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Mother-Love:
a Concerto Cantabile
by
Aleister Crowley
Prelude
Isis, Our Lady, Isis, Queen of Fate! Arcane Sophia, dread, immaculate! Thou, by whatever name I call Thee, art Still nameless to Eternity, oh heart Of Nature, thou the all-manifested spouse Of secret Selfhood! Press Thy poet's brows That ache with love of Thee, that Thou hast brought Forth to express Thine essence in man's thought. Press with strong hands, these hands that caught and moulded The worlds, since first their destiny unfolded Mysterious wings! Be mine the task severe, Sacred and dread, yet infinitely dear Ineffably, to shape sonorous forms Fierce with Thy force, and splendid with Thy storms, Rimes rolling with the billows of Thy bliss And rhythms riotous as Thy carnal kiss That sheds forth spiritual strength, a Sun, Intolerable rapture of Thy one Delight distilled from dire daemonic stress Of shame, and suffering, and bitterness. With myrrh and blood intoxicate my brain Till music madden up from passionate pain, And all this planet's agony bring forth A child of wit to understand God's wrath As Love, its fearless eyes calm fixed, intent On all Life's sorrow as its Sacrament, The Bond of Faith that knows no period, The Covenant between Mankind and God. Eternal Mother, beneath Hell, above Heaven, declare to man that God is Love!
I.
A woman has no soul. Each man. the centre of an universe, Is one fine point of view wherefrom to espy The permutations of Infinity; He moves, a Self whose measured marks rehearse The drama of a Star; while she, the Sky, Is Naught, and holds the Whole.
A woman has no soul. Nowhere and everywhere at once, she breeds In her wide womb of life-inspiring air, Clasping one chosen orb of light, in rare Rapture, the germ of all desires and deeds Devoted selfless to bring forth, and bear The burden of the Whole.
A woman has no soul. She is too pure to think, to wise to know, Too fond to care what Time writes—to erase. What are the Stars to Her whose form is Space? All things that are or may be, weal and woe, Are hers to love, each perfect in its place Appointed in the Whole.
A woman has no soul. Standards of truth, of honour, of fair play, Man's measures of his moving, all are vain Nothings, her bosom mighty to sustain The lowest as the loftiest, every way Alike to her who holds them all profane Before Her shrine, the Whole.
II.
Nine months suffice The Unconscious Spirit to rehearse The Epic of uncounted Ages; The Unconscious, wise To understand the Universe That baffles all the Sages!
It clothes itself in protoplast, In insect, reptile, fish, bird, beast; At last As ape— And in this plastic shape Assumes humanity, is priest And king, conceives itself sole God Of that whole period.
The mere ape kept his innocence; And so the child So long as it is innocent, is still Apelike for mimicry and shamelessness; The plaything of sheer sense, Careless of death, most wanton wild, Incapable of will, The toy of instinct, conscienceless.
The boy is brigand, engineer, Soldier, as one or th'other's brilliancies Kindle his fancies; The girl, no less sincere, Plays with her dolls—as if A blind man drunk went dancing, Rejoicing and romancing, Along the edge 'o th' cliff!
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God help us all, both man and woman, When from ape-childhood we grow human!
III.
Hail, thou Unconscious! Hail o God that hidest Thy life in Matter! Spirit that abidest Beneath the chimes of change! Music of which existence makes the tunes! Centre sublime and strange Whence all man's instincts range Like tigers, apes, hawks, serpents, in the lunes Of his insensate appetites Through the foul jungle of life's tropic nights, No star of intellect for guide, No sun of love and moon for nights, Through the lone vault and wide Abyss of possibilities That haunt his destinies!
Fount of all gross and shameless sin, The core of crapulence within His heart—and yet the pure and perfect pearl Of Nature, the one axis whereon whirl The ringing wheels of his experience. O soul beneath all sense, Bring us to naked consciousness Of thine immortal youth! Lead us from ignorant distress To joy, the heart of Truth!
IV.
Forgetful of the seed And careless of the fruit, Spring calls to birth the bud. The thorns are sharp, take heed! Gnarled and deep-hidden the root, Acrid and gross the blood, The stem well-armed against the weather:— All force and fire conspire together To furnish Nature's barren bosom With one exultant blossom.
