THE WORKS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY Vol. III ASCII VERSION

November 6, 1993 e.v. key entry by Bill Heidrick, T.G. of O.T.O.
January 27, 1994 e.v. proofed and conformed to the "Essay Competition Copy"
edition of 1907 e.v. by Bill Heidrick T.G. of O.T.O. Descriptions of
portraits retained, even though they are not in this edition.
(The winner of the competition was J.F.C.Fuller's "The Star in the West")

November 21, 1993 e.v. key entry by Bill Heidrick, T.G. of O.T.O.
January 29, 1994 e.v. proofed and conformed to the "Essay Competition Copy"
edition of 1907 e.v. by Bill Heidrick T.G. of O.T.O.

November 21, 1993 e.v. key entry by Bill Heidrick, T.G. of O.T.O.
February 1, 1994 e.v. proofed and conformed to the "Essay Competition Copy"
edition of 1907 e.v. by Bill Heidrick T.G. of O.T.O.




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THE WORKS OF

ALEISTER CROWLEY


VOLUME III






ESSAY COMPETITION COPY






THE WORKS

OF


ALEISTER CROWLEY



"{variation: WITH PORTRAITS}"




VOLUME III









FOYERS
SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH

1907


["All rights reserved"]


{ILLUSTRATION ON PAGE FACING AND JUST BEFORE TITLE: in the delux edition:

This is a photo of Crowley from the waist up, seated and bent slightly toward the camera. He is young, 20s, and wears a sheep or goat skin full sleeve coat with the fleece turned inside. This coat is open in front and looks like an undecorated Afgan mountain garment. He holds a pipe to left side of mouth in left hand, signet or cabacon ring on second finger left. The pipe looks like a sharply double-curved briar. Hair tousled and eyes still working on the "Crowley stare". Caption below in script: "Photo by Aimis Portrait, 5th Av. New York, 1906.}




CONTENTS OF VOLUME III

THE STAR AND THE GARTER --
PAGE
ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . 1
THE STAR AND THE GARTER . . . . . 2
I. . . . . . . . . 2
II. . . . . . . . . 2
III. . . . . . . . . 2
IV. . . . . . . . . 2
V. . . . . . . . . 3
VI. . . . . . . . . 3
VII. . . . . . . . . 3
VIII. . . . . . . . . 4
IX. . . . . . . . . 4
X. . . . . . . . . 5
XI. . . . . . . . . 6
XII. . . . . . . . . 6
XIII. . . . . . . . . 6
XIV. . . . . . . . . 7
XV. . . . . . . . . 7
XVI. . . . . . . . . 8
XVII. . . . . . . . . 8
XVIII. . . . . . . . . 8
XIX. . . . . . . . . 9
XX. . . . . . . . . 9
XXI. . . . . . . . . 10
XXII. . . . . . . . . 10
XXIII. . . . . . . . . 11
XXIV. . . . . . . . . 11
XXV. . . . . . . . . 12
XXVI. . . . . . . . . 12
XXVII. . . . . . . . . 13
XXVIII. . . . . . . . . 13
XXIX. . . . . . . . . 13
XXX. . . . . . . . . 14
XXXI. . . . . . . . . 14
XXXII. . . . . . . . . 15 {vA}

THE STAR AND THE GARTER --
"Continued" PAGE
XXXIII. . . . . . . . . 15
APPENDIX . . . . . . . . 17

WHY JESUS WEPT --
PERSONS STUDIED . . . . . . . 20
DEDICATIO MINIMA . . . . . . . 20
DEDICATIO MINOR . . . . . . . 20
DEDICATIO MAJOR . . . . . . . 20
DEDICATIO MAXIMA . . . . . . . 21
DEDICATIO EXTRAORDINARIA . . . . . 21
WHY JESUS WEPT . . . . . . . 21
SCENE I. . . . . . . . 22
" II. . . . . . . . 24
" III. . . . . . . . 25
" IV. . . . . . . . 26
" V. . . . . . . . 27
" VI. . . . . . . . 28
" VII. . . . . . . . 36
" VIII. . . . . . . . 37
" IX. . . . . . . . 38
" X. . . . . . . . 39
" XI. . . . . . . . 41
" XII. . . . . . . . 44
" XIII. . . . . . . . 46
" XIV. . . . . . . . 47

ROSA MUNDI, AND OTHER LOVE-SONGS --
I. ROSA MUNDI . . . . . . 51
II. THE NIGHTMARE . . . . . 56
III. THE KISS . . . . . . 58
IV. ANNE . . . . . . . 58
V. BRUNNHILDE . . . . . . 58
VI. DORA . . . . . . . 59 {vB}

PAGE
ROSA MUNDI -- "Continued"
VII. FATIMA . . . . . . . 59
VIII. FLAVIA . . . . . . . 60
IX. KATIE CARR . . . . . . 60
X. NORA . . . . . . . 61
XI. MARY . . . . . . . 61
XII. XANTIPPE . . . . . . 62
XIII. EILEEN . . . . . . . 62
XIV. . . . . . . . . 62
XV. . . . . . . . . 63
XVI. . . . . . . . . 63
XVII. . . . . . . . . 64
XVIII. FRENDSHIP {SIC} . . . . . 64
XIX. . . . . . . . . 64
XX. . . . . . . . . 64
XXI. . . . . . . . . 65
XXII. . . . . . . . . 65
XXIII. PROTOPLASM . . . . . . 65
XXIV. . . . . . . . . 66
XXV. . . . . . . . . 66
XXVI. . . . . . . . . 67
XXVII. . . . . . . . . 67
XXVIII. . . . . . . . . 67

THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR --
SCENE I. . . . . . . . 68
" II. . . . . . . . 69
" III. . . . . . . . 72

GARGOYLES --
TO L. BENTROVATA . . . . . . 84
IMAGES OF LIFE --
PROLOGUE -- VIA VITAE . . . . . 84
THE WHITE CAT. . . . . . . 86
ALI AND HASSAN . . . . . . 86
AL MALIK . . . . . . . 86
SONG . . . . . . . . 87
ANICCA . . . . . . . . 87
TARSHITERING . . . . . . . 87
A FRAGMENT . . . . . . . 88
THE STUMBLING-BLOCK. . . . . . 89
WOODCRAFT . . . . . . . 89
A NUGGET FROM A MINE . . . . . 90 {viA}

PAGE
GARGOYLES -- "Continued"
AU CAVEAU DES INNOCENTS . . . . . 90
ROSA INFERNI . . . . . . . 91
DIOGENES . . . . . . . 93
SAID . . . . . . . . 94
EPILOGUE -- PRAYER . . . . . . 95
IMAGES OF DEATH --
PROLOGUE -- PATCHOULI . . . . . 96
KALI . . . . . . . . 97
THE JILT . . . . . . . 99
THE EYES OF PHARAOH. . . . . . 100
BANZAI! . . . . . . . 101
LE JOUR DES MORTIS . . . . . . 1O2
AVE MORS . . . . . . . 102
THE MORIBUND . . . . . . . 103
THE BEAUTY AND THE BHIKKHU . . . . 104
IMMORTALITY . . . . . . . 105
EPILOGUE -- THE KING-GHOST . . . . . 107

RODIN IN RIME --
A STUDY IN SPITE . . . . . . 109
FRONTISPIECE -- RODIN. . . . . . 110
VARIOUS MEASURES --
THE TOWER OF TOIL . . . . . . 111
LA BELLE HEAULMIERE. . . . . . 112
FEMME ACCROUPIE . . . . . . 112
CARYATIDE . . . . . . . 112
JEUNE MERE . . . . . . . 113
L'AMOUR QUI PASSE . . . . . . 113
TETE DE FEMME (MUSEE DU LUXEMBOURG) . . . 113
LA CASQUE D'OR . . . . . . 114
LES BOURGEOIS DE CALAIS . . . . . 114
REVEIL D'ADONIS . . . . . . 114
LA MAIN DE DIEU . . . . . . 115
DESESPOIR . . . . . . . 115
EPERVIER ET COLOMBE. . . . . . 115
RESURRECTION . . . . . . . 116
L'ETERNEL PRINTEMPS. . . . . . 116
ACROBATES . . . . . . . 116
L'AGE D'AIRAIN . . . . . . 117
FAUNESSE . . . . . . . 117 {viB}

PAGE
RODIN IN RIME -- "Continued"
SONNETS AND QUATORZAINS --
MADAME RODIN . . . . . . . 118
LE PENSEUR . . . . . . . 118
LA PENSEE . . . . . . . 118
LE BAISER . . . . . . . 118
BOUCHES D'ENFER . . . . . . 119
LA GUERRE . . . . . . . 119
W. E. HENLEY . . . . . . . 119
SYRINX AND PAN . . . . . . 119
ICARE . . . . . . . . 120
LA FORTUNE . . . . . . . 120
PAOLO ET FRANCESCA . . . . . . 120
LES DEUX GENIES . . . . . . 120
LA CRUCHE CASSEE . . . . . . 121
LA TENTATION DE SAINT-ANTOINE . . . . 121
EVE . . . . . . . . 121
FEMMES DAMNEES . . . . . . 121
NABUCHADNOSOR. . . . . . . 122
MORT D'ADONIS. . . . . . . 122
BALZAC . . . . . . . . 122
LE CYCLOPS SURPREND ACIS ET GALATHEE . . . 122
OCTAVE MIRBEAU . . . . . . 123 {viiA}

PAGE
RODIN IN RIME -- "Continued"
SOCRATE. . . . . . . . 123
COLOPHON -- AN INCIDENT . . . . . 123

ORPHEUS --
WARNING . . . . . . . . 126
EXORDIUM . . . . . . . . 127
LIBER PRIMUS VEL CARMINUM . . . . . 129
LIBER SECUNDUS VEL AMORIS . . . . . 158
LIBER TERTIUS VEL LABORIS . . . . . 174
LIBER QUARTUS VEL MORTIS . . . . . 203

EPILOGUE AND DEDICATION --
EPILOGUE AND DEDICATION OF
VOLUMES I., II., III. . . . . . 219
ELEUSIS. . . . . . . . 219

APPENDIX A --
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . 233

APPENDIX B --
INDEX OF FIRST LINES . . . . . . 240 {viiB}






{full page across}


THE STAR AND THE GARTER

1904

[The simplicity of this exquisite poem renders all explanations superfluous.]

GR:Alpha-Gamma-Nu-Omega-Sigma-Tau-Omega

Theta-Epsilon-Omega<<1>>{columns resume}

<<1. "I.e.," Eros. The quotation is from Acts xvii. 23, "To the Unknown God.">>

ARGUMENT.

THE poet, seated with his lady, perceives (i.) that he is in some disgrace, arguing the same (ii.) from a difference in the quality of the subsisting silence. Seeking a cause, he observes (iii.) a lady's garter in one corner of the room. His annoyance is changed (iv.) to joy at the prospect of an argument, and of a better understanding. He will (v.) be frank; no poet truly cares what may happen to him. He sketches (vi.) his argument; but letting fall the word "love" is rapt away into a lyrical transport (vii. and viii.). Further, bidding her (ix.) to fly with him, he points out the value of courage, and its rarity among the bourgeoisie. He calls upon her to awake her own courage, and (x.) bids her embark. His appeal fails, since (xi.) the garter still demands explanation. He then shows (xii.) that mental states are not independent of their physical basis, and casts doubt (xiii.) upon Immortality and Freewill. He asks her (xiv.) to accommodate herself to the facts instead of wasting life upon an Ideal, and to remember that all his acts truly subserve his love for her. He reinforces this (xv.) by a distinction of the important and the unimportant, assures her of his deep passion, and appeals to her. He will (xvi.) show her the picture of the owner of the garter, and gives her (xvii.) the first hint that he does not consider her a rival, any more {1A} than dinner is a rival. As (xviii.) she cannot grasp that idea, he states it plainly and describes (xix.) the lady whose forgetfulness has caused the whole trouble. The spell broken, as it were, he describes (xx., xxi.) two other mistresses, a model and an acrobat, and then again flings at her (xxii.) the frank question: Are these rivals in "Love?" He argues that the resemblances are superficial. For (xxiii.) there is no taint of passion in his Love for his Lady. But she (xxiv.) sees that as a fault in her, and offers her person. He refuses it, fearing to destroy Love, and proves (xxv.) that sexual intimacy is no truer than virginal intimacy. He recalls (xxvi.) the hour when their love stood confessed and (xxvii.) that in which the first promptings of passion were caught and smothered in a higher ecstasy. He complains (xxviii.) that he should have needed to voice all this He urges (xxix.) that the necessary duties of sex should be performed elsewhere. But, should those duties become unnecessary, let them voyage to solitude and peace. Or (xxx.) no! it is well to have the ever-present contrast; let us, however, not despise other folk, but pity them, and for this pity's sake, retire (xxxi.) to meditate, and by this means to achieve the power of redeeming them. He formulates Lyrically (xxxii.) this conclusion; and sums up the whole (xxxiii.), insisting finally on the value of the incident as a stepping-stone to the ultimate. {1B}


THE STAR AND THE GARTER.

