THE WORKS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY Vol. III, part 3 of 3 ASCII VERSION 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. File 3 of 3. Copyright (c) O.T.O. O.T.O. P.O.Box 430 Fairfax, CA 94978 USA (415) 454-5176 ---- Messages only. This work was originally published in two parallel columns. Where such columns are found in the original, they have been rendered as a single text with "A" or "B" added to the page number at the end of each column: A = end page left column. B = end page right column. On many pages a prefatory paragraph or a concluding group of sentences is full across the page. These instances are noted in curly brackets. Pages in the original are marked thus at the bottom: {page number} or {page number A} and {page number B}. 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Not for "share-ware" distribution or inclusion in any commercial enterprise. ************************************************************************ LIBER SECUNDUS VEL AMORIS TO MARY BEATON WHOM I LAMENT "The Kabbalists say that when a man falls in love with a female elemental -- undine, sylph, gnome, or salamandrine, as the case may be -- she becomes immortal with him, or otherwise he dies with her. . . . The love of the magus for such beings is insensate, and may destroy him." -- "Eliphaz Levi." "Orpheus for the love he bare to his wife, snatcht, as it were, from him by untimely Death, resolved to go down to hell with his harp, to try if he might obtain her of the infernal power." -- "The Wisdom of the Ancients." {Columns resume} ORPHEUS, FINDING EURYDICE DEAD, STUNG BY A SERPENT, LAMENTS OVER HER. COME back, come back, come back, Eurydice! Come back to me! Lie not so quiet, draw some faint sharp breath! It is not death: It cannot, must not be, Eurydice. Come back to me! Let me as yet lament not! Let me stoop! -- Those eyelids droop Not with mere death, but dreams, Eurydice! Come back to me! O you that were my lover and my wife! Come back to life! Come back, breathe softly from the breast of gold These arms enfold. Give me your lips and kiss me once! O wife, Come back to life! Nay, let the wind but stir the silky hair, (God's lesser air, Not his full blossom of woman's breath!) O wife, Come back to life! {158A} Stir once, move once, rise once, Eurydice! Be good to me! Rise once. -- O sleep not! Listen! Is not all Nature my thrall? Once only: be not dead, Eurydice! Be good to me! I love you -- be not dead! -- rise up and say "I feigned, I lay Thus so you kissed me" -- O Eurydice, Be good to me! There is not one sweet sigh of all the old sighs -- Open your eyes! Not one warm breath of the young breast: no sleep Could be so deep. The last pale lotus opens to the skies. Open your eyes! Lift the blue eyelids under the deep lashes Till one light flashes! Wake with one supreme sigh like the old sighs! Open your eyes! I cannot leave you so, Eurydice. Come back to me! Just in the triumph, in love's utmost hour, Life's queenliest flower -- {158B} All shattered, overblown. Eurydice, Come back to me! I cannot have you dead, and live: let death Strangle my breath Now as I kiss you still -- Eurydice! Come back to me! Fling down the foolish lyre, the witless power! Cast the dead laurel in the dust! The flower Of all the world is marred, the day's desire Distorted in the eclipse, the sun's dead hour. Let me fall down beside thee! Let me take The kisses that thou canst not give, and slake Despair in purposeless caresses, dire Shames fang-wise fastened of the eternal snake. Is there no warmth where beauty is so bright? No soul still flickering the the lambent light Still shed from all the body's excellence? No lamp unchidden of the utter night? Cannot my life be molten into thee, Or thy death fall with rosier arms on me, Or soul with soul commingle without sense, As the sun's rays strike deep into the sea? O beauty of all beauty -- central flower Of all the blossoms in the summer's bower! Fades not all nature in thy fall? the sun Not darken in the miserable hour? I hate all Nature's mockery of life. The laugh is grown a grin; the gentle strife Of birds and waves and winds at play is grown A curse, a cruelty. My wife! my wife! I am broken, I cannot sleep, I cannot die. Pain, pain for ever! Nature is a lie, The gods a lie. Myself? but I am found Sole serious in the hateful comedy. Blackness, all blackness! How I hate the earth, The curse that brought my being into birth. I, loving more her loveliness, am bound And broken -- thrice more bitter for my mirth! {159A} Song, was it song I trusted in? Or thou, Apollo, was it thou didst bind my brow With laurel for a poison-wreath of hell To sear my brain and blast my being now? A band of most corroding poison wound Dissolving with its venom the profound Deep of my spirit with its terrible Sense without speech and horror without sound. A devil intertwining in my heart Its cold and hideous lust, a twiforked dart Even from the fatherly and healing hand -- The double death without a counterpart In hell's own deepest pit, far, far below Phlegethon's flame and Styx's stifling flow, Far below Tartarus, below the land Thrust lowest in the devilish vertigo. If I could weep or slumber or forget! If love once left me, with his eyelids wet With tender memory of his own despair Or frozen to a statue of regret! If but the chilling agony, that turns To bitter fever-heat that stings and burns Would freeze me, or destroy me, or impair My sense, that it should feel not how it yearns! Or if this pain were only pain, and not A deadness deeper than all pain, a spot And central core of agony in me, One heart-worm, one plague-leprosy, one blot Of death, one anguish deeper than control? -- Then were I fit to gain the Olympian goal And fling forth fiery wailings to the sea, And tune the sun's ray to my smitten soul! How should I sing who cannot even see? Grope through a mist of changless misery. An