Cradled in gold and rose (Soft clouds of fleecy splendour) From dream to dream she goes Immaculately tender:— A mist, an haze of dawn to dye With pink the facts of puberty.
With huge, round, lamb-like orbs She bleats about the daisies; Her mincing lisp absorbs The parsley of her phrases; She seems—the judgment is unerring— Nor fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring.
V.
"Oh mummy! Something's wrong. I'm dying!" "No, no, my child! — — — It's very trying, But ————————————" Tut!
VI.
She craves an incubus Just as her fancy planned it:— The handsome chivalrous Gay buccaneer or bandit;
The curate, pale and meek, The big mustachioed 'sodger', The pianist unique, The dapper 'one-pair lodger';
The maudlin movie star, The sad Semitic Croesus, The leader of the bar, The matinée tin Jesus;
The earl, with heart of gold, The sentimental 'shovver', The pugilist pure-souled:— Of such shall come her lover!
Prince Charming shall be king Of love, her bosom caught to; He'll fit her with a ring, A necklace, and an auto; Oh ting - a - ling - a - ling, Church bells! at least, he ought to!
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Ah! such inanities sublime To lyrics that shall trample Time!
VII.
My heart is like a bird Whose wings throb lively toward the Sun. Spurning the earth, I seek the Word Of Love. I soar to God as none Who loves not can conceive—Oh regions Whose joys count not their legions!
My heart is like a storm Whose lightnings cleave the purple night With many-coloured multiform Sheaves of intolerable light Of love—oh splendour tenebrific Scrawling its holiest hieroglyphic!
My heart is like a God Who understands his perfect bliss Immune from place and period, Not choosing between that and this In Love—Oh Sun, on whom thou shinest Each in its own design divinest!
My heart is like a spell Stronger than warlock's skill may bind; It whispers things unknowable In language past the scope of mind. Love makes its clear continual theme of More than all Wisdom dares to dream of!
VIII.
The trap snaps, In herself she finds a force Beyond herself, the authentic Word of Nature That thrusts her out on the appalling course: Her corpse accepts daemonic ursurpature!
The Panic terror and the Panic rapture! Anguish of spirit, trembling of the flesh, Will thrills of ecstasy, like murderers, capture The shrinking self, possess her, and enmesh
Nerves blasted into automatic throbs— Intelligence dismayed, defeated, sunken To stupor shaken only by the sobs Of tortured being; imagination drunken
With dreadful foretaste of black Death evoked By the infernal spell of Nature's malice, The breath of Life caught sharply, baffled, choked— What poison brims the intoxicating chalice!
God smites one blasting thunderbolt from heaven Upon the dam of life's terrific flood; The temple veil from edge to edge is riven; The world is swallowed in a mist of blood.
The blossom spirit trampled by the beast, She swoons to darkling palaces of dream Where subtle music surges from the East, The echo of her dread demoniac scream.
The assassin turns contemptuous from his crime; Thor flings his hammer down with secret sneer, While she is borne exhausted to sublime Relief of relaxation—the mad fear.
The tearing pain, in smiling triumph drowned, She laughs in languor that the deed is done; In black defeat her arteries beat and bound With burning bliss—I have won! I have won! I have won!
IX.
Choose! Shall thy spirit be swept fast Up, up on gusts of stark and dire Whirlwinds, fierce freshets of desire Seething with hell's atrocious fire To ache and yearn before the blast To win—perchance—a Soul at last? To win through death itself, aspire By sterile passion to that vast Attainment—win to God, or lose The very sense of womanhood In dull and brutal hebetude? Choose!
Choose! Shall thy spirit seek the breast Of Mother Earth, deny its grace For carnal joys and commonplace, Resign its rights to root the race, Give up its infinite interest For phantom futures unexpressed, Become a ruminant, gross and base, All thought, all evolution stressed Forgotten, willing her whole self to lose For the sheer sake of simple womanhood As by ant, ape, and adder understood? Choose!
She that would soar to God blasphemes her fate, A Satan-spirit seeking to be great. She that accepts her doleful destiny Creates the cosmos of humanity.
X.