I.

WHAT sadness closes in between
Your eyes and mine to-day, my Queen?
In dewfall of our glance hath come
A chill like sunset's in hot lands
Mid iris and chrysanthemum.
Well do I know the shaken sands
Within the surf, the beaten bar
Of coral, the white nenuphar
Of moonrise stealing o'er the bay.
So here's the darkness, and the day
Sinks, and a chill clusters, and I
Wrap close the cloak: then is it so
To-day, you rose-gleam on the snow,
My own true lover? Ardently
I dare not look: I never looked
So: that you know. But insight keen
We (laugh and) call not "love." Now crooked
The light swerves somehow. Do you mean --
What? There is coldness and regret
Set like the stinging winter spray
Blown blind back from a waterfall
On Cumbrian moors at Christmas. Wet
The cold cheek numbs itself. A way
Is here to make -- an end of all?
What sadness closes in between
Your eyes and mine to-day, my Queen?


II.

YOU are silent. That we always were.
The racing lustres of your hair
Spelt out its sunny message, though
The room was dusk: a rosy glow
Shed from an antique lamp to fall
On the deep crimson of the wall,
And over all the ancient grace
Of shawls, and ivory, and gems<<1>>
To cast its glamour, till your face
The eye might fall upon and rest, {2A}
The temperate flower, the tropic stems.
You were silent, and I too. Caressed
The secret flames that curled around
Our subtle intercourse. Profound,
Unmoved, delighting utterly,
So sat, so sit, my love and I.
But not to-day. Your silence stirs
No answering rapture: you are proud,
And love itself checks and deters
The thought to say itself aloud.
Oh! heart of amber and fine gold
Silverly darting lunar rays!
Oh! river of sweet passion rolled
Adown invisible waterways!
Speak! Did I wound you then unguessed?
What is the sorrow unexpressed
That shadows those ecstatic lids?
A word in season subtly rids
The heart of thoughts unseasonable.
You are silent. Do they speak in hell?

<<1. The description is of Crowley's rooms in the Quartier Montparnasse.>>


III.

IS it your glance that told me? Nay!
It know you would not look that way.
Seeing, you strove to see not. Fool!
I have ruined all in one rash deed.
Learnt I not in discretion's school
The little care that lovers need?
For see -- I bite my lip to blood;
A stifled word of anguish hisses: --
O the black word that dams thought's flood!
O the bad lip that looked for kisses!
O the poor fool that prates of love!
Is it a garter, or a glove?


IV.

A FOOL indeed! For why complain,
Now the last five-barred gate is ope,
Held by a little boy? I hope
The hour is handy to explain
The final secret. Have I any?
Yes! the small boy shall have a penny! {2B}
Now you are angry? Be content!
Not fee the assistant accident
That shows our quarry -- love -- at bay?
My silver-throated queen, away!
Huntress of heaven, by my side,
As moon by meteor, rushing, ride!
Among the stars, ride on! ride on!
(Then, maybe, bid the boy begone!)


V.

I AM a boy in this. Alas!
Look round on all the world of men!
The boys are oft of genus "ass."
Think yourself lucky, lady, then,
If I at least am boy. You laugh?
Not you! Is this love's epitaph,
God's worm erect on Herod's throne?
"Ah, if I only had not known!"
All wrong, beloved! Truth be ours,
The one white flower (of all the flowers)
You ever cared for! Ignorance
May set its puppets up to dance;
We know who pulls the strings. No sage;
A man unwashed, the bearded brute!
His wife, the mother-prostitute!
Behind the marionetted stage
See the true Punch-and-Judy show,
Turn copper so to silver! Know,
And who can help forgiving? So
Said some French thinker.<<1>> Here's a drench
Of verse unquestionably French
To follow! so, while youth is youth,
And time is time, and I am I,
Too busy with my work to lie,
Or love lie's prize -- or work's, forsooth! --
Too strong to care which way may go
The ensuing history of woe,
Though I were jaw, and you were tooth;
So, more concerned with seeking sense
Than worried over consequence,
I'll speak, and you shall hear, the truth. {3A}

<<1. "Comprendre, c'est pardonner."
MME. DE STAEL.>>


VI.

TRUTH, like old Gaul, is split in three.<<1>>
A lesson in anatomy,
A sketch of sociology,
A tale of love to end. But see!
What stirs the electric flame of eyes?
One word -- that word. Be destiny's
Inviolate fiat rolled athwart
The clouds and cobwebs of our speech,
And image, integrate of thought,
This ebony anthem, each to each: --
To lie, invulnerable, alone,
Valkyrie and hero, in the zone,
Shielded by lightnings of our wit,
Guarded by fires of intellect
Far on the mountain-top, elect
Of all the hills divinely lit
By rays of moonrise! O the moon!
O the interminable tune
Of whispered kisses! Love exults,
Intolerant of all else than he,
And ecstasy invades, insults,
Outshines the waves of harmony,
Lapped in the sun of day; the tides
Of wonder flow, the shore subsides;
And over all the horizon
Glows the last glimmer of the sun.
Ah! when the moon arises, she
Shall look on nothing but the sea.

<<1. "Gallia est divisa in tres partes."
-- "Caesar de Bello Gallico, i, 1."
>>


VII.

O LOVE! and were I with thee ever!
Come with me over the round earth,
O'er lake and fountain, sea and river!
Girdle the world with angel girth
Of angel voyage! Shall we roam
In teeming jungles poisonous?
Or make ourselves an eyrie-home
Where the black ice roars ravenous
In glittering avalanche? Or else
Hide in some corrie on the fells
Of heather and bracken, or delight
In grottos built of stalactite? {3B}
Or be our lonely haunt the sand
Of the Sahara: let us go
Where some oasis, subtly planned
For love, invites the afterglow!
There let us live alone, except
Some bearded horseman, pennoned, ride
Over the waste of ochre, swept
By wind in waves, and sit beside
Our tent a little, bring us news
Of the great world we have lost for -- this!
What fool exclaims -- "to lose!"? To lose?
Ah! earth and heaven for one small kiss!
But he shall sing beside our fire
The epic of the world's desire;
How Freedom fares, how Art yet revels
Sane in the dance of dogs and devils.
His thunder voice shall climb and crash,
Scourge liars with tongue's lightning lash,
Through rank of smitten tyrants drive,
Till bosoms heave, and eyes outflash,
And it is good to be alive.
He shall ride off at dawn, and we
Shall look upon our life again;
You old, and all your beauty be
Broken, and mine a broken brain.
Yet we shall know; delighting still
In the sole laughter death derides
In vain; the indomitable will,
Still burning in the spirit, guides
Our hearts to truth; we see, we know
How foolish were the things he said,
And answer in the afterglow
How good it is that we are dead.
Will you not come? Or, where the surf
Beats on the coral, and the palm
Sways slowly in the eternal calm
Of spring, I know a mound of turf
Good for our love to lie on; good
For breezes, and for sun and shade;
To hear the murmur of the flood;
To taste the kava subtly made
To rouse to Bacchic ecstasy,
Since Dionysus silently
Faded from Greece, now only smiles
Amid the soft Hawaian isles;
Good, above all the good, to keep
Our bodies when we sleep the sleep. {4A}


VIII.

MAKE me a roseleaf with your mouth,
And I will waft it through the air
To some far garden of the South,
The herald of our happening there!

Fragrant, caressing, steals the breeze;
Curls into kisses on your lips: --
I know interminable seas,
Winged ardour of the stately ships,

Space of incalculable blue
And years enwreathed in one close crown,
And glimmering laughters echoing you
From reverend shades of bard's renown: --

Nature alive and glad to hymn
Your beauty, my delight: her God
Weary, his old eyes sad and dim
In his intolerable abode.

All things that are, unknown and known,
Bending in homage to your eyes;
We wander wondering, lift alone
The world's grey load of agonies.

Make me a roseleaf with your mouth,
That all the savour steal afar
Unto the sad awaiting South,
Where sits enthroned the answering Star.


IX.

WILL you not come: the unequal fever
Of Paris hold our lives for ever?
Were it not better to exceed
The avenging thought, the unmeaning deed,
Make one strong act at least? How small,
How idiot our lives! These folk
That think they live -- which dares at all
To act? The suicide that broke
His chain, and lies so waxen pale
In the Morgue to-day? Did he then fail?
Ay, he was beaten. But to live,
Slink on through what the world can give, {4B}
That is a hound's life too. For me,
The suicide stands grand and free
Beside these others. Was it fear
Drove him to stand upon the bank?
The Paris lights shone far and drear;
The mist was down; the night was dank;
The Seine ran easily underneath;
The air was chill: he knew the Seine
By pain would put an end to pain,
And jumped, -- and struggled against death,
I doubt not. Ye courageous men
That scorn to flee the world, ye slaves
Of commerce, ye that ply the pen,
That dig, and fill, and loathe your graves!
Ye counter-jumpers, clergy, Jews,
All Paris, smug and good, that use
To point the index scorn, deride
The courage of that suicide --
I ask you not to quit us quite,
But -- will you take a bath to-night?
Money might make you. Well: but he,
What was his wage, what was his fee?
Fear fiercer than a mortal fear.
Be silent, cowards, leave him here
Dead in the Morgue, so waxen pale!
He failed: shall ye not also fail?
"Ah! love! the strings are little;"
"The cords are over strong;"
"The chain of life is brittle;"
"And keen the sword of song."
Will you not seize in one firm grip
Now, as I hold you, lip to lip,
The serpent of Event, hold hard
Its slipping coils, its writhe retard,
And snap its spine? Delicate hands
You have: the work is difficult;
Effort that holds and understands
May do it: shall our foes exult,
The daughters of Philistia laugh,
The girls of Askalon rejoice,
Writing for us this epitaph:
"They chose, and were not worth the choice"?
You are so pure: I am a man.
I will assume the courage tried
Of yonder luckless suicide,
Any you -- awaken, if you can,
The courage of the courtezan! {5A}


X.

TO sea! To sea! The ship is trim;
The breezes bend the sails.
They chant the necromantic hymn,
Arouse Arabian tales.

To sea! Before us leap the waves;
The wild white combers follow.
Invoke, ye melancholy slaves,
The morning of Apollo!

There's phosphorescence in the wake,
And starlight o'er the prow.
One comet, like an angry snake,
Lifts up its hooded brow.

The black grows grey toward the East:
A hint of silver glows.
Gods gather to the mystic feast
On interlunar snows.

The moon is up full-orbed: she glides
Striking a snaky ray
Across the black resounding tides,
The sepulchre of day.

The moon is up: upon the prow
We stand and watch the moon.
A star is lustred on your brow;
Your lips begin a tune,

A long, low tune of love that swells
Little by little, and lights
The overarching miracles
Of love's desire, and Night's.

It swells, it rolls to triumph-song
Through luminous black skies;
Thrills into silence sharp and strong,
Assumes its peace, and dies.

There is the night: it covers close
The lilies folded fair
of all your beauty, and the rose
Half hidden in your hair. {5B}

There is the night: unseen I stand
And look to seaward still:
We would not look upon the land
Again, had I my will.

The ship is trim: to sea! to sea!
Take life in either hand,
Crush out its wine for you and me,
And drink, and understand!


XI.

I AM a pretty advocate!
My speech has served me ill. Perchance
Silence had served: you now look straight
On that clear evidence of France,
The embroidered garter yonder. Wait!
I had some confidence in fate
Ere I spoke thus. For while I spoke
The old smile, surely helpless, broke
On your tired lips: the old light woke
In your deep eyes: but silence falls
Blank, blank: the species that appals,
Not our old silence. I devise
A motto for your miseries:
"There an embroidered garter lies,
And here words -- they lie too?" I see
Your intuition of the truth
Is still in its -- most charming -- youth.
You need that physiology!