age-long pain -- no time in wretchedness! -- As of an hammer annihilating me {159B} With swift hard rhythm, the remorseless clang; Or as a serpent loosening his fang To bite more deeply -- this inane distress More than despair or death's detested pang. I live -- that shames me! I am not a man. Nothing can I to sharpen or to span My throat with iron fingers, or my sword In my heart's acid where the blood began Long since to leap, and now drops deadly slow, Clotted with salt and sulphur and strong woe. I shall not die: the first sight of the sward Stained with the spectral corpse had stung me so, Not stabbed me, since I saw her and survive. I shall not die -- Ah! shall I be alive? This hath no part in either: bale and bliss Forget me, careless if I rot or thrive. Heaven forgot me -- or she were not dead! And Hades -- or I should not raise my head Now, and look wildly where I used to kiss, Gaze on the form whence all but form has fled! I am alone in all the universe, Changed to the shape and image of a curse, Muffled in self-conflusing, and my brain Wakes not nor sleeps: its destiny is worse. It thinks not, knows not, acts not, nor appeals, But hangs, remembers: it abides and feels As if God's vulture clung to it amain, And furies fixed with fiery darts and wheels Their horror, thought-exceeding, manifold, Vertiginous within me -- and the cold Of Styx splashed on me, making me immortal, Invulnerable in its bitter mould; Leaving its own ice, penetrating streams, Grim streaks, and dismal drops, abysmal beams Thrown from the gulph through the place and portal, Each drop o'erladen with a curse that steams {160A} Unnatural in the coldness: let me be Alone, inviolate of eternity! Let all the winds of air leave me, nor fan: Nor wash me all the waves of all the sea! Let all the sun's light and the moon's be blind, And all the stars be lampless to my mind, Until I see the destiny of man And span the cruelty that lurks behind Its beauty, and its glory, and its splendour! -- The girl-babe's face looks up to the mother tender, Looks for a kiss in dumb desire, and finds Her Jaws closed trap-like to expunge and end her! Let all the life and dream and death be done, And all the love and hate be woven in one, All things be broken of the winter winds, No soul stand up and look upon the sun! Save only mine! -- that my voice may confound The universe, and spell the mighty sound To shake all heaven and earth, to mingle hell In chaos, in some limitless profound; That it may tear Olympus from its place, Mix it with Hades, change the Ocean space, Level the tides of time that sink and swell, And curse my very father to his face! O father, father Apollo, did I wrong Thy chariot and thy horses in my song? Why clove thine arrow the unseated air, The heaven void of thee, why the thunderthong Slipped from the tether, and the fatal stone Sped not to my heart, not to mine alone? Ah why not? but to hers as she lay sleeping By hate, not fate, quelled, fallen, and overthrown? {160B} She lies so pitiful and pure -- and I, Breast to her breast, mouth to her mouth, I lie, Hand upon hand, and foot on foot, sore weeping -- Can she not live again or I not die? As the old prophet on the child I fall<<1>> And breathe -- but no breath answers me at all. All of my kisses stir no blush, no sigh; She will not hear me ever if I call! <<1. Referring to the story of Elisha.>> Let the far music of oblivious years Sound in the sea beneath! Are not its waters one with all my tears? Hath Atropos no comfort in her shears? No Muse for me one wreath? Were I now dead and free to travel far Whither I will, ah me! Not whither I must -- were there no avatar Drawn like my love from some close kindred star? No shape seen on the sea? Were I now free of this intense desire, By swift magician power I might fly westward shod with wings of fire And find my love, and in her arms expire, Or wed her for an hour. (Not for an hour as man, but even as God Whose day is like an aeon. Love hath nor station, stage, nor period: But is at once in his inane abode Beneath the spring Dircean.) Alas, the will flies ere the power began. Lo, in the Idan grove Invoking Zeus to swell the power of Pan, The prayer discomfits the demented man! Lust lies as still as love.<<1>> <<1. This obscure stanza means: that the invocation of high and pure forces cannot be diverted to low and impure ends; because the man becomes identified with what he invokes, of necessity.>> {161A} Therefore in memory only is there life, And in sweet shapes of art: The same thought for the ointment and the knife -- Oh lightning! blast the image of my wife Out of my mind and heart! How can one hour dissolve a year's delight? One arrow striking the full eagle-flight Drop him so swift, giving no time to die, No dusk to hearld and delay the night? A serpent stung her sleeoping: if the abyss Know any cell more dolorous than this, Were there a sharper tooth to destiny Than this that strikes me in the dead girl's kiss: -- Oh if aught bitterer could be, could know, If ninefold Styx could gather in its flow Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Acheron, All mixed to one full flood of hate and woe: And poisoned by all venom like to his Who kissed Eurydice the traitor-kiss: -- Then let them sting me four fold, nor atone Then for the eightfold misery of this! Is not some justice somewhere? Where is he Hateful to God and man, a misery To his own vileness by exceeding it, Who crawls God-cursed throughout eternity Nay! sure he lives, and licks his slavered lips, Laughing to think how the sweet morsel slips, The breast-flower of my bride; the dainty bit Fit for -- ah God! the pearl-smooth blossom drips Poisonous blood that will not poison me, Though I drink deep its fierce intensity. My lips closed silent on her bosom's light, The stung blood springs -- like pearls beneath the sea {161B} Whose moony glimmer hath a purple vein Hidden -- so I