She hath obtained the chrism of pure oil, Is consecrated Priestess in the Shrine Of Nature by the Lords of Life: they assoil Of its mortality her spirit divine. She hath partaken of the Sacrament Of Life, she, chosen for the obscure Event.
From her clear eyes the rainbow veil, romance, Is fallen: close communion with the Gods Of Truth is her superb inheritance, Won from the Devil at dice against all odds. She is the vehicle of the one sublime Star-Energy that masters Space and Time.
What cares she for the toys of earth? The flood Hath swallowed up the mountains; she stands stark Alone upon the waters, the Sun's blood Secure in her, his Sanctuary Ark. All that she ever loved or thought of worth Deep drowned for her, the Warden of the Earth.
Bright angel, winged with Life, her heart one flame Of glory, from all taint of earth immune She sails the heavens, tall ship of ageless fame, Incarnate song, unconquerable tune. How should she hear the moaning of the bass, The discord of the World of Time and Space?
What cares she for the man she thought was Love? She hath gained the future; how regret the past? The hawk of Life hath pounced upon the dove Of Dream: she knows her Destiny at last. Perfect in concentration on her plan, Woman, the Sphinx, devours the Wanderer, Man.
Loyal and brave he may be; that may serve Her turn—poor fool! to use and throw aside. Callous and false? Mean coward? Should she swerve From her high task to plead, cajole, or chide? Let him betray his troth! The prouder she To scorn his baseness and his knavery!
What wins the craven by his brutal lust And dastard scuttle? Off he slinks, the thief, To his lewd desert, his foul home, the dust, Leaving with her—the prize beyond belief Most precious! Her voiceless appeal was heard: She bears within her womb the Eternal Word!
XI.
"A spring shut up, a fountain sealed." The darkling currents that prepare Their formidable purpose wield Strange powers and sinister: they share Like aliens with a secret hold The fallow earth of life; she years With hopes, aches, madness manifold, Loathsome and piteous by turns, Yet forging steady through the storm To health, to beauty, to keen pleasure Incomparable, her fleshly form Transmuted beyond mortal measure By the eternal God indwelling Her body waiting Pentecost, The death-doomed husk of Nature swelling With influx of the Holy Ghost! The queasy dawns, the restless days, The anxious night—the swollen shape, The bulging udders—tetch and craze— All bonds that link her with the ape All gross and hideous tokens of Her nature as a bestial mammal That kill with nausea her man's love— Aesthetic and romantic trammel— Happy as rare her lot who finds Her husband blind to body's curse Obscene, his eyes firm fixed on mind's And spirit's central Universe, Rejoicing in the ruin of flesh As witness to triumphant soul, And Love born constantly afresh In contemplation of the goal That baffles Death! O Love supreme, Bear us beyond the claws of Time! Teach us to find the Truth of dream In spiritual life sublime, To make an Heaven here and now Our temple-triumph of the tomb, Remembering, o Love, that "Thou Didst not abhor the Virgin's Womb."
XII.
O Guardian of the Holy Grail! High Priestess, thou that lightest up With worship to the Sun that frail Clear-carven Vase, that crystal Cup Brimmed with pure Blood of Life, that shrine Of Manhood deathless and divine!
Vine-tendrils that caress the thyrse Of Dionysus, clustered grapes Whose blood perfumes this Universe, Fills with intoxicating shapes Of Beauty the dim Firmament, Your rapture its sublime Event!
Ark of the Covenant, within Whose Kerub-warded treasure-house Exults the winged and hooded Sin, The Serpent Bridegroom of the Spouse Whose secret wonder consummates Will's Mystery, and Love's, and Fate's!
Thou dome of flawless pearl, beneath Whose glaring vault that Altar smokes With Fire unquenchable to seethe The Word whose energy invokes Incarnate Music in the spume Of Sorrow's swirling in thy Womb!
White lotus languid on the Nile, Whose chalice holds the rosy Child Safe from the surly crocodile: The Lord of Silence undefiled Smiles on the accuser's impotence, Inheriting thine Innocence!
Unfathomable heart of Sea By Sunrise kindled—Night is cloven!— Veil of inviolate Mystery Wherein His Image is inwoven In myriad forms and hues—devotion Of that unplumbed, that shoreless Ocean!