XII.<<1>>

<<1. In view of the strange uproar which this harmless section created, one person supposing it to testify Crowley's ignorance, another that it was a correct physiological description of the action of the erector penis muscle (!!!), it should be explained that the speaker wishes to explain that consciousness is a function of the brain, and that, talking to an ignorant girl, he allows himself to talk what is in detail extravagant nonsense.>>

I LOVE you. That seems simple? No!
Hear what the physiologist
Says on the subject. "To and fro"
"The motor axis of the brain" {6A}
"Hits on the cerebellum hard,"
"Makes the medulla itch: the bard"
"Twitches his spinal cord again,"
"Excites Rolando's fissure, and"
"Impinges on the Pineal gland."
"Then Hippocampus major strikes"
"The nerves, and we may say 'He likes,'"
"But if the umbilical cord"
"Cut the cerebrum like a sword,"
"And afferent ganglia, sensory bones,"
"Shake in the caecum: then one groans"
"'He likes Miss What's your Name.' And if"
"The appendix vermiformis biff"
"The pericardium, pleura shoves"
"The femur -- we may say: 'He loves.'"
Here is the mechanism strange
(But perfectly correct) to change
My normal calm -- seraphic dew!
Into an ardent love for you.


XIII.

IS there a soul behind the mask?
What master drives these slaves to task
Thus willing? Physiology
Wipes the red scalpel, scorns reply.
My argument to please you swerves,
Becomes a mere defence of nerves.
Why they are thus, why so they act,
We know not, but accept the fact.
How this for my peccation serves?
Marry, how? Topically! Pact
I bind with blood to show you use
For this impertinence -- and add
A proverb fit to make you mad
About the gander and the goose,<<1>>
Till you reposte with all your force
A miserable pun on sauce.
The battle when you will! This truce
I take in vantage, hold my course.
I see mechanic causes reach
Back through eternity, inform
The stellar drift, the solar storm,
The protoplasmic shiver, each {6B}
Little or great, determinate
In law for Fate, the Ultimate.
If this be meaningless, much more
Vacant your speech and sophic skill
(My feminine and fair Escobar!<<2>>)
To prove mere circumstance is no bar
Against the freedom of the will.
However this may be, we are
Here and not otherwhere, star to star!
Hence then act thou! Restrain the "Damn!"
Evoked by "I am that I am."
Perpend! (Hark back to Hamlet!) If
You stand thus poised upon the cliff
Freewill -- I await that will; (One) laughter;
(Two) the old kiss; (Three) silence after.
No? Then vacate the laboratory!
Psychology must crown the event,
And sociology content,
Ethics suffice, the simple story!
(Oh! that a woman ever went
Through course of science full and whole,
Without the loss of beauty's scent,
And grace, and subtlety of soul.
Ah God! this Law maketh hearts ache,
"Who eateth shall not have his cake.")

<<1. What is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.>>
<<2. A mediaeval logician.>>


XIV.

ACCEPT me as I am! I give
All you can take. If you dislike
Some fragments of the life I live,
They are not yours: I scorn to strike
One sword-swift pang against your peace.
See! I'm a mountaineer. Release
That spirit from your bonds: or come
With me upon the mountains, cease
This dull round, this addition sum
Of follies we call France: indeed
Cipher! And if at times I need
The golden dawn upon the Alps,
The gorgers of Himalayan rock,
The grey and ancient hills, the scalps
Of hoary hills, the rattling shock
Of avalanche adown the hills --
Why, what but you, your image, fills {7A}
My heart in these? I want you there.
For whom but you do I ply pen,
Talk with unmentionable men
Of proofs and types -- dull things! -- for whom
But you am I the lover? Bloom,
O flower, immortal flower, love, love!
Linger about me and above,
Thou perfumed haze of incense-mist!
The air hath circled me and kissed
Here in this room, on mountains far,
Yonder to seaward, toward yon star,
With your own kisses. Yes! I see
The roseate embroidery
Yonder -- I know: it seems to give
The lie to me in throat and teeth.
That is the surface: underneath
I live in you: in you I live.


XV.

WILL you not learn to separate
The essential from the accidental,
Love from desire, caprice from fate,
The inmost from the merely mental?
Our star, the sun, gives life and light:
Let that decay, the aeons drown
Sense in stagnation; death and night
Smite the fallen fragments of the crown
Of spring: but serves the garter so?
What wandering meteor is this
Across the archipelago
Luminous of our starry bliss?
Let that be lost: the smile disputes
The forehead's temple with the frown,
When gravitation's arrow shoots,
And stockings happen to slip down.
You are my heart: the central fire
Whereby my being burns and moves,
The mainspring of my life's desire,
The essential engine that approves
The will to live: and these frail friends,
The women I shall draw you, fail
Of more importance to earth's ends
Than to my life a finger-nail.
'Twere pain, no doubt, were torn away
One, a minute distemperature. {7B}
I spend a fraction of the day
Plying the art of manicure.
But always beats the heart: the more
I polish, tint, or carve, I ask
Strength from the heart's too generous store
To bend my fingers to the task.
Cease: I am broken: nought remains.
The brain's electric waves are still;
No blood beats eager in the veins;
The mind sinks deathward, and the will.
It is no figure of boy's speech,
Lover's enthusiasm, rhyme
Magniloquent of bard, to reach
Truth through the husk of space and time:
No truth is more devout than this:
"In you I live: I live in you."
Had Latmos not known Artemis,
Where were the faint lights of that dew
Of Keats? O maiden moon of mine,
Imperial crescent, rise and shine!


XVI.

I WAS a fool to hide it. Here
Phantoms arise and disappear,
Obedient to the master's wand.
The incense curls like a pale frond
Of some grey garden glory about
This room; I take my sceptre out,
My royal crown; invoke, evoke
These phantoms in the glimmering smoke;
And you shall see -- and take no hurt --
The very limb yon garter girt.


XVII.

I AM a man. Consider first
What we may learn, if but we will,
From that small lecture I rehearsed
With very Huxley's strength and skill
And clarity. What do I mean,
Admitting manhood? This: to-day
I fed on oysters, ris-de-veau,
Beefsteak and grapes. Will you repay
My meal with anger, rosy grow {8B}
With shame because instead of you
I went to feed chez Lavenue?<<1>>
The habit anthropophagous,
Nice as it is, is not for us.
I love you: will you share my life,
Become my mistress or my wife?
Agreed: but can your kisses feed me?
Is it for dinner that you need me?
But think: it is for you I eat.
Even as the object that I see,
The brain 'tis pictured in; the beat
Of nerves that mean the picture are
Not like it, but dissimilar.
How can a nervous current be
Like that Velasquez? So I find
Dinner a function of the mind,
Not like you, but essential to
(Even it) my honest love of you.
Consider then yon broidered toy
In the same aspect! Steals no joy
Glittering beneath the sad pale face?

<<1. A famous restaurateur in the Place de Rennes.>>


XVIII.

STILL grave, my budding Arahat?
I see the crux of my disgrace
Lies in the mad idea that -- that! --
Is not dissimilar, usurps
The very function I have given
Blissful beyond the bliss of heaven --
Aha! there is a bird that chirps
Another song. Here's paint and brush
And canvas. I will paint anon
The limb yon garter once was on;
Sketch you a nude -- my soul -- and nude
The very human attitude
We all assume -- or else are posers.
Such winners are the surest losers.
I paint her picture, recognise --
Dare you? one glimmer of her eyes
Like yours, one shimmer of her skin
Like that your flesh is hidden in,
One laugh upon her lips enough
Like yours for me to recollect, {8B}
Remind, recall, hint? Never! Stuff!
You are, as aye, alone, elect.
Shall we then dive in Paris sewers?
Ay! but not find you there, nor yet
Your likeness. Did you than forget
You are my love? Arise and shine!
It was your blasphemy, not mine.


XIX.

A FAINT sweet smell of ether haunts
Yet the remembrance. Hear the wizard
His lone and melancholy chaunts
Roared in the rain-storm and the blizzard!
The ancient and devoted dizzard!
Appear, thou dream of loveliness!
She wore a rose and amber dress,
With broidery of old gold. Her hair
Was long and starry, gilded red.
Her face was laughter, shapen fair
By the sweet things she thought and said.
Her whiteness rustled as she walked.
Her hair sang tunes across the air.
She sighed, laughed, whispered, never talked.
She smiled, and loves devout and rare
Flickered about the room. She stayed
Still in the dusk: her body sang
Out full and clear "O love me!" Rang
The silver couplets undismayed,
Bright, bold, convincing. In her eyes
Glittered enamelled sorceries.
She was a piece of jewel work
Sold by a Christian to a Turk.
She had fed on air that day: the flowers
About her curled, ambrosial bowers
Of some divine perfume: the soul
Of ether made her wise; control
Of strong distilled delight. She showered
Wit and soft laughter and desire
About her breasts in bliss embowered,
And subtle and devouring fire
Leapt in live sparks about her limbs.
Her spirit shields me, and bedims
My sight: she needs me: I need her.
She is mine: she calls me: sob and stir
Strange pulses of old passionate
Imperial ecstasies of fate. {9A}
Destiny; manhood; fear; delight;
Desire; accomplishment; ere night
Dipped her pail plumes to greet the sun
She was not; all is past and done.
A dream? I wake from blissful sleep,
But is it real? Well, I keep
An accidental souvenir
Whence thus to chronicle small beer;<<1>>
There is the garter. Launched our boat,
The stately pinnace once afloat,
You shall hear all; we will not land
On this or that mediate strand,
Until the voyage be done, and we
Pass from the river to the sea,
And find some isle's secluded nook
More sacred than we first forsook.

<<1. See "Othello," II, i.>>


XX.

YES, there are other phases, dear!
Here is a pocket-book, and here
Lies a wee letter. Floral thyrse?<<1>>
Divine-tipped narthex of the pine,<<2>>
Or morphia's deceitful wine?
The French is ill, the spelling worse! --
But this is horrible! This, me?
The upholder of propriety,
Who actually proposed to form
A club to shield us from the swarm
Of common people of no class
Who throng the Quartier Montparnasse!
I wear a collar:<<3>> loudly shout
That folk are pigs that go without, --
And here you find me up a tree
To make my concierge blush for me!
A girl "uncombed, so badly dressed,
So rudely mannered -- and the rest;
Not at all proper. Fie! away!
What would your lady mother say?"
I tell you, I was put to it
To wake a wonder of my wit {9B}
Winged, to avail me from the scorn
Of my own concierge. Adorn
The facts I might; you know them not;
But that were just the one black blot
On this love's lesson: still, to excuse
Myself to you, who could not choose
But make some weak apology
Before the concierge's eye!
True, you are far too high to accuse --
Perhaps would rather not be told?
You "shall" hear. Does a miner lose
If through the quartz he gets to gold?
Yes: Nina was a thing of nought,
A little laughing lewd gamine,
Idle and vicious, void of thought,
Easy, impertinent, unclean --
Utterly charming! Yes, my queen!
She had a generous baby soul,
Prattled of love. Should I control,
Repress perhaps the best instinct
The child had ever had? I winked
At foolish neighbours, did not shrink.
Such cafe Turc I made her drink
As she had never had before;
Set her where you are sitting; chatted;
Found where the fires of laughter lurk;
Played with her hair, tangled and matted;
Fell over strict nice conduct's brink,
Gave all she would, and something more.
She was an honest little thing,
Gave of her best, asked no response.
What more could Heaven's immortal king
Censed with innumerous orisons?
So, by that grace, I recognised
A something somewhere to be prized
Somewhat. What portress studies song?
My worthy concierge was wrong.

<<1 & 2. The thyrsus and narthex were carried by the Maenads, the maiden devotees of Bacchus.>>
<<3. The poet libels himself; he rarely did so.>>


XXI.

THEN let not memory shrink abashed,
Once started on this giddy whirl!
Hath not a lightning image flashed
Of my divine boot-button girl?
She is a dainty acrobat,
Tailor-made from tip to toe; {10A}
A tiniest coquettish hat,
A laughing face alight, aglow
With all the fun of life. She comes
Often at morning, laughs aloud
At the poor femm' de menage; hums
Some dancing tune, invades my cloud
Of idle dreams, sits poised upon
The couch, and with a gay embrace
Cries out "Hullo, my baby!" Shone
Such nature in a holier face?
We are a happy pair at least:
Coffee and rolls are worth a feast,
And laughing as she came she goes!
The dainty little tuberose!
She has a lithe white body, slim
And limber, fairy-like, a snake
Hissing some Babylonian hymn
Tangled in the Assyrian brake.
She stole upon me as I slept:
Who wonders I am nympholept?
Her face is round and hard and small
And pretty -- hence the name I gave her
Of the boot-button girl. Appal
These words? Ah, would your spirit save her?
She's right just as she is: so wise
You look through hardly-opened eyes
One would believe you could do better.
Ma foi! And is your God your debtor?
So, my true love, I paint you three
Portraits of women that love me.