athirst of the said stain Drink up her body's life, as if to spite Its quiet, as if the venom were to drain Into my life -- that hurts me not at all, Struck by a stronger buffet: let me call All deaths! they come not, seeing I am broken In this one horror where a man may fall. I am alive, and live not: I am dead, And die not: on my desolated head No dew may drop, no word of God be spoken, None heard, if by some chance some word be said. The wheels of Fate are over me; quite crushed Lies my pale body where her body blushed, Quite dead! there is no single sob that stirs, No pulse of blood of all that filled and flushed Her cheek and mine, her breast and mine: and lo! How sunset's bloom is faded on the snow! There is no laugh of all those laughs of hers, Those tender thrills of laughter I used to know. Nor in all nature weep the careless eyes, Nor any soul of life may sympathise, All I once was in this is torn and rended -- Scorned and forsaken the lone lyre lies. Hath that not yet some sympathy with me? That lyre that was myself, my heart's decree And ruler, subtle at the dawn, and splendid Noonwards, and soft at day's declivity! I flung it in my anguish to the ground. I raise it, and its music hath not found One string or snapped or loosened, and the tune Is the old triumph garlanded and crowned! {162A} Folly and hate! Blithe mockery of sorrow! Shrill me no harsh lies of some sweet tomorrow!<<1>> Soothe me no hateful mysteries of the moon, How one life lends what other lives may borrow! <<1. Follow references to various ancient theories of immortality, reincarnation, and so on.>> I hate that foolish counterfoil of grief That one pain to its friend may give relief -- Eurydice replace Eurydice Long hence -- no separation sharp and brief But dwelling in the intermediate Halls between Hades and the house of Fate: Atropos cut, and pass to Clotho, and she Respin the shuttle in some other state. What shall it boot me now to gather flowers From this young hope to wile the angry hours? That many thousand years shall pass, and show Eurydice again amid her bowers. Forgetting, and myself again be born, Clasp her grave beauty in the middle corn, Forgetting also: Time as fallen snow Blotting the mind and memory that adorn At least our present littleness: nor hope Of larger excellence, extended scope, Shall help me here, forgetting: nothing skills Of this poor truth -- to flatter with the trope! Wooing in mockery! -- nothing skills but this To raise her now, and resuspire the kiss United by the splendour of the will's Success -- to marry, to be made of bliss, I care not whether there or there: to live In memory and identity: to give No part of self or soul to Lethe's water: To grapple Nature, interpose an "if" {162B} In her machinery of conditioned mood; Suspending law, suspending amplitude Of all Her function; to espouse her daughter In forced embrace lasciviously rude, Indecorous, shameful to the eternal "must"! Law may be mercy, mercy never just! Thus I would alter, and divide her ways, And let her wheels grind themselves down to dust. One supernatural event -- but one! -- Should scale Olympus, shattering the throne Of the AEgis-bearing Father: and the days Of all the Universe be fallen and done. Well then? O sceptred Splendour! dost Thou see How little means Thy Universe to Me? How petty looks Thy will to My desire? Hebe and Hera to Eurydice? I, knowing all the progress of the earth, The dim procession, altering death and birth, The Seven Stairs, the gusts of life in fire And Love in Life, and all the serpent girth Of sevenfold twining worlds and sevenfold ways And nights made sevenfold of the sevenfold days All the vast scheme evolving into man, And upward, onward, through Olympian haze Into the crowning spiritual mist, Where spirit in the spirit may subsist, Evolve itself in the amazing plan Through many planes, as shining amethyst Melts to the sapphire's sombre indigo, And lifts, still sapphire, to the ocean glow; Thence into emerald and the golden light, Till ruby crown the river's living flow And glory of colour in the sun's own flame -- Beyond, to colours without sense or name, Impossible to man, whose vivid sight Would blast him with their splendour as they came {163A} Flashing through spiritual space, withdrawn Now, and now flung triumphant in the dawn Not of mere sun's rise, but before the birth Of a new system on the unfolded lawn Of space beyond the sceptre of the Gods! I, seeing all this would foil Time's periods For one small woman on this one mean earth, Would spoil the plan of the inane Abodes, Throw out of gear all Nature's enginery For such a grain of tinsel dust as I, Reluctant to be mangled in the wheel -- Looks other meanness so contemptibly? Yet I persist. Thou knowest, O most High Zeus, When Hera to thine Io did refuse Peace, and the gadfly bit like barbed steel Those limbs with dews of love once lying loose, When thy vast body boarded her, wrapped round Her senses with a mist of being profound, A flame-like penetration, serpentine, Twining and leaping without end or bound, Inevitable as the gasp of Fate: -- Thou, reft of her by envy of thy mate Didst shake the heaven with bellowings undivine, And rooted stars from their primeval state. Not without law, sayest thou? Almighty Zeus, Am I not also mothered of a muse? Let there be law! untimely to release This soul untinctured of the Stygian dews, Unsprinkled of Lethean lotus-drops! Life grows so steadily, so sudden stops -- (Surely no part in Nature's moving peace!) Thus, when the young, like tempest-stricken crops Unripe, are blasted in the blossoming spring -- This is a miracle, not the other thing! Nature insults herself, blasphemes her God, Thus cutting short the life's hard happening. {163B} Nor would I suffer thus, nor she repine Had my wife faded (as rose-tinted wine Bleached in the sunlight) reached her period And fallen gently in the arms divine, Caressing