Crimson and gold, immortal Rose Of emerald leaf and bistre thorn Budded in Earth's tremendous throes, Triumphant over shame and scorn By virtue of the pangs that wrest Life's secret from her sombre breast!
O Queen of Space! O Lady of Night! Palace of Possibilities! Quintessence of all life and light, Star-sparks flame out to blaze in bliss Of Love, their Liberty awake To bind thy Beauty, for thy sake!
Who should not praise thee? I extol Thine excellence of Womanhood. My body worships thee, my soul Exults in Thee; beatitude Sweeps me away, red rapture wrung From the wild tempest of my tongue!
I glory in Thee, given of God, Who hast my life in thy sure ward, Await the perfect period When thou shalt offer to thy lord Himself, refashioned by his bride— And by our great love glorified!
XIII.
In the brilliance of her blush Love yearns. In the blood's exultant rush Life burns. All the tremor and the terror Fled far. She may follow without error Her star. In foreknowledge of her fate Extol The design of God elate, The soul That she hides beneath her heart So close, Of her flesh the perfect part It glows In the glory of that gloom Of might As it leaps within her womb— Delight!
XIV.
There gleams the ghastly forceps shaped to crush The human head: such varied instruments Monstrous of torture. Bursts the obscene slush. Flesh tears, bone splits, sense shrieks! All horror vents Its hate in gibbering grotesque. She sinks To stupor, to delirium awakes; The body rages as the spirit shrinks; The bestial struggles with daemonic snakes Subconscious as flesh tears, bone splits, sense shrieks! In earthquake nothing that she was survives; Abomination broods what madness speaks. Her spasms are hell's pangs, the devil drives; And in that chaos of uprooted flesh Scarred by black lightnings, mind is stricken numb. How frightful the Unknown descends, the fresh Fierce fire of unimaginable, dumb, Dread godhead, as the primal wrath were loosed Of elemental anguish, all the wrack Of Nature challenged by some soul unused To being, bursting with the maniac Violence of need to manifest; the Unknown Imminent, menacing, that will, that must, That can, despite the dead Past overthrown, The ambiguous portent of malignant lust. Flesh tears, bone splits, sense shrieks! The veil is riven, The monstrous Fact breaks wanton on the world; Sharp, sudden, the atrocity forgiven. Life burns electric, the live bolt is hurled Into the mute mass of the Universe Reviving, that accepts itself forsworn, Accepts for boon that blasphemy, that curse With Alleluia! that the child is born. Nowell, Nowell to the merry morn! Alleluia! Alleluia! Sing Hosanna in the highest! Glory, Glory, Alleluia! Come, thou Saviour that defiest Death! Sing Glory Alleluia! Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell! Unto us a child is born. Come what may! Sing Alleluia! Laugh the lies of Fate to scorn! Nowell, Nowell to the merry morn! She hath won—sing Alleluia! All is won—sing Alleluia! Man is free—sing Alleluia! Of Destiny—sing Alleluia! Nowell, Nowell—ring silver bells! Nowell, Nowell—The Paean swells! All the golden goal is gotten—Alleluia! Ruin lies behind us rotten—Alleluia! Well-conceived as well-begotten—Alleluia! Nowell is born of midmost night Well brought-forth to life and light! Nowell! Nowell! Glory to the Mother-might! Alleluia! Glory! Glory! Alleluia! Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell! Sing glory, Alleluia!
XV.
Will it live? God! Oh God! the world is hushed In anguish—the cold sweat bedews the brows Late hot with torrid toil—the heart is crushed Of Nature—will it live? Who dares arouse The shocking courage to take up and shake That delicate death-blue lump of protoplasm Slimy and shapeless—God! God! will it make Its fearful way across the appalling chasm That sunders sense from soul?—Oh frightful chance To squeeze that infinitely precious pearl Into this world, its bleak inheritance! Bravo!—a boy! oh well, no, it's a girl! Bravo! Snip quick! It lives! It cries! Hurrah! Swaddle it! Lay it snug! Well may you yell, Young 'un, you know what's coming to you? Ah! —The doctor whispers—the nurse nods—"Oh well, I guess we can't expect to save the mother. Twelve stitches—hum—peritonitis—you're Messing that tampon—say, nurse, tell the other To put the old man wise—"I warned him, sure, She couldn't stand it—that brat's worth a ha'f A million bucks—some kid." A sniggering laugh.