XXII.

THESE portraits, darling, are they yours?
And yet there sticks the vital fact
That these, as you, are women. Lures
The devil of the inexact
With subtle leasing? Nay! O nay!
I'll catch him with a cord, drawn out
By a bent fish-hook through his snout,
Give to my maiden for a play.
You, them, and dinner and -- what else? --
However unlike, coincide
In composition verified
Of final protoplasmic cells. {10B}
Shall this avail to stagger thought,
Confuse the reason, bring to nought
The rosebud, in reflecting: Hem!
What beauty hath the flower and stem?
Carbon we know, and nitrogen,
And oxygen -- are these a rose?
But this thought everybody knows,
That this should be the same for men
They know not. Death may decompose,
Reduce to primal hyle perchance --
I shall not do it in advance!
So let the accidental fact
That these are women, fall away
To black oblivion: be the pact
Concluded firm enough to-day,
Not thus to err. So you are not
In essence or in function one
With these, the unpardonable blot
On knighthood's shield, the sombre spot
Seen on the photosphere of sun.


XXIII.

"NAY! that were nothing," say you now,
Poor baby of the weary brow,
Struggling with metaphysic lore?
"But these, being women, gave you more:
You spoke of love!" Indeed I did,
And you must counter me unbid,
Forgetting how we must define
This floral love of yours and mine.
That love and this are as diverse
As Shelley's poems and my verse.
And now the bright laugh comes in spite
Of all the cruel will can do.
"I take," you say, "a keen delight
In Shelley, but as much in you."
There, you are foolish. And you know
The thing I meant to say. O love!
What little lightnings serve to show
Glimpses of all your heart! Above
All, and beneath all, lies there deep,
Canopied over with young sleep,
Bowered in the lake of nenuphars,
Watched by the countless store of stars,
The abiding love you bear me. Hear
How perfect love casts flying fear {11A}
Forth from its chambers! Those and this
Are utterly apart. The bliss
Of this small quarrel far exceeds
That dervish rapture, dancer deeds
Strained for egregious emphasis.
These touch you not! You sit alone
Passionless upon passion's throne,
And there is love. Look not below,
Lest aught disturb the silver flow
Of harmonies of love! Awake!
Awake for love's own solar sake!
Diverse devotion we divide
From the one overflowing tide.
Despise this fact! So lone and far
Lies the poor garter, that I gaze
Thither; it casts no vivid rays.
But hither? I behold the star!


XXIV.

NOW your grave eyes are filled with tears;
Your hands are trembling in my own;
The slow voice falls upon my ears,
An undulating monotone.
Your lips are gathered up to mine:
Your bosom heaves with fearful breath;
Your scent is keen as floral wine,
Inviting me, and love, to death.
You, whom I kept, a sacred shrine,
Will fling the portals to the day;
Where shone the moon the sun shall shine,
Silver in scarlet melt away.
There is a yet a pang: they give me this
Who can; and you who could have failed?
Is it too late to extend the kiss?
Too late the goddess be unveiled?
O but the generous flower that gives
Her kisses to to violent sun,
Yet none the less in ardour lives
An hour, and then her day is done.
Back from my lips, back from my breast!
I hold you as I always will,
You unprofaned and uncaressed,
Silent, majestical, and still.
Back! for I love you. Even yet
Do you not see my deepest fire
Burn through the veils and coverings set
By fatuous phantoms of desire? {11B}
Back! O I love you evermore.
But, be our bed the bridal sky!
I love you, love you. Hither, shore
Of far unstained eternity!
There we will rest. Beware! Beware!
For I am young, and you are fair.
Nay! I am old in this, you know!
Ah! heat of God! I love you so!


XXV.

O WHAT pale thoughts like gum exude
From smitten stem of tropic tree!
I talk of veils, who love the nude!
Witness the masterpieces three
Of Rodin that make possible
Life in prosaic Paris, stand
About the room, its chorus swell
From the irritating to the grand.
Shall we, who love the naked form,
The inmost truth, to ourselves fail,
Take shelter from love's lightning-storm
Behind some humbug's hoary veil?
Ah! were it so, love, could the flame
Of fast electric fervour flash,
Smite us through husk of form and name,
Leave of the dross a little ash,
One button of pure fused gold
Identical -- O floral hour!
That were the bliss no eyes behold,
But Christ's delighted bridal dower
Assuming into God the Church.
But -- oh! these nudes of Rodin! I
Drag one more linnet from its perch
That sang to us, and sang a lie.
Did Rodin strip the clothes, and find
A naked truth fast underneath?
Never! Where lurks the soul and mind?
What is the body but a sheath?
Did he ply forceps, scalpel, saw,
Tear all the grace of form apart,
Intent to catch some final law
Behind the engine of the heart?
He tried not; whoso has, has failed.
So, did I pry beneath the robe,
Till stubborn will availed, nor quailed,
Intimate with naked probe? {12A}
I know the husks<<1>> to strip; name, form,
Sensation, then perception, stress
Of nature thither; last, the swarm
Of honey-bees called consciousness.
These change and shape a myriad shapes.
Diverse are these, not one at all,
What gain I if my scalpel scrapes,
Turning before some final wall
Of soul? Not so, nothing is there.
The qualities are all: for this
I stop as I have stopped; intrude
No science, for I love the fair;
No wedlock, for I love the kiss;
No scalpel, for I love the nude.
And we await the deep event.
Whate'er it be, in solitude;
Silent, with ecstasy bedewed;
Content, as Rodin is content.

<<1. The Buddhist "Skandhas." See "Science and Buddhism," vol. ii. p. 244.>>


XXVI.

I WILL not, and you will not. Stay!
Do you recall that night of June
When from the insufferable day
Edged out the dead volcanic moon
Solemn into midnight? You
Shown your inviolate violet eyes
Into my eyes less sad, and drew
Back from the slender witcheries
Of word and song: and silence knew
What splendour in the silence lies,
The soul drawn back into itself.
It was the deep environing
Wood that then shielded us: the elf
And fairy in an emerald ring,
And hamadryad of the trees,
And naiad of the sleepy lake,
That watched us on the mossy leas
Look on each other's face, and take
The secret of the universe
to sleep with us: you knew, and I,
The purport of the eternal curse,
The ill design of destiny.
You know, and I, O living head
Of love! the things that were not said. {12B}


XXVII.

DO you recall? Could I forget?
How once the full moon shone above,
Over the houses, and we let
Loose rein upon the steeds of love?
How kisses fled to kisses, rain
Of fiery dew upon the soul
Kindled, till ecstasy was pain;
Desire, delight: and swift control
Leapt from the lightning, as the cloud
Disparted, rended, from us twain,
And we were one: the aerial shroud
Closed on us, shall not lift again
For aught we do: O glamour grown
Inseparable and alone!
And then we knew as now the tune
Our lives were set to, and sang back
Across the sky toward the moon
Into the cloud's dissolving wrack,
Vanished for ever. And we found
Coprolite less than chrysolite,
Flowers fairer than their food, the ground;
We knew our destiny, saw how
Man's fate is written on his brow,
And how our love throughout was hewn
And masked and moulded by the moon.


XXVIII.

AND who is then the moon? Bend close,
And clothe me in a silken kiss,
And I will whisper to my rose
The secret name of Artemis.
Words were not needed then: to-day
Must I begin what never I thought
To do: mould flowers in common clay?
Mud casket of mere words is nought,
When by love's miracle we guess
What either always thinketh. Yes?


XXIX.

SO, love, not thus for you and me!
And if I am man, no more, expect
I shall remain so, till, maybe,
The anatomist, old Time, dissect {13A}
Me, nerve from flesh, and bone from bone,
And raise me spiritual, changed
In all but love for you, my own;
The little matter rearranged,
The little mind refigured. This
Alone I hope or think to keep: --
The love I bear you, and the kiss
Too soft to call the breath of sleep.
And, if you are woman, even there
I do decline: we stand above.
I ask not, and will take no share
With you in what mankind call love.
We know each other: you and I
Have nought to do with lesser things.
With them -- 'tis chance or destiny:
With us, we should but burn our wings.
We love, and keep ourselves apart:
Mouth unto mouth, heart unto heart,
Thus ever, never otherwise.
The soul is out of me, and swings
In desperate and strange surmise
About the inmost heart of things.
This is all strange: but is not life,
Death, all, most strange, not to be told,
Not to be understood by strife
Of brain, nor bought for gleaming gold,
Nor known by aught but love? And love
Far from resolving soul to sense,
Stands isolated and above
Immaculate, alone, intense,
Concentrate on itself. But should
The lesser leave me, as it might;
The lesser never touch you; would
Your will be one with my delight?
Leave all the thoughts and miseries!
Invade the glowing fields of sun!
Cross bleak inhospitable seas,
Until this hour be past and done,
And we in some congenial clime
Are then reborn, where danger's nought
To mock the old Parisian time
When fear was still the child of thought!
So we could love, and love, and fate
Never clang brutal on the gong,
And lunch, man-eating tiger, wait
Crouched in the jungles of my song; {12B}
My gaze be steadfast on the star
And never to the garter glide,
And I on rapture's nenuphar
Sit Buddha-like above the tide.


XXX.

O BLUEBELL of the inmost wood,
Before whose beauty I abase
My head, and bind my burning blood,
And hide within the moss my face,
I would not so -- or not for that
Would so: the gods knew well to save
The mountain summit from the flat,
Youth's laughter from its earlier grave.
It is a better love, exists
Only because of these below it:
Mountains loom grander in the mists:
The lover's foolish to the poet.
I know. Far better strive and earn
The rest you give me than remain
Ever upon the heights that burn
Sunward, and quite forget the pain.
Beauteous and bodiless we are;
Rapture is our inheritance;
You shine, an everlasting star,
I, the rough nebula: but whence,
Whither, we know not. But we know
That if our joy were always so
We might not know it. Strange indeed
This earth where all is paradox,
Pushed to the truth: what lies succeed
When every truth essential mocks
Its truth in figure of a phrase?
How should I care for this, and tire
Body by will to sing thy praise,
Who take this lute, throw down the lyre
As I have done to-day, to win
No guerdon differing from the toil,
Were that accomplished: pain and sin
Are needed for the counterfoil
Of joy and love; if only so
All men had these in keen excess
Those were forgotten: indigo
Is amber's shadow, but -- confess
For all men but ourselves the tint {14A}
Of all the earth is dull and black!
Only some glints of love bestow
The knowledge of what meteor wrack
Trails pestilence across the sky.
But we are other -- you and I!
So shall we live in deep content,
Unchanging bliss, despise them still
Groping on isle and continent
Wreathed in the mesh of woe and ill?
Ah! Zeus! we will not: be the law
Of uttermost compassion ours!
Our snows it shall not come to thaw,
Nor burn the roses from our bowers.


XXXI.

AY! There's a law! For this recede,
Hide with me in the deepest caves
Of some volcanic island; bleed
Our hearts out by the ambient waves
Of Coromandel; live alone,
Hermits of love and pity, far
Where tumbled banks of ice are thrown,
Watched by yon solitary star,
Sirius; there to work together
In sorrow and in joy but one,
In black inhospitable weather,
Or fronting the Numidian sun,
Equally minded; till the hour
Strike of release, and we obtain
The passionless and holy power,
Making us masters over pain,
And lords of peace: the rays of light
We fling to the awakening globe;
The cavern of the eremite
Shall glow with inmost fire, a robe
Of diamond energy, shall flash
Even to the confines of wide space;
Comets their tails in fury lash
To look on our irradiate face.
And we will heal them. Dragon men
And serpent women, worm and clod,
Shall rise and look upon us then,
And know us to be very God,
Finding a saviour in the sight
Of power attaining unto peace,
And meditation's virgin might
Pregnant with twins -- love and release. {14B}
Are you not ready? Let us leave
This little Paris to its fate!
Our friends a little while may grieve,
And then forget: but we, elate,
Live in a larger air: awake,
Compassion in the Halls of Truth!
Disdain love for love's very sake!
Take all our beauty, strength, and youth,
And melt them in the crucible
To that quintessence at whose gleam
Gold shudders and grows dull; expel
The final dross by intimate steam
Of glowing truth, our lunar light!
Are you not ready? Who would stay?
Arise, O Queen, O Queen of Night!
Arise, and leave the little day!