arms of pale Persephone, And bathed her in death's river tenderly, Washing the whole bright body, the long limbs, The clothing hair, the face, the witchery Of all the smiling shape in the dark stream, As one who gathers the first floral beam Of daylight by the water, dives and swims Deep in cool alleys, softer than a dream: So, rising to the other bank, aglow With the bright motion and the stream's young flow, She might discover the Elysian ground, And find me waiting, find me sad and slow Pacing the green flower-lighted turf, and leap Into my body's kisses, into sleep: -- Sweeter this latter bridal than we found The first, now lost in time's eternal deep. It is not cruel if the ripe fruit fall -- But never an elegy funereal Wept for untimely burial, but cried Aloud against the Fates, forebore to call In pity or passion on the Gods of peace; But cursed, but wailed, nor bade its sharp tongue cease Until lightning spat, sharp to divide Bone from its marrow for their blasphemies! So I should curse, unless indeed my grief Be not to great to yield me such relief. Methinks a sob must start and mar the roar Of loud harsh laughing bitter unbelief Scarring the sky with poisonous foam of song. Also, what curse might remedy the wrong? Are not all feuds forgotten in a war? All stars exhausted in Astraea's throng {164A} When the swift sun leaps skyward? Let me speak Words rather of wisdom: hate may rage and wreak Vengeance in vain if wisdom smile beyond, Too high to care, too ultimate to seek. The bitterest sorrow of all sorrow is this: I had no time to catch one last long kiss, Nor bid farewell, nor lay one lily-frond Of resurrection for the sign of bliss, Remembrance of some immortality Affirmed if not believed: alas for me That might not interchange the last sad vows, Nor close the blue eyes clearer than the sea Before they darkened, and the veil of death Shrouded their splendour: still there lingereth Some sad white lustre on the icy brows, Some breast-curve surely indicating breath, Some misty glamour of deep love within The eye's cold gleam! some dimple on the chin Hinting of laughter: even now she seems A folded rosebud, where the ivory skin Closes the ripe warm centre flower, the mind, The spirit that was beautifully kind, The sense of beauty shadowed in deep dreams, Sent though the horn gates by some sleepy wind. All lingers: all is gone: a little while, And all the live sweet rapture of the smile Of her whole being is discomfited, The body broken, desolated, vile, Till nought remains but the memorial urn Of deep red gold, less golden than did burn Once the strong breast: the ash within is shed, Dust given for flowers: what memory shall turn {164A} Unto the flowers, think worthy to remember How the dust scattered from their fading ember Is their own sign and seal of fatherhood, Grey seas of sorrow sun-kissed into amber. Above me hangs the sun: horrid he hangs, A rayless globe of hell, shooting forth fangs Snake-wise to parch and burn my solitude, Nor leave me quiet lamenting, with these pangs Tearing my live, more Promethean Than ever Titan knew -- the sunbright span Of narrow water mocks me, brightening Far to the indigo Ionian. The sun hangs high, as in the Arabian tale Enchanted palaces defy the gale, Perched upon airy mountains, on the wing Of genii poised, souls suffering and pale With their long labour: wizard spire and dome That maidens grown magicians had for home, Where the charmed sword and graven talisman Held them supremely floating on the foam Where cloudier seas innavigably roll, Misty with elemental shape or soul, This grey essential nebulae of man, Caught in the mesh of magical control! All these are beautiful and shapen so That every bastion flames a separate glow Of changing colour: all detestable, Abhorrent, since the goodly-seeming show Is one large lie of cruelty and lust, Carven from the spectral images of dust, Founded on visions of the accursed well, And built of shame and hatred and distrust, And all things hateful and all lying things -- O song! where wanderest on forgetful wings? Shall these wild numbers help thee to thine own, Or change the winter's gramarye to spring's? {165A} Rather beguile the tedious mourning hours With memory of the long-forgotten bowers, Where loves resurged from cave and grove to throne, From nuptial banquet to the bed of flowers! Rather forget the near catastrophe, And turn my music toward Eurydice; Awake in day-dream all the ancient days, When love first blossomed on the springing tree! Let me recall the days beyond regret, And tune my lyre to love, sharpen and set The strings again to the forgotten ways, That I may tread them over, and forget! In child-like meditative mood I wandered in the dell, Passed through the quiet glades of the wood, And sought the haunted well, Half hopeful that its solitude Might work some miracle. The oaks raised angry hands on high: The willows drooped for tears: The yews held solemn ceremony, Magical spells of years. I saw one cypress melancholy, A prince among his peers. So, turning from the arboreal seat And midmost hollow of earth, I followed Hamadryads' feet That made at eve their mirth To where the streamlet wandered fleet To show what time was worth. I watched the waters wake and laugh Running o'er pebbly beaches, Writing amazement's epitaph With freshets, turns, and reaches: -- The only tale too short by half That nature ever teaches. {165B} Then growing grander as it swept Past bulrushes and ferns, Gathering the tears that heaven had wept, The water glows and burns In sunlight, where no shadows crept Around the lazy turns. All on a sudden silence came Athwart some avenue Where through the trees arrowed the flame From the exultant blue; And all the water-way became One heart of glittering dew. The waters narrowed for a space Between twin rocks confined, Carven like Gods for poise and grace, Like miracles for mind: Each fashioned like a