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So much for mother-love—one epitaph!
XVI.
Born dead!—Died young!— Her miserable span Of thirty years of Womanhood is clipped Of twelve long months; a mortal year is slipped In worse than waste. Oh mockery of man
That all these infinite pains and shames that cost Such ardours and such labours and such hopes Should perish, crumpled like torn horoscopes An angry wizard flings to th'winds! Lost! Lost!
Lost! The same stone to roll up the same hill With wearied and discouraged limbs, the same Fierce imbecility of the obscene game That instinct plays when shame has gelded Will! She herself all animal; at the term How sick at heart to know yourself a worm!
XVII.
On that intolerable planet Whose nature and whose name is Hell, There slants a path of polished granite Straight to a scaffold from a cell.
With lids cut off and fettered hands, Each shoots the inexorable slope To where the hooded hangman stands, His fingers ready on the rope.
Didst thou not know by what black art Malice fees Love for his attorney, Whose sly words wheedle souls to start That unintelligible journey?
Whence wast thou? Was that place unknown Airless and abject, an abyss Of agony, as this our own Perdition of paralysis?
No more! Truth's withered in her well: The dry pump Reason mocks our thirst: All that we know is horror of hell, And are we sure we know the worst?
With leaping lungs you got your grip On air—"I will to live" your cry. The white bark of the phrase may strip To the black pith "I will to die."
On this intolerable planet, Earth's evil that exceedeth hell, There slants a path of polished granite Straight to a scaffold from a cell.
With eyelids clipt and fettered hands, Thou also slidest on the slope To where the hooded hangman stands, His fingers ready on the rope.
XVIII.
Did my blood that thrilled thee sate thee When wast lurking 'neath my bosom? Let my milk intoxicate thee Now thou feedest at its blossom! O my bee, drink softly, slowly At the fountain, hold me holy! I thy life, thy soul, thy sun, Thou my lovely little one!
Is there rapture rarer, simpler Than to feed the heart's one yearning On that first bright smile, the dimple Of thy cheeks, smile heavenward, gazing O my babe, smile heavenward, gazing On the eyes that love thee, praising God for gift surpassed of none, Thou my lovely little one!
Hold me with thy tiny fingers! Wonder with thine eyes huge-gleaming! Surely God delighted lingers On the vision subtly beaming. Let me feel thy force compel me! Let thy tears and murmurs tell me Not in vain the race was run, Thou my lovely little one!
Hold me! Feed upon me! Wonder! I thy life, as thou art my life! Rend the veil of flesh asunder; In the earth-life shew the sky-life! Heaven's abysses hold no blisses Such as this is where my kiss is— Once begun, and never done! Thou my lovely little one!
XIX.
Oh wonder of pleasure! This plump Little lump Of pink—Who can measure The joy that beholds Each petal-delight of its flower that unfolds?
Isn't he cunning? The cute Little foot Peeps out of that stunning White lace—don't you coddle The kid; on my soul. he's beginning to toddle!
Well, did you ever? He woke then— He spoke then— Isn't that simply too awfully clever? Would you believe it? All the world's wit—he is sure to achieve it!
Didn't you hear him? Goo-goo, as plain— There—goo-goo again! Gee! There was never a baby came near him! Genius surely And beauty! He knows it—and yet how demurely!
Never was mother So proud— What a crowd Of raptures come tumbling one over another! Happy—all day—so Happy—Oh happy! Dear God, I should say so!
XX.
Alas! Alas for this dim world Where shadow chases shadow on the dial, Where every affirmation meets denial, And every flag that flaunts is furled By shifting winds, where every truth's on trial, And each cheek's blush of blood with tears impearled!
The sweeter, the more choice the care, The more the care, the anguish that are needed To bring it to success. How vainly weeded The garden where too delicate The flower! How harsh experience, well heeded, Too often fails our wit to consummate!