XXXII.

LADY, awake the dread abyss
Of knowledge in impassioned eyes!
Fathom the gulfs of awful bliss
With the poised plummet of a kiss!

Love hath the arcanum of the wise;
Love is the elixir, love the stone;
The rosy tincture shall arise
Out of its shadowy cadences.

Love is the Work, and love alone
Rewards the ingenious alchemist.
Chaste fervours chastely overthrown
Awake the infinite monotone.

So, Lady, if thy lips I kissed;
So, lady, if in eyes of steel
I read the steady secret, wist
Of no gray ghosts moulded of mist;

I did not bid my purpose kneel,
Nor thine retire: I probe the scar
Of self, the goddess keen and real
Supreme within the naked wheel

Of sun and moon and star and star,
And find her but the ambient coil,
Imagination's avatar,
A Buddha on his nenuphar {15A}

Elaborate of Indian toil;
A mockery of a self; outrun
Its days and dreams, its strength and spoil,
As runs the conquering counterfoil.

Thou art not; thou the moon and sun,
Thou the sole star in trackless night,
The unguessed spaces one by one
That mask their Sphinx, the horizon:

Thou, these; and one above them, light,
Light of the inmost heaven and hell: --
Art changed and fallen and lost to sight,
Who wast as waters of delight.

And I, who am not, know thee well
Who art not: then the chain divides
From love-enlightened limbs, and swell
The choral cries unutterable.

Out of the salt, out of the tides,
The sea, whose drink is death by thirst!
The triumph anthem overrides
The ocean's lamentable sides,

And we are done with life; accurst
Who linger; lost who find; but we
Follow the gold wake of the first
Who found in losing; who reversed

The dictates of eternity.
Lo! in steep meditation hearsed,
Coffined in knowledge, fast we flee
Unto the island from the sea.


XXXIII.

THE note of the silence is changed; the quarrel is over
That rather endeared than estranged: lover to lover
Flows in the infinite river of knowledge and peace:
Not a ripple or eddy or quiver: the monitors cease
That were eager to warn, to awaken: a sleep is opposed,
And the leaves of the rose wind-shaken are curled and closed, {15B}
Gone down in the glare of the sun; and the twilight perfumes
Steal soft in the wake of the One that abides in the glooms.
Walking he is, and slowly; thoughtful he seems,
Pure and happy and holy; as one would who dreams
In the day-time of deep delights no kin to the day,
But a flower new-born of the night's in Hecate's way.
Love is his name, and he bears the ill quiver no more.
He has aged as we all, and despairs; but the lady who bore
Him, Eros, to ruin the ages, has softened at heart;
He is tamed by the art of the sages, the magical art.
No longer he burns and blisters, consumes and corrodes;
He hath Muses nine for sisters; the holy abodes
Of the maiden are open to him, for his wrath is grown still;
His eyes with weeping are dim; he hath changed his will.
We know him; and Venus sinks, a star in the West;
A star in the even, that thinks it shall fall into rest.
Let it be so, then! Arise, O moon of the lyrical spears!
Huntress, O Artemis wise, be upon him who hears!
I have heard thy clear voice in the moon; I have borne it afar;
I have tuned it to many a tune; thou hast showed me a star,
And the star thou hast showed me I follow through uttermost night.
{16Atop}
I have shaken my spear at Apollo; his ruinous might
I have mocked, I have mastered. All hail to the Star of Delight
That is tender and fervid and frail, and avails me aright!
Hail to thee, symbol of love, assurance and promise of peace!
Stand fast in the skies above, till the skies are abolished and cease!

And for me, may I never forget how things came well as they are!
It was long I had wandered yet ere my eyes found out the star.
Be silent, love, and abide; the wanton strings must go
To the vain tumultuous tide of the spirit's overflow.
I sing and sing to the world; then silence soon
Be about us clasped and furled in the light of the moon.
Forget not, never forget the terrible song I have sung;
How the eager fingers fret the lute, and loose the tongue
Tinkles delicate things, faint thoughts of a futile past --
We are past on eagle wings, and the silence is here at last.
The last low wail of the lyre, be it soft with a tear
For the children of earth and fire that have brought us here.
Give praise, O masterful maid, to Nina, and all as they die!
The moon makes blackest of shade; the star's in the swarthiest sky.
Be silent, O radiant martyr! Let the world fade slowly afar!
But -- had it not been for the Garter, I might never have seen the Star.
{16Btop, full page resumes below}

GR:Omicron-Nu Omicron-Upsilon Alpha-Gamma-Nu-Omicron-Omega-Nu
Epsilon-Upsilon-Sigma-Epsilon-Beta-Epsilon-Iota-Sigma

Tau-Omicron-Upsilon-Tau-Omicron-Nu Epsilon-Gamma-Omega
Rho-Omicron-Delta-Omicron-Nu<<1>>

Kappa-Alpha-Tau-Alpha-Gamma-Gamma-Epsilon-Lambda-Lambda-Omega
Sigma-Omicron-Iota

<<1. The quotation is altered from Acts xvii. 23. "Whom therefore ("i.e." because of the poem) thou dost ignorantly worship, him do I Rose declare unto thee." Rose was the name of the poet's wife.>>
{16}





APPENDIX

A MADEMOISELLE LE MODELE -- DITE JONES

("To serve as Prelude to a possible Part II.")

[The humour of this curious poem is partly personal, and Crowley wished to omit if for this reason. But some of the criticism is so apt, and the satire so acute, that we were unwilling to let it drop.] {columns resume}


IN order to avoid the misunderstanding, which I have reason to believe exists,<> I append this simple personal explanation: let it serve, more-over, as the "hors d'oeuvre" to a new feast. For it is not manifest that who wrote so much when all was mystery, should write yet more now all is clear? It is perhaps due to you, the bedrock of my mountains of idealism, that I attained the magical force to make all those dreams come true: for that, then, this.
Further, should Nietzsche play you false, and supply no key to this Joseph confection; a kid glove and an ortolan are alike to him -- and, if this be a haggis, much more is this the case! -- you may apply to the only educated man in your neighbourhood, as you applied before in the matter of the Bruce Papyrus (I do not refer to Bruce Papyrus which all who run may read -- all honour to the scribe!), and he will take pleasure in explaining it to you line by line, and letter by letter, if that will serve.
Possess yourself in patience, that is to say, and, should I return from the wilds into which my restless destiny so continually drives me, you may hope for a second part which shall excel the former as realism always must excel idealism.
I have no hope for your brain, and, I am sorry to add, as little for your hear; but there must be a sound spot in you somewhere [could you not be "natural?" -- But no, no!], and that spot may yet be touched and healed by the Homocea<> of irritable, if never yet by the Lanoline<> of amoroso-emasculatory, verse. With this, then, farewell!


I.

There is an eye through which the Kabbalist
Beholds the Goat.
There is an eye that I have often kissed.
(That hath a throat.) {17A}
There is an eye that Arab sages say
Weeps never enough.
There is an eye whose glances make the day
The day of Love.
There is an eye that is above all eyes,
That is no eye.
(Stood proud Anatta on the Bridge of Sighs
And thundered "Why?")
Which eyes are mine, which thine, poor ape, discover
And even yet thou hast not lost thy lover.


II.

Khephra, thou Beetle-headed God!
Who travellest in thy strength above
The Heaven of Nu, with splendour shod
Of Thoth, and girt about with Love!
O Sun at midnight! in thy Bark
The cynocephali proclaim
Thy effulgent deity, and mark
The adorations of thy name
In seemly stations one by one,
As thou encirclest blinder poles
Than Khem or Ammon showed the sun
In one-eyed sight of secret goals.
So I adore, and sing: for I
This magic monocle avow,
Distorted from Divinity
And wrought in subtler fashion now.
An invocation shrined and sealed
Be this! The many hear me not,
Though I be vocal, thou revealed.
I scorn the eye, uphold the -- what
Gods call the lotus poppy-hued,
Brave wound of weeping Isis! -- eye
Of Demiourgos, understood
Of none, O Lilly, ladily
Laden with lays of Buddhist bard,
Maiden with ways and bays of mirth,
And music -- is the saying hard?
Shall "Cryptic Coptic" block the birth
Of holy ecstasy? Forbid,
Ye Gods, forbid! Posed block, you fail
Of bulging heart by drooping lid.
Can you not serve as finger-nail? {17B}
Ay! God of scissors! barber God!
My earlier mystery did you learn?
Unshoe the aching pseudopod!
Mysterious donkey, chew or churn
Your human-kindness-milk to butter!
I gave you gratis God's advice
(Since God's responsible) to -- mutter
In gutter, pay your tithe to vice
Since virtue kicks you down its stairs.
So thus I clothed it in strange word
To catch you thinking unawares.
Think? do you think? Then, thinks a bird.
Read your Descartes! Nietzsche demurred?
To you, who give yourself such airs,
This riddle cannot offer snares!
"Love's mass is holier than wine and wafer.
Thou couldst not beetle be: then, be cock-chafer!"
Hence my address, this swoodier Swood
To Khephra, hence the ambiguous speech,
The alluring analogue, the good,
The loftiest heaven Art hopes to reach,
The highest goal of man as man;
The sly Paraprosdokian.
You could not love! You could not serve
The scouring of Love's scullery! You,
GR:iota-sigma-omicron-sigma theta-epsilon-omicron-iota-sigma-iota-nu? Ha,
you swerve
Back to that subtler meaning! Few
Can guess that miracle of reserve,
That sacrament of mathematics,
That threescore glee, that three times three,
That added scream of hydrostatics!
Not I, for one! Be assured, to fail
With me no arriere-pensee lends.
Fall once the penny, head or tail,
I care not -- all the less my friends!
Faultlessly faulty! Regular
In ice or fire, 'tis nullness counts.
So, spring of those Parnassian founts,
A thousand garters heralded
Thy flawless solitary star:
A million garters shall bestead
The poet's turn, when, lone and far,
All are dismissed: Some man, low brute,
Cry "Shame, O star that would not shoot,
And yet went out!" But I, my dear,
(Good-bye!) get neither shriek nor groan:
Kiss, curse, cat's hiss, I shall not hear,
My dear, for I shall be alone.


III.

What change of language! Ah, my dear,
The reason is not far to seek.
You know of old how oft I veer
From French to Send, from Jap to Greek.
Teste der titre polyglot
Del Berashith, GR:kappa-alpha-lambda-omicron-sigma kitab!
I trust you take me, do you not?
But change of thought -- ay! there's the barb
To stick and quiver in your heart!
Well, little lady, what of art? {18A}


IV.

All things are branded change. My thought
Long ran in one delicious groove.
Now newly sits the appointed court
To try another case, to prove
Another crime. Last week the law
Dealt with the garter's gross offence.
You were the Judge, enthroned on awe:
I wove that eloquent defence,
Unwove that Rhadamanthine frown
Which I had made myself, my star;
For I was counsel for the crown,
And I the prisoner at the bar.
Did you not see -- the sight is sad! --
How tiny was the part you played,
How little use the poet had
Even in Maytime for a maid?
Why! all's a whirl; but I, be sure,
Am axle, if at all I be;
So you, if yet your light endure,
Are model, and no more, to me.
So well you sit, though, you shall earn
Beyond your hourly increment
A knowledge. Are you fit to learn,
Or will you rather be content
With muddled mighty talk of Teutons
Evolving from the tangled Skein,
Neitzsche's research compared to Newton's
In some one's enervated brain.
(Did I say -- brain?) I'll talk, and you
Listen or not, as best beseems
Your lily languor. Irish stew
Shall float like dewdrops in your dreams.
So shall my new Apocalypse
Appear to you, my model! Once
You saw a languor on my lips,
A dawn of many molten suns,
And laughed in springtide of delight;
But now eclipse inveils your mood
Of me: descends artistic night;
I see a sun called solitude.
So models kiss, and understand
So far: the picture moves them not.
By label they approve the grand;
By critic's candour rave o'er rot.
But, let me hoist you Thornycroft,
And cry "Behold this Rodin!" bring
Some Poynter, lift the thing aloft,
Announce a Morice, see you fling
Your soul on knees in fervid praise: --
If so -- Off, Lilith! runs the phrase.
Now, is no barb upon the dart?
Now, little lady, What of art?


V.

