this infection doubly dire, Star of my eyes that are, and still my nature’s sun, You, O my angel! You, my own desire!
Yes! such will you be, queen, in graces that surpass, Once the last sacraments are said; When you depart beneath wide-spreading blooms and grass To rot amid the bones of many dead.
Then, O my beauty! tell the worms, who will devour With kisses all of you to dust; That I have kept the form and the essential power Divine of my distorted lust.
The Denial of St. Peter
I What makes God then of all the curses deep That daily reach his Seraphim divine? Like to a tyrant gorged with meat and wine, Our blasphemous music lulleth him to sleep.
II Tears of the martyrs, and saints tortured, Must prove intoxicating symphonies, Since, spite of blood-price paid to gain them ease, The heavens therewith are not yet satiated.
III Jesus! recall Gethsemane afresh, Where thy simplicity his pity sought Who in his heaven heard, and mocked for nought, Coarse hangmen pierce with nails thy living flesh.
IV When on thy godhead spat the virulence Of scum of soldiery and kitchen-knaves; When thou didst feel the thorns pierce bloody graves Within thy brain where Manhood burnt intense;
V When thy bruised broken body’s horrid weight Racked thy stretched arms, that sweat and blood enow Coursed down the marble paleness of thy brow, Lift up on high, a butt for all men’s hate:—
VI Dreamedst thou then of those triumphant hours When, that the eternal promise might abide, Thy steed a mild she-ass, thou once didst ride On roads o’erstrewn with branches and fresh flowers;
VII When, thy heart beating high with hope and pride, Thou didst whip out those merchants vile with force, At last the master? Did not keen remorse Bite thy soul ere the spear had pierced thy side?
VIII I, certes, I shall gladly quit this hell Where dream and action walk not hand-in-hand! May I use the brand and perish by the brand! Saint Peter denied Jesus. He did well.
Gloire et Louange
Glory and praise to thee, O Satan, in the height Of Heaven, where thou didst rule, and in the night Of Hell, where conquered, dost dream silently! Grant that one day my soul ’neath Knowledge-Tree Rest near thine own soul, when from thy forehead Like a new temple all its branches spread.
The Fount of Blood
Sometimes I think my blood in waves appears, Springs as a fount with music in its tears; I hear it trickling with long murmuring sound, But search myself in vain to find the wound.
Across the city, as in closèd meres, Making the pavements isles, it disappears; In it all creatures’ thirst relief hath found; All nature in its scarlet hue is drowned.
I have often prayed these fickle wines to weep For one day Lethe on my threatening fear— Wine makes the ear more sharp, the eye more clear.
I have sought in Love forgetfulness and sleep— My love’s a bed of needles made to pierce, That drink be given to these women fierce!
La Beatrice
As I one day to nature made lament In burnt-up lands, calcined of nutriment, As in my musing thought’s vague random dart I slowly poised my dagger o’er my heart, I saw in full noon o’er my forehead form A deathly cloud far pregnant with the storm, That bore a flock of devils vicious Most like to dwarfs cruel and curious. Coldly they set themselves to gaze on me, Like passers-by a madman that they see— I heard them laugh and chuckle, as I think, Now interchange a signal, now a wink. “Let us at leisure view this caricature, This shade of Hamlet mimicking his posture, The doubting look and hair flung wide to wind! A pity, eh? to see this merry hind, This beggar, actor out of work, this droll, Because he plays artistically his role, Wishing to interest in his chanted woes Brooks, eagles, crickets, every flower that blows, And even to us the rubric old who made To howl out publicly his wild tirade?” I could have (for my pride is mountains high, And dominates cloud tops or demon’s cry)— I could have simply turned my sovereign head, Had I not seen, ’mid their obscene herd led, Crime, that the sun has not yet brought to book, Queen of my spirit with the peerless look. And she laughed with them at my dark distress, And turned them oft some dirtiest caress.
Le Vin du Solitaire
The strange look of a woman of the town, Who glides toward us like the rays that slake The wave-wrought moon within the trembling lake, Where she would dip her careless beauty down; The last crown unto which a gambler’s fingers cling; A libertine caress from hungry Adeline; The sound of music, lulling, silver, clean, Like the far cry of human suffering:
All these, deep bottle! are of little worth Beside the piercing balm thy fertile girth Holds in the reverent poet’s lifted soul; To him thou givest youth, and hope, and life, And pride, this treasure of all beggar’s strife That gives us triumph, Godhead, for its dole.
Epilogue
Farewell, my book, whose words I have not given One tithe of those fierce fires that in me dwell! Now, after these long nights that I have striven, Farewell!
My spirit burns to know, but may not tell, Whether thy leaves, by autumn breezes driven, Fly far away beyond the immutable;
Whether thy soul shall find its home in heaven, Or dart far-flaming through the vaults of hell— To him that loveth much is much forgiven. Farewell!
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