kissing face, The eyes for joy being blind. The waters widened in a pool, Broad mirror of blue light. The surface was as still and cool As the broad-breasted night. Engraven of no mortal tool, The granite glistened white. As if to shield from mortal gaze A nymph's immortal limbs, The shadow of the buttress stays And dips its head and swims, While moss engirdles it with grays And greens that dew bedims. Now, at the last, the western end, Most miracle of all! The groves of rock dispart and rend Their sacred cincture-wall; All tunes of heaven their rapture lend To make the waterfall. There, streaming from the haze and mist Where dew is dashed in spray, Rises a halo sunrise-kissed And kissed at close of day From ruby unto amethyst, Within the veil of grey. {166A} And there within the circled light I saw a dancing thing, Most like the tender-leaved night Of moonrise seen in spring, A shadow luminous and white Like a ghost beckoning. And then dim visions came to me, Faint memories of fear: As when the Argo put on sea Such stories we did hear, Stories to tremble at and flee -- And others worth a tear. I thought of how a maiden man Might hear a deadly song And clasp a siren in his span, And feel her kiss grow strong To drag him with caresses wan Into the House of Wrong.<<1>> <<1. See Homer's Odyssey.>> Another:<<1>> how the women grew Like vines of tender grape, And how they laughed as lovers do, And took a lover's shape, And how men sought them, free to woo -- To leave them, no escape! <<1. See Lucian.>> Another:<<1>> how a golden cup A golden girl would pour, And whoso laughed and drank it up Grew wise and warrior: But whoso stayed to smile and sup Returned -- ah, never more! <<1. Is this a perversion of the story of Calypso?>> And yet again<<1>> -- a river steep, A maiden combing light, Her hair's enchantment -- she would weep And sing for love's delight, Until the listener dropped to sleep In magic of her night. {166B} <<1. See Goethe's "Lorelei.">> And then the maiden smoothed her tresses, And led him to the river, Caught him and kissed with young caresses, And then -- her cruel smiles quiver! Beneath the waves his life represses For ever and for ever! I knew the danger of the deed The while enrapt I gladdened. My eyes upon the dancer feed As one by daylight saddened After long night whose slumbers bleed, By dreams deceived and maddened! It might be -- the delusive dance, The shadowy form I saw, Apollo's misty quivering lance Thrown to elude God's law; It might be -- doth the maid advance, Evanish, or withdraw? So stung by certainty's mistrust, Or tranced in dream of sin, Or blinded by some Panic dust, By Dionysian din Deafened, arose the laughing lust To fling my body in! I stood upon the rock, and cried, And held my body high (Not caring if I lived or died) Erect against the sky: Then plunged into the wheeling tide, And vanished utterly. "O shape half-seen of love, and {l}ost Beneath time's sightless tide, What obolus of the vital cost Remains, or may abide? Or what perception memory steal, Once passed upon the whirling wheel? "O hope half held of love, and fled Beyond the ivory gate, A dream gone from the hapless head By fury of a fate! What image of the hope returns But stings with agony that which yearns? {167A} "O face half kissed in faith and fear, Eager and beautiful! Drop for mortality one tear! For life one smile recall! There is no passion made for me -- Else were my water-well the sea." Such tune my falling body snapped Within the sacred sides, While the warm waves with laughter lapped, And changed their tuned tides, And all my being was enwrapped, A bridegroom's in the bride's. Deep in the hollow of the place A starry bed I saw, Gemmed with strange stones in many a space Of godlike rune and law. Such fancies as the fiery face Of living Art might draw. But rising up I lift my head Beyond the ripples clean: My arms with spray dew-diamonded Stretched love-wise to my queen That danced upon the light, and shed Her own sweet light between. But never a mortal joy might know, Hold never a mortal lover! Whose limbs like moonshine glint and glow, Throb, palpitate, and hover: -- Pale sunrise woven with the snow Athwart a larchen cover! So danced she in the rainbow mist, A fairy frail and chaste, By moon caressed, by sunlight kissed A guerdon vain and waste; And the misery of her thankless tryst Stole on me as she paced. For never her lips should be caressed By love's exulting stings, Whose starry shape shone in the west, Held of the glimmering wings. Her shadowy soul perceived the jest Of man and mortal things. {167B} And there I vowed a solemn oath To Aphrodite fair, Sealing that sacramental troth With a long curl of hair, And the strange prayer's reiterant growth Sent shining through the air. ("Invoking Aphrodite") Daughter of Glory, child Of Earth's Dione mild By the Father of all, the AEgis-bearing King! Spouse, daughter, mother of God, Queen of the blest abode In Cyprus' splendour singly glittering. Sweet sister unto me, I cry aloud to thee! I laugh upon thee laughing, O dew caught up from sea! Drawn by sharp sparrow and dove And swan's wide plumes of love, And all the swallow's swifter vehemence, And, subtler than the Sphinx, The ineffable iynx<<1>> Heralds thy splendour swooning into sense, When from the bluest bowers And greenest-hearted hours Of Heaven thou smilest toward earth, a miracle of flowers! <<1. An imaginary animal, sacred to Venus.