Moreover (just a word) this chance
I fling you over space -- for luck!
This Scotland yet may catch your France,
My crow grow germane to your cluck. {18B}
See art: see truth as I who see,
(Am wellnigh fallen in the fight!)
Then the last lie, duality,
May break before the victor sight.
Then, and then only, That. Sweet hours
Of trivial passion deep as death,
Ye are past: I face the solemn powers
Of sex and soul, of brain and breath.
For you I lift the veil: discover
The actual, for I was your lover.
What should such word imply? I showed
Late, in the earlier dithyrab.
But -- in yon stone there lurks a toad! --
The Quarter bleats no palinode;
Goat it may be, no woolly lamb.
Arithmetic assuage your wrath
Should Cambridge wit write quarter "fourth"!
What said the unctuous slime of art,
Scrapings of beauty's palette, pimps
Of serious studios, stews or mart
Of filth, not vice? Those painter shrimps!
What did they gloat upon, delight
To think of better folk than they?
Hear then their oracle of might,
The sortes of a Balaam bray.
Through muddy glasses Delphi squints;
Cowards lack words and glut on hints.


VI.

Sibyl says nothing -- she's a Sphinx!
I wonder, though, what Sibyl thinks.
She argues "he would have her grow
So fell a Trixy -- point device! --
His Dante to her Beatrice
Should seem -- let music's language show: --
Andante move to Allegro,
Alas for pianissimo!"
And, in return, suspects I don
One glory more than Solomon:
"Rocks cannot satisfy the coney;
Lingerie's always worth the money."
In fine, flop, German, from thy throne!
Leave Greek and Papuan alone!
What foreign tongues be worth our own?
Is Armour jointed unawares?
Is Canning King, as Carlyle swears?
This is indeed Cumaean lore --
Ah well, 'tis pity! -- say no more! {19A}
There's one and twenty for your score,
Ah, how your divination slewed awry,
Ye purrient guttersnipes of prudery!
We know as much, my girl! We laughed,
And still can laugh at Barbercraft
Plied thus askew. Then leave them so!
Evoke the ancient afterglow
Rose on our sacramental snow
Of silent love, of mountain grace.
Remember the old tenderness
Even in these bitter words that press
Their ardent breast, their iron face,
Out to expression. Ay! remember
The ancient phantom fire of flowers,
The druid altars of December,
The Virgin priestess, the dread hours
Of solemn love. Then quail before
The deadly import of my word!
Forget your silly self, and store
Its vital horror, stabbed and spurred
To fearful pace and torture wild
Deep in your true heart's core, my child!
For though I strip you bare, and run
My red-hot iron through your flesh,
There is a citadel than none
May touch -- not God! The rotten rest
Evacuate; be seated there.
Let there be music, and Rome burn!
Then you may climb to be aware
How well you serve my idle turn,
Yet to yourself avail. There too
Lies a last doubtful chance for you.
Behold who dare! (Ay, you are fain!)
Purblind with passion? Sight in vain.
Stupid with sense of self? Division.
Picture, not model? Then you win.
I painted soul, who saw your skin: --
Be soul! That saves you. If you fail,
Why, then, you fail! Enough of this --
(Read not again Macbeth amiss!)
Give me one customary kiss --
An end of it! I rend the veil.
The flag falls for the Stakes of Song.
Run, filly, for the odds are long!<<1>>

<<1. [This "possible Part II." is still "in nubibus" unless we are to suppose from the Greek Dedications (pp. 1 and 16) that "Rosa Mundi" is to be taken as such.]>>

{19B}


{full page}



WHY JESUS WEPT

A STUDY OF SOCIETY AND OF THE GRACE OF GOD

1905 {columns resume}


"PERSONS STUDIED."

THE MARQUIS OF GLENSTRAE, K.G.
TYSON, "a farmer."
SIR PERCIVAL DE PERCIVALE, "Bart., K.C.B."
SIR PERCY DE PERCIVALE, "his son."
JOHN CARRUTHERS, "his friend and steward of his house,"
GREUMOCH, "A Highland gillie."
ARNOLD, .
RITSON, . "household servants."
SIR HERPES ZOSTER, M.D., "A celebrated physician."
SIR GRABSON JOBBS, Q.C., "Solicitor-General."
MR. G. K. CHESTERTON.
LORD RONALD GOWER, "as Chorus."
A Horny-Handed Brother (Plymouth).
A conscientious Chemist.
A theatre-Goer.
Large but unseen body of retainers.

MAUD, MARCHIONESS OF GLENSTRAE.
ANGELA, LADY BAIRD.
HORTENSE, "her maid."
MOLLY TYSON, "daughter of Tyson."
Aged (Plymouth) Sisters, &c., &c.

"The action of the play occupies three years."



"DEDICATIO MINIMA."

"My dear Christ,"

"A person, purporting to be a friend and disciple of yours, and calling himself John, reports you to have wept. His testimony is now considered by the best authorities to be of a very doubtful order. But if you" did "weep, this (vide infra) is why. Of if not, surely it would have made you weep, had it met your eye. Excuse the rhyme!"
"You ask me (on dit) to believe you. I shall" {20A} "be willing to do so -- merely as a gentleman -- till you betray the trust; but at present nobody worthy of serious consideration can give me any clear notion of what you actually assert. I labour under no such disadvantages. So have no diffidence in asking you to believe me."
"Yours affectionately,"

"ALEISTER CROWLEY."



"DEDICATIO MINOR."

"My dear Lady S----"

"I quite agree with your expressed opinion that no true gentleman would (with or without reason) compare" any "portion of your ladyship's anatomy to a piece of wet chamois leather; the best I can do to repair his rudeness is to acknowledge the notable part your ladyship played in the conception of this masterpiece by the insertion of as much of your name as my lawyers will permit me."
"I am your ladyship's most humble and obedient servant,"

"ALEISTER CROWLEY."



"DEDICATIO MAJOR."

"My Friends,"

"To you, Eastern of the Easterns, who have respectively given up all to find Truth; you, Jinawaravansa,"<<"A Siamese prince who became a Buddhist monk.>>" who esteemed the Yellow Robe" {20B} "more than your Princedom; you, Achiha,"<> "by sticking manfully to your Work in the World, yet no more allowing it to touch your Purpose than waters may wet the lotus leaf (to take the oldest and best simile of your oldest and best poets), must I dedicate this strange drama; for, like you, I would abandon all; like you, I see clearly what is of value; or, if not, at lest what is worthless; already something! Thus do I wish you and myself the three great boons Sila, Samadhi, and Salam."



"DEDICATIO MAXIMA."

"To my unborn child,"

"Who may learn by the study of this drama to choose the evil and avoid the good --" i.e. "as judged by Western, or 'Christian' standards."



"DEDICATIO EXTRAORDINARIA."

"Dear Mr. Chesterton,"

"Alone among the puerile apologists of your detestable religion you hold a reasonably mystic head above the tides of criticism. You are the last champion of God; with you I choose to measure myself. Others I can despise; you are a force to be reckoned with, as Browning your intellectual father was before you."
"Whether we are indeed friends or enemies it is perhaps hard to say: it has sometimes seemed to me that human freedom and happiness are our common goal, but that you found your muddied oafs in Gods, ministers, passive resisters, and all the religious team -- the "Brixton Bahinchuts," we might call them; while I, at once a higher mystic and a colder sceptic, found my Messiah in Charles Watts, and the Devil and all his angels. While "HB:Nun-Chet-Shin" and "HB:Mem-Shin-Yod-Chet" alike add to 358, indeed, it is no odds: did you once see this" {21A} "you were not far off from the Heart of the Qabalah."
"The occasion of this letter is the insertion of a scene equivalent to an "appreciation of the Brixton Chapel" in my masterpiece "Why Jesus Wept." You asked me for it;"<<"Vide" vol. ii. p. 203, "supra.">> "I promised it;"<<"I promise Mr. Chesterton | A grand ap-pre-c-a-ti-on | Of Brixton on Ascension Day." -- "The Sword of Song.">> "and I hope you will like it. Can I do more than make your Brixton my deus ex machina? You see, when I wrote "The Soul of Osiris," Europe was my utmost in travel. To-day, what country of the globe has not shuddered with the joy of my presence? The virgin snows of Chogo Ri, the gloomy jungles of Burma, filled with savage buffaloes and murderous Chins; the peace of Waikiki, the breeding hopeful putrefaction of America, the lonely volcanoes of Mexico, the everlasting furnace sands of Egypt -- all these have known me. Travel thou thus far, thou also! Somewhat shall thou learn! But otherwise; gird on thine armour for thy Christ, O champion of the dying faith in man dead!"
"Arm! arm, and out; for the young warrior of anew religion is upon thee; and his number is the number of a man."

Aleph-Lamed-Heh-Yod-Samekh-Tet-Heh-Resh-Heh-Koph-Resh-Ayin-Vau-Lamed-Heh-Yod

WHY JESUS WEPT.

In vain I sit by Kandy Lake.
The broad verandah slides to mist.
No tropic rapture strikes awake
The grim soul's candour to insist
The pen reluctant. Beauty's task
Is but to praise the peace of earth;
If Horror's contrast that should ask,
Off from this Paradise of mirth!
Let Kandy Lake, the white soul, mirror
The generalised concept, limn clear
England, a memory clean of error,
A royal reason to be here.
Therefore no reminiscence stirs
My heart of when I lived in Kandy.
Europe's the focus now! that blurs
The picture of my Buddhist dandy, {21B}
Allan, who broke his wand of flame,
Discharged his faithful poltergeist,
Gave up attempts to say The Name,<<1>>
Ananda Maitriya became,
By yellow robes allured, enticed;
Leaving me all alone to shame
The cunning missionary game;
And, by bad critics topped and sliced,
Put the ky-bosh on<<2>> Jesus Christ.

<<1. The great task of Western occultism is to "pronounce the name" of Jehovah; if this be correctly done, the universe ("i.e." of sense) is annihilated, and the true universe, of spirit, is made present to the consciousness.>>
<<2. To stop or silence; to spoil the plans of.>>

I sing a tale of modern life
(Suited for reading to my wife)
Of how Sir Percy Percivale
Grew from a boy into a man;
Well ware of every metric plan
A bard may dream, a rhymester scrawl,
Avoiding with deliberate "Damn!"
(Ut supra) In Memoriam;<<1>>
For such suggestion would suffice
To turn you blood to smoke or ice,
Dismissing with a hearty curse
Eunuch psychology, pimp verse.
Moreover, lest my metre move
From year to year in one dull groove,
Invention, hear me! Strange device
Hatch from this egg a cocatrice
Of novel style, that you who read
The Sword of Song -- (your poor, poor head!)
Shall stand amazed (at the new note)
Flung faultless from this trembling throat)
That Crowley, ever versatile
And lord of many a new bad style
Should still in's gun have one more cartridge,
And who Ixtaccihuatl's<<2>> smart ridge
Achieved should still be full of mettle
To go up Popocatapetl.<<3>>

<<1. The four lines above are in the metre of Tennyson's poem "In Memoriam." Its lack of manliness prompts Crowley's satire.>>
<<2 & 3. Mountains in Mexico climbed by Crowley in 1901.>>

As song then chills or aches or burns,
The metre shall slew round by turns. {22A}
The gross and bestial demand prose.
(Glance at the page, lass, stop your nose,
And turn to where short lines proclaim
That purity has won the game!)
But stow your prudery, wives and mothers,
You know as much muck as -- those others!
Your modest homes are dull; you need me!
Don't let your husbands know; but -- read me!


SCENE I.

"The Poet inducts his matter."

I draw no picture of the Fates
(Recitativo -- rhyming 8s)
Presiding over birth and so on.
I leave the Gods alone, and go on.
Sir Percival de Percivale
Sat in his vast baronial hall
(All unsuspicious of the weird;
"One day a person with a beard
Shall write of thee, and write a lot
Too like the late Sir Walter Scott.")<<1>>
Sir Percivale de Percivale
(Begin again!) was over all
The pangs of death foreseen; his eye
Sought the high rafter vacantly.
A week, and he would see no more!
His lady long had gone -- O Lor'!
I hear "St. Agnes' Eve"<<2>> suggest
To this 8's better a far best;
Spenserian solemnitie
Fits this part of my minstrelsie.

<<1. Many of Scott's narrative poems are in the same metre as this passage.>>
<<2. By John Keats, written in Spenserian stanzas. What follows is in part a parody of this style.>>

Now is the breath of winter in the hall.
The logs die out -- the knight would be alone!
The brave Sir Percival de Percivale
Sits like an image hewen out of stone.
Ay! he must die. The doctors all are gone, {22B}
And he must follow to the dusk abode,
The solemn place inscrutable, unknown,
Meeting no mortal on that crowded road;
All swift in the one course, ions to the kathode.<<1>>

<<1. When an electric current is passed through water, and many other fluids, a decomposition is effected, the component atoms finding their way to one or the other pole of the battery. These atoms are called "ions" and the poles "anode" and "kathode.">>

Sir Percival de Percivale was brave.
There doth he sit and little cheer doth get.
He doth not moan or laugh aloud or rave!
The dogs of hell are not upon him yet.
He was the bravest soul man ever met
In court or camp or solitude -- then why
Stands his pale forehead in an icy sweat?
He mutters in his beard this rune awry:
"There lives no soul undrugged that feareth not to die."