Oh myriad pitfalls menace her! The labyrinthine path of adolescence— At every step the mother feels the presence Invisible of sinister Plagues—in the very promise of quiescence Lurk spectres whose least touch may murder her!
Oh myriad shapes of accident, The pettiest capable of untold malice! A serpent curled about the chastest chalice, Ruin in every day's event Always too possible—a wizard's palace Packed with dim dangers of seductive scent!
With each day's growth fresh perils lower New problems urge; life's thread spins out its brittle Faint gossamer; no wing too weak, too little No limb to snap that silk; no power Nor wit alert, strong, wise to change one tittle Of fate, to ward one fury from the flower!
His head aches, his face flushes, his Eyes dull, a rash, a pimple—her heart fails her, Gripped by an Hand! Huge vampire Fear assails her Hell hungry to devour such bliss! Daily she dies afresh, and naught avails her Against the anguish of her Nemesis.
She bears her Cross to Calvary! Our Father, hear! Blank, dumb! She prays unfriended. At best she dies—to leave her child untended At the world's mercy—ageless agony Of mother-love—Oh sorrow never ended! Oh pitiless care, life's long antistrophe!
XXI.
Ah God! Ah God! the lesser pangs are past, The anguish and the agony of matter; Begins the martyrdom too fierce and vast With demon-force the spirit-world to shatter. He lives! he flourishes! Ah God! Woe's me! In this world all roads lead to Calvary!
Fie! what strange monster, sprung from her pure womb, Defies the mother's shocked imagination! Her spirit dragged by Time within his tomb, Her child's, the dawn-mist of his generation, Succeeding hers—the Zeitgeist thunderbolt Smiting at will, red levin of revolt!
Between their spirits gapes a fordless dyke, Mother and child to one another stranger Than travellers in alien orbs: so like, So loving—yet so palsied by the danger Instant, inevitable, that neither knows Nor understands the Earth's Saturnian throes
The world rolls ceaseless on through space; it moves On huge incalculable curves; it revels Among the galaxies in unguessed grooves, Urged by uncomprehended gods or devils, Or fate, or chance—and as it swings, it rolls Black heedless tides upon its shifting shoals.
Each child is born into a world whose ways, Incomprehensible as new, deceive us The more as they resemble those of days Gone by; the subtle spirit-dances weave us Patterns, the old resembled by the new Tempt us to think we hold the silken clue.
So, be the child obedient and meek, The mother knows by instinct that its gracious And sleek subservience betokens weak Misapprehension of its age, fallacious, Unequal to its atmosphere, foredoomed By its hour's dragon-soul to be consumed.
But be he strong, self-confident, alert, Fit for the mastery of his Time, what terror Grips her, with conservation-armour girt, To note his every thought essential Error, His every word a challenge, every act Sheer sacrilege to her ideal Fact?
The old hen knows "Impossible to swim": And almost ere she weans he babe from suckling, The open sea is the one place for him. She loves him, yet she hates the Ugly Duckling. Pained, puzzled, wounded by their love, the mother And child seek vainly to construe each other.
Blind baffling torture!—agonizing "Why" And frantic "How" chase madly through her; heedless, Not heartless, the young spirit seeks the sky That saw her birth, not hers—Oh Nature, needless Surely this subtlest tool to tear apart These hearts that only now were yet one heart!
Get up! get on! no faltering on the road To Calvary! Take up thy cross, and stagger Along—each year a heavier sharper goad, Flower of his youth fresh poison for Time's dagger! Bedeviling her ear, what voice assures? "See, he is going his way, and not yours!"
XXII.
Love made them his: Hate, innocent of spite, Yet forces them to range themselves as foes In that appalling battle where the right Is but the ghost of unsubstantial woes Distilled by Time in the dark worm of Night!
What knows the child of what it cost, the shrewd Malice of Nature that its mother mastered To win it from dark Matter? In its lewd Conceit and selfishness it dons the dastard, The callous motley of Ingratitude!
Yet, more their truth is nobleness, the more Each wounds the best belov'd antagonist. Ah scourge and insult, menial before The ceaseless anguish of the cross, the tyrst Each mother keeps with whom her agony bore.
How passionately he seeks to please! In vain. Each effort only drags and tears her flesh, Hanging alone in darkness and black pain: And every act of kindness drives afresh The thorns of scorn into her raging brain!