>> Down to the loveless sea Where lay Persephone Violate, where the shad of earth is black, Crystalline out of space Flames the immortal face! The glory of the comet-tailed track Blinds all black earth with tears. Silence awakes and hears The music of thy moving come over the starry spheres. Wrapped in rose, green and gold, Blues many and manifold, A cloud of incense hides thy splendour of light; {168A} Hides from the prayer's distress Thy loftier loveliness Till thy veil's glory shrouds the earth from night; And silence speaks indeed, Seeing the subtler speed Of its own thought than speech of the Pandean reed! There no voice may be heard! No place for any word! The heart's whole fervour silently speeds to thee, Immaculate! and craves Thy kisses or the grave's, Till, knowing its unworthiness to woo thee, Remembers, grows content With the old element, And asks the lowlier grace its earlier music meant. So, Lady of all power! Kindle this firstling flower The rainbow nymph above the waterfall Into a mortal shade Of thee, immortal maid, That in her love I gather and recall Some memory mighty and mute In love's poor substitute Of thee, thy Love too high, the impossible pursuit! Then from the cloud a golden voice Great harmonies persuade, That all the cosmic lawns rejoice Like laughter of a maid; Till evolution had no choice But heard it, and obeyed. "Show by thy magic art The hero-story! Awake the maiden heart With tunes of glory! With mortal joys and tears, Keen woes and blisses, Awake her faiths and fears, Her tears and kisses!" {168B} I caught the lavish lyre, and sate Hard by the waterfall, Twisting its sweetness intimate Into the solemn call Of many dead men that were great, The plectron's wizard thrall. Thus as she danced, nor ceased, nor cared, I set the sacred throng Of heroes into acts that fared In Argo light and long, The foes they fought, the feats they dared, In shadow-show and song. ("The play of Argonautae is shadowed before them by Orpheus' magical might.") So faded all the dream: so stole Some fearful fondness in her soul; Even as a cloud thrilled sharply through With lightning's temper keen and true, Splitting the ether: so again Grew on me the ecstatic pain, Seeing her tremble in mid-air. No flower so exquisitely fair Shakes out its petals at the dawn; No breath so beautiful is drawn At even by the listening vale. For oh! she trembled! Frail and pale, Her looks surpassing loveliness Lulled its own light to fond distress, As if the soul were hardly yet Fit to remember or forget New-born! and though the goddess bade The nymph-bud blossom to a maid, And soulless immortality Reach to a soul, at last to die, For love's own sake, bliss dearly bought For change's altering coin ill-wrought, It seemed as through the soul were strange, Not fledged, not capable to range At random through the world of sense Opened so swift and so intense Unto the being. Thus she stood Impatient on the patient flood With wonder waking in her eyes. Thus the young dove droops wing, and dies, {169A} In wonder why the winged thing Loosed from yon twanging silver string Should strike, should hurt. But now she wakes, Wreathes like a waterfall of snakes The golden fervour of her hair About the body brave and bare Starred in the sunlight by the spray, And laughed upon me as I lay Watching the change: First dawn of fire! First ghost of nightfall's grey desire! First light of moonrise! Then, as June Leaps out of May, her lips took tune To song most soft, a spiral spell, As siren breathing in a shell. The notes were clustered round the well Like angels clustering round a god. Let memory wake from its abode Of dim precision lost for long The grace and grandeur of the song! Who art thou, love, by what sweet name I quicken? By whom, O love, my soul is subtly stricken? O Love, O Love, I linger On the dear word and know not any meaning, Nor why I chant; there is a whisper weaning My soul from depths I knew to depths I guess, Centred in two words only: "Love" and "Yes." What lyrist's gentle finger Strikes out a note, a key, a chord unheard of? What voice intones a song I know no word of? Who am I, Love, and where? What is the wonder of this troublous singing? What is the meaning of my spirit's clinging Still to the two sweet words: repeat, repeat! "Yes, Love!" and "Yes, Love!" Oh the murmur sweet! The fragrance in the air! I know not, I; amid the choral gladness Steals an essential tremor as of sadness, A grace-note to the bosom {169B} Of music's spell that binds me, as in Panic Dance to some grasp unthinkable, Titanic, Unto the words fresh flowers that distil Uttermost fragrance in the mind and will, The unsuspected blossom! What is the change -- new birth of spring-time kisses Alone in all these water-wildernesses? What change? what loveliness! Comes this to all? I heard my sisters crying No tale like this -- O! were I only lying Asleep amid the ferns, my soul would weep Over and over in its endless sleep; "Yes, love!" and "yes!" and "yes!" So by some spell divinely drawn She came to me across the dawn, With open arms to me; and sobbed "Yes, love!" and "Yes, love!" O how throbbed The giant glory at my heart! And I? I drew away, apart, Lest by mere chance to me she came. But curling as a wind-blown flame She turned, she found me. As the dew Melts in the lake's dissolving blue So to my arms she came. And now, Now, now I hold her! Broke the brow Of all wide heaven in thunder! Hear Tremendous vortices of fear Swirl in the ether. What new terror Darkens the blue pool's sliver mirror? How bursts the mountain-chasm asunder? Whose voice reverberates in thunder Muttering what curse? The sun dissolves In anguish; the mad moon revolves Like a wild thing about its cage; The stars are shaken in the rage Of -- who but Zeus? Before our gaze, (My love's in shuddering amaze, Of birth deceived and death forlorn, And mine in anger, ay! and scorn!) He stood -- the mighty One! So earth And heaven proclaimed that fearful birth: So they grew silent lest he curse. Dead silence hushed the universe; {170A} And then in clear calm tones he spoke: "Fools! who have meddled, and awoke The inmost forces of the world! One lightning from my hand had hurled Both to annihilation's brink. What foolish goddess bade ye think Ye thus could play with thunder, roll Your wheels upon the world, control The stately being of a soul? Just am I ever! Therefore know The