Lo! were it otherwise, mere banishment,
I deem he had feared more! He had an heir.
This was a boy of strength with ardour blent,
High hope embowered in a body fair.
Him had he watched with eager eye, aware
Of misery occult in youth, awake
At the first touch of the diviner air
Of manhood, that could bane and blessing make,
The Lord of Life and Death, the secret of the Snake.

The snake of Egypt hath a body twin;
It hath bright wings wherewith it well can fly;
It is of virtue and of bitter sin;
It beareth strength and beauty in its eye;
Beneath its tongue are hate and Misery;
Love in its coils is hidden, and its nature
Is double everyway; dost wonder why
The poet worships every scaled feature,
And holds him lordliest yet of every kingly creature?<<1>>

<<1. See note "supra" to "Dedicatio Major.">>

Sir Percival nor moved nor spoke; awhile
There is black silence in the ancient hall.
Then cometh subtly with well-trained smile
The courteous eld, the aged seneschal. {23A}
On bended knee "Sir Percy!" he doth call
To the young boy, and voweth service true.
Whereat he started, spurning at the thrall;
But then the orphan truth he inward knew,
And on the iron ground his sobbing body threw.

It was a weary while before they raised him
Boy as he was, none dare disturb his grief.
And for his grief was strong, they loved and praised him
For son's devotion to their dear dead chief.
Long, long he wept, nor brought with tears relief.
He knew the loss, the old head wise and grey
Well to assoil him of his spirit's grief,
The twilight dangers of a boy's dim way,
His dragons to confront, his minotaurs to slay.

Yet, when he knew himself the baronet,
He took good order for the house, and bore
Him as beseemed the master; none may fret
All are as well bestowed as aye before.
His father's eighty was with him fourscore.
His father's old advisers well he groups
Into a closer company; their lore
He ardently acquires -- he loops no loops,<<1>>
But -- Bacon<<2>> grapples them to's soul, with steely hoops!

<<1. A reference to "looping the loop," an acrobatic feat popular at the time. Hence, to go a wild and dangerous, as well as an indirect, course.>>
<<2. A sarcastic reference to the inane theory that the plays of Shakespeare were written by Bacon. The misquotation is from "Hamlet" --
"Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.">>

You, lass, may see here for this Boy's companions
Virtue and Peace of Mind, Prudence, Respect,
Throwing new roots down like a clump of banyans,<<1>>
Of Early Training Well the just Effect! {23B}
I would applaud thee, camel gracious-necked!
Confirm thee in thy reading of my task,
Were it not foreign to the fact. Select
Another favour! -- this too much to ask.
The boy's exemplar deeds were but an iron mask.

<<1. The banyan tree puts forth branches which droop to the earth and take root. A single tree may thus spread over many acres.>>

("Ay! for deception!" Mrs. Sally G--d,
The gawk and dowdy with the long grey teeth,
Jumps to conclusion, instant, out of hand:
"There is some nasty secret underneath!"
None nastier than thy name! This verse, its sheath,
Thou poisonous bitch, is rotten. Fact, atone!)
Such magic liquors in his veins there seethe
As, would he master, need strong order known
In life's routine, ere he may dare to be alone.

So there alone he was, and like a comet,
Leaps on the utmost ridges of the hills.
Then, like a dog returning to his vomit,
Broods in the hall on all creation's ills!
An idle volume with mere bosh he fills;
He dreams and dozes, toils and flies afar,
Apace -- the body by a thousand wills
Of fire corss-twisted, bruised, is thrust, a spar,
Wreckage of some wild sea, to seas without a star.

Listen, O lady, listen, reverend Abbot,
Lord of the Monastery, Fort Augustus!<<1>>
Hear an awakening spirit's a. b, ab! but
Let not thy mediaeval logic thrust us
Into contempt; nor, lady, can we trust us
Wholly to thy most pardonable failing,
Sentiment; one will rot, the other rust us.
Let us just listen to the spirit ailing: --
'Tis like a God in bliss, or like a damned soul wailing!<<2>> {24A}

<<1. This monastery is chosen because of its unpleasant proximity to Crowley's home.>>
<<2. (A word to bid you notice with what mastery
Of technique that last stanza there was written.
I risk a poet's license on one cast, Ery!
(Pet name for thee, Eros!) The lines are smitten
Into due harmony double-rhymed, well-knitten.
Wherefore, to show I can repeat the effort,
This verse inserted like a playful kitten
To usher in the youth's c. d. e. f., ert
Or inert as may be; it can't the lucky deaf hurt.) -- A. C.>>


SCENE II.<<1>>

<<1. These three soliloquies (Scenes II., III., and VI.) perhaps represent the self-torture of the poet's own youth, much of which he spent in the Lake district.>>


SIR PERCY PERCIVALE ("on a mountain summit").

No higher? No higher?
All hell is my portion.
My mouth is as fire;
My thought an abortion.
This is the summit?
Attained is the height.
Down like a plummet
To blackness and night
Hope goes. Not here,
Not here is Desire,
The ease from fear,
The ice from fire.
Not here -- O God!
I would I were dead
Under the sod!
My brain is as lead.
My thoughts are as smoke.
My heart is a fire;
I know not what fuel
Is feeding its fury!
In vain I invoke
The Lord of Desire!
He is evil and cruel.
The spells of Jewry
Are poured in his ear
In vain: he may hear not.
O would I were dumb!
For the pestilent fever
That bites my blood
Forces like fear
These babblings: I near not
The secret, nor come
To my purpose for ever. {24B}
A turbulent flood
Whispers and yells,
Alight in my breast.
God! for the spells
That unseal men -- a rest!
No higher? I have climbed
This pinnacled steep.
It mocks me, this heaven
Of thine, Adonai!
Rather be limed
In the dusk, in the deep,
Seven times seven
Thy hells, O Jehovah!
I tune the great Name
To a million vowels: --
It escapes me, the flame!
But deep in my bowels
Growls the deep lust,
The bitter distrust,
The icy fear,
The cruel thought!
O! I am here --
And here is nought.
I must rave on.
I hate the sun.
Anon! Anon!
Let us both begone,
Thou fiend that pourest
One by one
These evil words
In my ear, in my heart!
Here on the summit
The air is too thin.
Wild as the winds
Let me ride! Let me start
Over the plains;
For here my brain's
Numb, it is dumb, it
Is torn by this passion.
Down! Eagle-fashion
Drive to the level!
Teeth! you may gnash on!
My body's anguish
It help to my soul.
Hail to the revel!
The dance of the devil,
The rhythms that languish,
The rhymes that roll! {25A}
Down like the swine
Of the gross Gadarene
In a maddening march
From the snow to the rock,
From the rock to the pine,
From the pine to the larch,
From the tree to the green!
["He leaps down, then pauses."
O Devil! to mock
With echo the roar
Of a young boy's spirit!
And yet (as before)
I know I inherit
The wit of the mage,
The blood of the king,
The age of the sage!
Ah! all these sting
Through me -- this rage
Is the strength of my blood,
The heat of my body,
The birth of my wit.
To hell with the flood
Of words! Were I God, he
Had made me as fit
For all things as now,
But added a brow
Cool -- O how cool!
Fool! Fool! Fool!
["With a terrible laugh he springs out of sight down the crags."


SCENE III.

SIR PERCY PERCIVALE ("in the Hall").

O the gloom of these distasteful tomes!
The horror of the secrets here discovered!
Wake, ye salamandrines;<<1>> sleep, ye gnomes!
Were those the sylphs that round me hovered
On the mountain, and destroyed my peace?
O the misery of this world; the fear
And folly that is unattained desire!
I would be master: I, the lord of Greece: {25B}
I the bright Deva<<2>> of the golden sphere;
I the swift spirit of the primal fire: --
All these I am, not will be. O blind ape!
All these are shapeless; thou art but a shape,
A blind, bad-blooded bat! Ugh! Ugh! The snake
Wriggling to death amid his burning brake
Is wiser, holier, lordlier. Open, page
Of the old Rabbi!<<3>> tell me of the mage;
Of him who would; of him who dared and did;
Of him who reared and failed; of him who fell;
One peering lightwards through a coffin-lid,
One aching heavenwards -- and achieving hell!
O let me do and die as they! The wand,
The lamp, the sword, come eager to my hand; --
Or, if I wander now upon the moor,
An old red-hatted witch will come, for sure,
And teach me how the dragon deeds are done
Or truck my spirit to the Evil One;
Or else, -- I wot not what. I am drunk with will,
Will toward some destiny most high, most holy!
Some of those glories sung with awful skill
By the loud brabble of the monster Crowley,
That poet of the muck-heap! Oh, enough!
The wind is harsh and vital on the hills.
Forth let me fare! I am other than the stuff
His dreams are made of! Aye! I shall endure!<<4>>
I am destined Lord of many magic wills.
Another Rosencreutz another order
Founds -- to a better end than his, be sure!
Away! away, my lad! and o'er the border
I shall get myself a buxom bride,
And ride -- ride -- ride! ["He rises."
Ride to the blacksmith at Gretna Green,<<5>>
Kiss a fair lady and find her a queen!
O a Queen, for certain! It is I that ride,
Ride in my youth and pride. {26A}
With a long sword girt to my waist,
And a strawberry mare sweet-paced,
And a long night with no moon, no star!
I will plunder the traveller from afar; --
Aye! and find him an ancient sage,
Learn all his wisdom, marry his daughter,
Become a king and a mage,
Lord of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water!
Ho! my horse, lads! Away! To the moor!
Ho! there's a fox i' the hole, that's sure.
["Flings swaggering out of the room."

<<1. The spirits of fire, air, water, and earth were respectively named salamanders (fem.-drines), sylphs, undines, and gnomes.>>
<<2. The Indian generic term for any good spirit.>>
<<3. Rabbi Schimeon, who first wrote down the Zohar, the most sacred book of the Qabalah.>>
<<4. WEH NOTE: Crowley gives an insight into the use of different names and persona. Here he speaks as Perdurabo, an alter-ego, denouncing qualities of his normal self.>>
<<5. WEH NOTE: Crowley, or Perdurabo rather, alludes to his marriage with Rose Kelly. This was an anvil marriage by the local black-smith of a Scottish town -- a binding form of common-law marriage in Scotland at the time.>>


SCENE IV.

ANGELA, LADY BAIRD ("regarding
herself in a mirror)."

I thank you, M. Davenport!<<1>> This smile
Is worth a husband. Here, one touch of pink
Completes a perfect picture -- Are these eyes
Dark eno' to look love or sin, and large
(O Atropine!<<2>>) to beam forth innocence!
Innocence, a grim jest for sixty years!
Nay, sixty-three; I lie not to myself;
Else one sins lying; this is virtue mixed,
A bubbling draught that soon lies still and flat;
While my great lust runs deep and dark, nor changes
For all that time can do. What of this boy?
I knew his father; the man feared me well
For all his open laugher; would he were
Alive! I dream one torture writhed about
His heart he'll miss in hell. I hated him.
This boy of his I saw but yesterday
Ride barehead by me like a madman would,
Is strong and well-set -- aye! desirable.
I would be better of his virgin lips: --
["She puts her lips against the mirror" {26B}
(Nay, you are cold! Like a dead man, perhaps!)
I would get gladness of the royal force
Of armed insistence against my restraint.
What is worth while, though, to a woman found
Fragrant and fearful to a host of men
Even yet? they throng me, hunt me! Why should I
Do this unutterable wickedness?
Because that Moina Marjoribanks grins and boasts
She will achieve him? Angela, not so!
For its own sweet, most damnable sake, say yes!
Look to those cheeks, redress the red-gold hair,
Awake the giant wit, the master sin
That is, for an apple's sake, Lord of us all:
These shall despoil her; these shall ruin him.
Yes, I shall clutch him to these sagging breasts
Stained, bruised, -- enough! -- and take his life in mine --
Ugh! pleasure of Hell! Sir Percy Percivale,<<3>>
Here is a strumpet. Ha! have you a sword?
Enough. I am dressed. I am lovely, have communed
With my dark heart: I see my way to it: --
Oh joy! joy! joy! -- Hortense, these candles out!
["The maid blows out the mirror candles."
I will go down. Prepare my scented paper,
My rosy wax against my coming here --
When, girl? I' th' morn, i' th' morn! When else? I'd write.
["She goes out, with a set smile on her face, yet a gleam of real
laughter beneath it." {27A}

<<1. A famous dentist in Paris.>>
<<2. The alkaloid of belladonna. It dilates the pupil, and is abused to this end by many foolish women.>>
<<3. Sir Percivale, in "Morte d' Arthur," being enamoured of a lady, caused a bed to be prepared. But laying his sword therein -- and in that sword was a reed cross and the sign of the crucifix -- she was discovered to be the devil. See Malory, xiv. 9.>>


SCENE V.