Most bitter irony of the Gods! Most dire, Most cruel, those stern laws and sinister That punish us to purge us of desire By granting it—that rowels with our own spur That bids us plunge on through life's pestilent mire!
What mercy may be found? In ignorance, Dulling the mother's ruminant mind, what word? A brainless animal pride and fondness dance Drugged idiot cake-walks, abject and absurd; Abandonment of man's inheritance!
The price of painlessness! She must become A drifting log incapable of sense, A drooling dupe, imperviously numb To every shock of life's cold evidence. Back with the cattle, in the shambles dumb!
Is there no happier issue? Must she drown In myrrh and hyssop her insatiate pangs, Or hang unpitied on the cross, her crown Dripping her life-blood from ophidian fangs? Nay, but One Way is worthy her renown!
XXIII.
Hail, Isis! Hail, eternal Mother-Love! Hail, Thou that didst accept the Cosmic Word, And in Thy womb of Space conceive the Dove Of Life! Hail Thou, whose passion sleeps unstirred By Change, and dreams all things that may become Thy dulcet delicate delirium To wile Eternity! Hail, Isis, hail! All hail to Thee!
Hail, Isis, hail and hear us! Well we know The dark and dismal wanderings of Thought Stagnant and venomous stream of shoreless woe That hath nor truth nor joy, till All is Naught. Hear us! Behold with blood and sweat undried Still hanging there, the eternal Crucified The mother! Isis, Thou Being Mother of All, bend down and hear us now!
Space shudders, as the Love divine awakes In Night: the voice of Isis breathes its balm. Listen, oh listen! Light in fiery flakes Breeds in the womb of chastity and calm; Pure Light takes shape, and utters in deep thrill Her Word of Love, that triumphs, under Will, Our spirits comprehend That rapture, the Beginning, is the End.
"Mothers of Earth! Most close of all that is To Me, the Mother of All, My joy by yours! Not on your Earth but in My heaven, is bliss, Bliss infinite that quickens and endures Beyond Space and Time: yours all Infinity Thereof, will only ye atone with Me! Listen! Doth Nature care For Sorrow: are Her laws the toys of prayer?
"I have borne all within my womb: I choose Not, nor prefer on burden to another. I cherish all, and nothing do I lose, Nor aught regret, who am of All the Mother. Ye, even as I, bear Life; then scorn all choice, But bear and nurse what may be, and rejoice! How should ye comprehend Not knowing the Beginning or the End?
"All things are worthy, all things holy! Cry Aloud for joy that all things are! Then fix Faster the nails, the thorns! With ecstasy Shout, and rejoice upon the crucifix! In universal, not in partial measure, Being partakes of Mine immortal pleasure! Be all ye even as I! Partake with Me of infinite harmony!
"Kill yonder writhing self that sobs and groans, Bewailing purblind its ideals absurd! Ye are the Sacrament that sole stones The Marriage of the Woman with the Word! Ye, being Chariots of Life, may bear Each one your Stars throughout the choral Air. Each man and woman a Star, Rejoice in all things born because They Are!"
The Voice was still. Let every Mother of Earth Transform her martyr-dirge to pagan paean! Bearing her part of universal birth, One with the Essence of the Empyrean, Glad in impersonal service, priestess vowed To Life, intense, most passionately proud, Accept man's homage! Make The whole world revel in rapture—for your sake!
XXIV.
Chasm on chasm! Sheer black precipice Plastered with masses of terrific ice Crashing through ghastlier ravines! The peak Airless, death's house, abominably bleak, Blasted by lightnings, torn by storm and Time And sun, superb and fearfully sublime: A tragic mystery, an heroic shock To whose grapples with that stark stern rock And fronts those formidable cliffs, those hells Of ice, grand gulphs and frantic pinnacles!