unrevengeful law of woe That ye invoke. Thou seekest life, Child of my water! Thou a wife, Child of my sun! Draw living breath, Maiden, and gain the guerdon -- death! Thou take the wife, and risk the fate AEons could hardly culminate To lose thy soul! Not two but one Are ye. Together, as the stone, The oak, the river, or the sea, Mere elements of mine be ye, Or both resolve the dreadful life, And take death's prize! Take thou the wife, Thou, who didst know. Her ignorance Resolve itself upon a chance! She shall decide the double fate. Be still, my child, and meditate! This is an hour in heaven." He ceased And I was silent. she released Her soul from that tremendous birth Of fear in gentle-minded mirth. "Great Sir!" she cried, "the choice is made! An hour ago I was afraid, Knew nothing, and loved not. But I Know now not this you say -- to die. Some doubtful change! An hour ago I was a nymph. I did not know This change: but now for death or life I care not. Am I not his wife? I love him. Now I would not leave That joy once tasted; shall not grieve If even that should ever cease, So great a pleasure (and a peace!) I have therein. And by the sense Of love's intuitive influence I know he wills me to remain Woman." "How frivolous and vain, {170B} O Zeus," I cried, "art thou to rise Out of Olympus' ecstasies! Omnipotent! but to control The first breath of a human soul! --" The thunder rolled through heaven again, Void was the spring-delighted plain Of that gigantic phantasy. I turned to my Eurydice Even as she turned. The faint breath glows, -- The lightning of a living rose. The bright eyes gleam -- night's spotless stars Glimmering through folded nenuphars. The red mouth moves, still to the word: "Yes, love!" and "yes, love!" Then I heard No sound and saw no sight -- the world Folded its mighty wings, and curled Its passion round us; bade forget The joy with which our eyes were wet. All faded, folded in the bliss; Unfolded the first fadeless kiss. Then my soul woke, not sundering lips, But winged against the black eclipse Of sense: my soul on wings did poise Her glory in the vast turquoise Of the whole sky: expanded far Beyond the farthest sun or star, Beyond all space, all time. I saw The very limits of the law That hath no bounds: beheld the bliss Of that first wonder of the kiss In its true self: how very love Is God, and hath its substance of Pure light: and how love hath its cause Beyond religions, worlds, and laws; Is in itself the first: and moves All evolution, and disproves God in affirming God: all this In that one rapture of the kiss I knew, and all creation's pain Fell into nothing in my brain, As I, remaining man, involved All life's true purpose, and dissolved The phantoms (of itself create) In a mysterious sweet state, Wherein some tune began to move Whose likeness and whose life was love. {171A} Roll, strong life-current of these very veins, Into my lover's soul, my soul that is! Thrill, mighty life of nerves, exultant strains Triumphant of all music in a kiss! Fade! fade, oh strenuous sense Into the soul intense Of life beyond your weak imagining! And, O thou thought, dissever Thy airy life for ever While the bright sounds are lifted up to spring Beyond this tide of being, Shadows and sense far fleeing Into a shadow deeper than the Ocean When passes all the mind's commotion To a serener sky, a mighty calm emotion! The whole world fades, folds over its wide pinions Into a darkness deeper than its own. Silence hath shattered all the dream-dominions Of life and light: the grey bird's soul is flown Into a soundless night, Lampless: a vivid flight Beyond the thrones and stars of heaven down hurled, Till the great blackness heaves An iron breast, and cleaves The womb of night, another mightier world. Lost is my soul, and faded The light of life that braided Its comet tresses into golden fire. Fade, fade, the phantoms of desire! Speed, speed the song of love upon the living lyre! Lo! I abide not, and my lover's glory Abides not: in the swaying of those tides Gathers beneath some mighty promontory One mightier wave, deep drowns it, and abides. Save that one wave alone Nought in the void is known, That wave of love, that sole exultant splendour Throned o'er all being, supreme, A single-shining beam Burning with love, unutterably tender. {171B} Ah! the calm wave retires. Down all the fearful fires Go thundering to darkness, so dissever Their being from pure being, that the river Of love is waveless now, and is pure love for ever. Then mightier than all birth of stars or suns, Breaks the vast flood and trembles in its tide. Serene an splendid shine the mystic ones, Exult, appal, reiterate, abide. Timid and fleet the earth Comes rushing back to birth, Brighter and greener, radiant with gold Of a diviner sun, An exultation Of life to life, of light to light untold. I? I remain, and see Across eternity My lover's face, and gaze, and know the worth Of love's life to the glowing earth, The kiss that wakes all life unto a better birth. So the swoon broke. I saw the face (Shining with Love's reverberant grace) Of my own love across the lawn, As warm and tender as the dawn Tinting the snows of heaven-born hills, Enamelling the mountain rills With light's chameleon-coloured dyes; So shone the love-light in grey eyes, Changing for laughter and for tears, Changeless for joy of myriad years. This, this endures; there is no lover, No loved one; all the ages cover These things from sight: but this abides Floating above the whelming tides Of time and space: abides for ever Whether the lovers join or sever. There is no change: the love exists Beyond the moment's suns and mists in me, abiding: and I see No lover in Eurydice, Save that her kiss awoke in me {172A} This knowledge, this supreme content, Annihilation of the event, The vast eternal element Of utter being, bliss, and thought, In dissolution direly wrought Of sense, identity's