"To" CARRUTHERS, "in the Office of" SIR PERCY'S "Ancestral Hall, enter"
GREUMOCH.

GREUMOCH.
Ay, sir. The laddie's in the thick o't! Weel!
She'll be off tae th' muir, a'm thinking, sin' the dee.

CARRUTHERS.
He goes to solitude?

GREUMOCH.
Weel, weel, sir, na!
She wadna say the laddie wad gang yon.

CARRUTHERS ("smiling").
He is ever alone?

GREUMOCH.
Oo ay, sir, by his lanes.

CARRUTHERS.
Go now, and tell me ever of his doings.
["Exit" GREUMOCH.
The hour is nigh, but when that hour may strike
None, not the wisest, may foretell. I fear
A moment's mischief may destroy these years
Of grave solicitude, their work. This boy
Thinks his grey father dead. These words
("tapping a letter") shall speak
Even from the tomb. These words shall be obeyed
By force of ancient habit: these give me
Supreme authority to exercise
By stealth, not overt till the hour be come
Should madness seat herself upon the lad,
And he turn serpent on his friends. But no!
There is too strong a discipline of sense,
Too cool a brain, too self-controlled a heart: --
Well, we shall see.
["Turns to his books." {27B}


SCENE VI.

SIR PERCY PERCIVALE ("on Wastwater").

God, I have rowed!
My hands are one blister;
By arms are one ache;
But my brain is a fire,
As erst on the fell,
In the hall; let me dive
To the under-abode,
Where the sweet-voiced sister
Of the Screes<<1>> shall forsake
Her home for desire
Of me! Say the spell!
Down then! to drive --
["He dives. The waters close over him. He rises"
Misery ever!
I dived, and the best
Could dive no deeper.
Did I touch bottom?
Never, O never!
I stand confessed
A footler, a creeper.
These spells -- 'Od rot 'em! --
Are vain as the world,
As all of the stars.
This mystery's nought.
But for cold! The lake
Is hot as the curled
Flames at the bars
Of Hell; it is wrought
Of fire: what shall slake
This terrible thirst,
This Torment accurst?
["He looks into the water."
Yet, in my face
As I gaze on the water
Is something calmer.
What if the king
Of the Screes should see me,
Give me for grace
His beautiful daughter,
Voluptuous charmer? {28A}
A golden ring
Should bring her to me;
No marriage dreamy;
Identity, love!
["He looks up,"
Stay! In the wood
By the waterway, stands
A delicate fairy!
[MOLLY TYSON "is discovered."
I'll steal from above,
Watch her. How good!
How sweet of her hands!
How dainty and airy!
How perfect, how kind!
How bright in her thoughts!
How subtle, refined,
The least light of her mind!
Let me approach!
O fear! O sorrow!
I fear to encroach.
Scree-king, I borrow
Thy frown, thy pride,
Thy magical targe.
To her side I glide,
To the mystical marge
Of this lake enchaunted.
O waters elf-haunted,
Bear me toward her,
A cruel marauder,
A robber of light!
O beauty! O bright!
How shall I sing thee?
Nay! do not fly me!
My bird, why wing thee?
Be kind! O be nigh me!
She speaks not. I'll follow!
["Leaps from boat and wades in to shore,"
The world is my bower.
By height and by hollow
I'll seek thee, O flower!
I'll not turn back!
["He pursues her."
I'll go on for ever.
The strength of a giant
Is in my limbs --
["He reels."
My body is slack;
My muscles sever; {28B}
My limbs are pliant;
My eyesight swims.
Come to me! Come to me!
Thee have I sought!
Thou that wast dumb to me,
Come -- I am nought!
["Striving ever to follow her, he faints and falls. The girl
stops."

<<1. The mountain which bounds Wastwater on the south.>>

MOLLY.
Dear me! The young gentleman's ill too. What a nice boy it is! I must go and help him. Why did he call to me? ("Goes back.") I was afraid -- Yes, but I must go. Something calls me. Is anything the matter, sir? ("He does not answer. She lifts his head to her lap.") How pale he is! Poor boy! Shall I run to the Hall and get help, I wonder? ("Puts him gently down and half rises. His eyes open.)"

SIR PERCY.
Oh! I am but a coward. I am not ill, I was awake. I let you hold me. Forgive me!

MOLLY.
Forgive you, sir? I am a poor girl of the dale.

SIR PERCY.
Your voice is like an empress -- no, a nightingale. You do not speak like a daleswoman.

MOLLY.
I was at school, sir, at --

SIR PERCY.
O but I love you!
There is none above you,
Not God! I renounce Thee,
O maker! Dissolve,
Ye hopes of delusion!
Mage, I will trounce thee! {29A}
Sage, to confusion!
Problems to solve?
Here is my life!
My secret is told --
What is your name,
O fairest of women?
Bosom of gold!
Faultless your fame!
An aeon were shame
Your beauty to hymn in!
Will you be mine,
Mine and mine only!
Beauty divine,
How I was lonely!
How I was mad!
Say, are you glad,
Glad of me, happy here,
Here in my arms?
I kiss you, I kiss you!
Say, is it bliss, you
Spirit of holiness?
Holy I hold you!
Swift as a rapier
Stabbed me your charms,
Broken with lowliness,
Smitten with rapture: --
All is so mixed;
All is a whirl; --
(Let me recapture
This lock; 'tis unfixed.)
Ay, little girl,
Bury my head
In the scent of your hair!
Would I were dead
In your arms ever fair,
Buried and folded
For aye on your breast: --
That were delight,
Eternity moulded
In form of your kiss!
That were the rest
I have sought for, the bliss
I have ached to obtain: --
Ah! it was pain!

MOLLY.
Ay! sir, but can you love me? Me, poor girl! {29B}

SIR PERCY.
Love you? Ah, Christ! I love you so! Say you love me, love me! Say so!
Again! Again! Aloud! I must hear, or I shall die.

MOLLY.
I love you. Oh, you hurt me, you do indeed.

SIR PERCY.
I love you, love you. Yes, you love me! Love! Christ! Yes, oh! I love you so, dear heart.

MOLLY.
Dear love, I love you.

SIR PERCY.
Ah, love, love, how I love you. This is the world! Love! Love! I love you so, my darling. Oh my white golden heart of glory!

MOLLY.
I love you, love you so.

SIR PERCY.
Ah, God! I love you! I shall faint with love. I love you so.
[ANGELA, LADY BAIRD, "is discovered behind the trees. She suffers
the torments of hell."

ANGELA ("While the duet continues").
Ah! if there were a devil to buy souls,
Of if I had not sold mine! Quick bargain, God!
Hell catch the jade! Blister her fat red cheeks!
Rot her snub nose! Poison devour her guts!
Wither her fresh clean face with old grey scabs,
And venomous ulcers gnaw the baby breasts!
Vermin upon her! Infamous drab! Gr! Gr!
I would I had her home to torture her.
I would dig out those amorous eyes with gimlets. {30A}
Break those young teeth and smash that gaby grin!
I am utterly wretched! Ah, there is aye hope left! --
For see, they part!

SIR PERCY.
Ah, love, at moonrise!

MOLLY.
At my door!

SIR PERCY.
Hell belch
Its monsters one by one to stop the way!
I would be there.

ANGELA.
Christ! he shall not be there!

MOLLY.
Farewell!

SIR PERCY.
O fairest, fare thee well!

MOLLY.
Farewell!
[ANGELA "draws nearer, yet remains concealed."

SIR PERCY.
O but the moon is laggard!

MOLLY.
Hard it is!

SIR PERCY.
Time matters not. I am so drunk with love.

MOLLY.
One kiss, one kiss!

SIR PERCY.
A million! Ay, slack moon,
Dull moon, haste, haste!

MOLLY.
Kiss me again, again! {30B}

ANGELA.
Would I had the kissing of her with vitriol!

SIR PERCY.
Your kisses are like young rain.

ANGELA.
The slobbery kisses of virginity.
He shall soon know these calculated, keen,
Intense, important kisses, -- mine! Hell's worm!

MOLLY.
Yes, do not leave me. Let us away now!
No, I must tell them, fetch my --

SIR PERCY.
No! No! No!
Nothing is necessary unto love,
Not even light. In chaos love were well.
I love you, love you so, my love, my love.

MOLLY.
How I love you! Oh, kiss me again!

SIR PERCY.
Yet you were best to go. This bites like Hell's worst agony.

ANGELA.
Amen!

MOLLY.
God be with you!

SIR PERCY.
Till we meet again.

MOLLY.
At moonrise.

SIR PERCY.
At your door.

ANGELA.
At moonset he shall crawl away from mine.
The dog! I hate him! So much the more sure {31A}
To have him. Damn them! Are they cock and hen
To make this cackling over their affairs?
Muck! Muck!

SIR PERCY.
I love you so, dear heart, dear love.

MOLLY.
Oh yes, I love you! Percy!

SIR PERCY.
Molly! Molly!

MOLLY.
Dear boy, how I love you!

SIR PERCY.
And I you, sweetheart.

MOLLY.
Good-bye, then!

SIR PERCY.
Good-bye! Good-bye! At moonrise.

MOLLY.
At my door.

ANGELA.
Better write it down, and then you won't forget.

SIR PERCY.
One kiss for good-bye.

MOLLY.
Good-bye.
["Slowly retires, looking over her shoulder. They run back to meet each
other, and embrace anew for some minutes. Eventually" SIR PERCY
PERCIVALE "tears himself away," MOLLY "disappears, and" SIR PERCY "goes
sorrowfully back to his boat, which he now manoeuvres to the
landing stage." {31B}

ANGELA.
Now let him find it! This will puzzle him.
When Limburger replaces Patchouli,
Why -- moonrise!
[SIR PERCY, "radiant, reaches the landing stage, moors his boat and
mounts. He sees a pink note on the wharf."

SIR PERCY.
Ah! she has dropped this!
A cruel fool am I;
I took an honied kiss;
I revelled in true bliss;
Yet never thought to try
A keepsake to obtain
To wear my heart upon.
Now God is great and gracious;
Here's medicine for my pain.
She has left it; she has gone!
How sweet the air and spacious!
I am happy -- let me see!
I guess some verse inspired
By all her soul desired,
Purity, love, well-being -- ay! and me!
["He opens the note, and reads: --"
"To love you, Love, is all my happiness;
To kill you with my kisses; to devour
Your whole ripe beauty in the perfect hour
That mingles us in one supreme caress --"<<1>>
Why, here is love articulate, vital! I thought that only poets, not lovers, could so speak. And that poets, poor devils, speaking, could never know.
"So Percy to his Angela's distress -- "
Then it is not my Molly that writes this -- who is this Percy? -- not me, at all events, for there is no Angela that loves me. ("A sound of sobbing in the trees.") Whom have we here? ("Advances.") 'Fore God, the most beautiful woman in the world, except my Molly! And her scent! O she is like some intimate tropical plant, luring and deadly! {32A} -- I am afraid. ("He discovers" ANGELA.) Madam, can I aid you?

<<1. See above, "The Temple of the Holy Ghost," vol. i. p. 181.>>

ANGELA.
Leave me! Leave me! I am the wretchedest girl on the wide earth.

SIR PERCY.
The comeliest, mademoiselle.
("Aside.") O see this is a woman of the world. To her with speeches fit for such then.

ANGELA.
I have seen all. Pity me! Your flattery is a sword in my heart!

SIR PERCY.
Seen?

ANGELA.
Your love -- you call it so!

SIR PERCY.
Have you, then --

ANGELA.
I saw all. Ah me! Poor Angela!

SIR PERCY.
Angela is your name?

ANGELA.
My name.

SIR PERCY.
A lovely name. No doubt your disposition runs parallel.

ANGELA.
M