Whose hath won through that gigantic stress Of danger, tearing toil and weariness Of soul and body, through the dead despair, The wounds, the hunger, the distress, the cold, And come to distant alps, serenely rolled In gracious curves of green, begemmed with flowers Hued from the heart of all earth's sunniest hours, Quenching his thirst at the bright-sparkling brims Where the spring bubbled from the moss, his limbs Languid at ease upon the velvet sward Lifts up glad eyes to that remote abhorred But conquered desolation, that most solemn Cathedral towering, column over column, Abyss beyond abyss, where late he trod The sanctuary inviolate to God, Sees that appalling wedge of crag and snow Luxuriating in the afterglow, A radiant rosebud poised in still blue air Kissed by the Sun invisible, by rare Faint fleeces of phantastic cloud caressed, A fairyland, device of dream, the blest Abode of virgin heart and virile form Superbly sure beyond the blast of storm, An empyrean world of exaltation Intense, a crystal of imagination. The heart's whole will concentrated in one sphere Of realized romance, each savage spear Of granite, each tumultuous tempest-lashed Cascade of ice, each mass of snow that crashed In thunder to the glacier, a world Of frightful death, of horror dragon-curled, Of nameless terror, to sublime existence Enchanted by the wizard spell of distance And victory, every detail that was danger Deep-laden with despair still sterner, stranger, And dreadfuller as every footstep trod And handhold gripped still dragged him up to God, Now melted to that simple and supreme Pavilion of reality-of-dream— And every detail, then obscure beyond All wit, one facet of a diamond Aglow with glory, all the structure seen As on sublime idea, whose moments mean Grandeur conceived, in Beauty interlaced. Naught vain, naught vowed to folly or to waste, Perfection in each part as in the whole Spirit and sense built into one strong soul, The mystery of Nature at its heart Revealed as Truth by sacramental Art —Even so, look back afar! What gleams above The foothills of Man's life but Mother-Love?
Gross gargoyles grinning, towers vertiginous With terror, solicitudes delirious, Chapels of shame, foul vampires in the eaves, Falsehoods and frauds beyond all that hell conceives, Death manifest in every cenotaph, The chill air pregnant with his gross lewd laugh, Obscene its mockery and grotesque, its dull Drear import only Golgotha—the skull— But—unto him that understandeth—prime And perfect trophy of Man's war on Time, His house of worship, manifest afar, His guide on Earth as on the Sea a Star, Yea, verily and Amen! Man soars above His doom of death by might of Mother-Love!
XXV.
Hail, Isis, hail! Fearless we grasp Thy virgin veil. Strong and serene we tear its strands asunder. Come Death! Destroy us as we gaze in wonder Upon that mild yet awful face above Our steadfast souls: we know Thee, Mother Love; We hail Thee Isis! Even as we break blasted Beneath Thy Beauty, Thy most holy eyes Bless us with triumph. As we drift dismasted Upon destruction, through the storm-clad skies There gleams the Light of Harbour, we shall come Through Thee to Life, pure Life, beyond the sum Of our imagination's utmost leap For each, sucked down in Death's wild whirlpool steep, Attains the consummation of Man's Will The individual, phantom self, dissolved In the eternal Sea, serenely still Beneath all woes and wantonness involved By surface stresses—Hail, all hail, Isis, our Lady, hail, Sophia, source, Secret, and soul of all! Beneath Thy veil Visible, yet inscrutable, the Force That forms Existence, and devours it, lurks The wordless Wonder that unceasing works The speaking wonders of the Universe Confounding all things, hiding in a curse The Mystery of Blessing, in one Trance Of Sorrow moulding Man's inheritance And keeping for the strong that grapple Fate The Great Arcanum of the Initiate, The Trance of Joy! All hail, all hail, oh thrice And four times we salute Thee, Isis, Queen Of Heaven and Earth; to Thee we sacrifice. Accept the stupor sense, the drug obscene Emotion, the toad-poison self, to blaze Upon Thine altar as with paean-praise We come to Thee, oh Mother Love, oh soul Hidden in the Way, and gleaming in the Goal Until the Purpose dawn, until we know The Goal none other than the Way, all woe A masquerade of Joy, perceive at last The atonement of the Future with the Past. All Life, all Death, all Being, all Relation, Aspects made one in one Annihilation. One Here and Now, one Present Soul of Light As All, as Naught, Perfection—Dawn, thou Dove Upon our hearts, Thy Sangraal, brimming bright The sparkling Blood-Wine that is Mother-Love!
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