eclipse, The shadow of a lover's lips. The awful steel of Death divides The alternation of the tides Of consciousness, and binds in bliss The dead man to the girl's live kiss. So sped my wooing: now I surely think Suspended here upon the burning brink Of this dim agony, invading sense, That bliss should still abide: but now I shrink, Fall from the crags of memory, and abide Now in this nature-life, basilisk-eyed, And serpent-stinging: yea, I perish thence. That perishes which was: and I am tied Unto myself: the "I" springs up again Bound to the wheel of speedless sense and pain, None loosing me. Past is the utter bliss; Present the strong fact of the death, the stain Of the marred lives: I meditate awhile Not on the mere light of the girl, the smile Deepening down to the extremest kiss; Not of the long joys of the little isle Set in Ionian waters, where the years Passed, one long passion, too divine for tears, Too deep for laughter: but on that divine Sense beyond sense, the shadow of the spheres Lost in the all-pervading light of love: That bliss all passion and all praise above; Impersonal, that fervour of the shrine Changed to pure peace that had its substance of {172B} Nothing but love: in vain my thoughts evoke That light amidst the deadly night and smoke Of this dread hour: there's nothing serves nor skills Here, since that hateful "I" of me awoke, Making me separate from the wings of life. Nothing avails me of the cruel strife With my own being: hideous sorrow fills My heart -- O misery! my wife! my wife! Stay! if I cannot be the Absolute, Let me be man! discard the wailing lute And wake the lyre: the mightier than me Drag up the courage in me to dispute The battle with despair: awake the strings Stronger than earth, than the immortal kings Alike of death and life: invoke the sea That I may cross her on the viewless wings Of song, find out the desolating river That girds the earth, unloose the silver quiver, Choosing an arrow of sharp song to run Down to the waters that lament for ever: -- And cleave them! That my song's insistent spell Rive the strong gates of iron-builded hell, And move the heart of the ill-hearted one. Yea! let me break the portals terrible, {173A top} And bring her back! come back, Eurydice! Come back, pale wanderer to Eternity! Come back, my wife, my wife, again to love! Come back, my wife! come back, come back to me! Enough! my purpose holds: no feeble cries! No sob shall shake these nerves: no ecstasies Of hope, or fear, or love avail to move Those iron-hearted dooms and destinies. I will be calm and firm as I were Zeus. I will descend to Hades and unloose My wife: prevail on pale Persephone, Laving her love-locks with exalted dews Of stern grey song; such roseate tunes espouse That all the echoes of that lonely house Answer me sob for sob, that she decree With love deep-seated in her lofty brows Forth sparkling: and with Hades intercede, So as I stir the judgment-seat, and plead, The awful brows may lighten, and decree My wife's return -- a poet's lofty meed! {173B top full page below} EXPLICIT LIBER SECUNDUS. LIBER TERTIUS VEL LABORIS TO THE MEMORY OF IEHI AOUR, WITH WHOM I WALKED THROUGH HELL, AND COMPELLED IT "Neither were his hopes frustrated: For having appease them with them melodious sound of his voice and touch, prevailed at length so far, as that they granted him leave to take her away with him; but on this condition, that she should follow him, and he not to look back upon her, till he came to the light of the upper World; which he (impatient of, out of love and care, and thinking that he was in a manner past all danger) nevertheless violated, insomuch that the Covenant is broken, and she forthwith tumbles back again headlong into Hell." -- "The Wisdom of the Ancients." "Moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays." -- "Rape of Lucrece." {columns resume} ORPHEUS TRAVELS TO HADES. AS I pass in my flight On the awed storm cloud, Steeps steeper than sleep, Depths deeper than night, I have furrowed and ploughed (Deep calling to deep!) Through the spaces of light, The heads of them bowed For the fears that weep, And the joys that smite, And the loves disallowed. They are risen; they leap; They wing them in white, Crying aloud Words widowed that keep The frost of their fires forgotten and faded from Memory's steep. As I pass in my glory O'er sea and land, I smite the loud tune From a fervid hand, By the promontory, The mountainous moon. {174A} Vivid and hoary, Twin birds, as I hark Take fire, understand The ways of the dark As an angel did guide me, Waving the brand Of the dawn's red spark. My measures mark The influence fine Of the voyage divine Of the airy bark Wherein I travel O'er mountain and level, The land, and the sea. And the beings of air, And the lives of the land, And the daughters of fire, And the sons of the Ocean, Come unto me; My chariot bear, My tunes understand, My love desire, Share my emotion. They gather, they gather, Apollo, O father! They gather around; They echo the sound {174B} Of the tune that rejoices, The manifold measure Of feet tuned to voices Of terrible pleasure, We pass in our courses Above the grey treasure Of seas in Earth's forces, Her girdle, her splendour. We bridle the horses Of sea as we lend her Tunes subtle and tender To sink in her sources. The air's love? We rend her! We pass to the West, We sink on the breast Of the Ocean to rest. As I pass, as I madden In fury of flight, The sea's billows gladden Invoking the light. The depths of her sadden Not seeing the sight Of the glorious one, Whose steed is the Sun, Whose journey is certain, Who speeds to the gate, The visible curtain Of visible fate. My soul takes no hurt in Their gloom: I await The portals to rise In the desolate skies. I trust to my song Irresistibly strong To sunder and shatter Those towers of matter. They rise! Oh! They rise, The terrible towers Of Hades: they lift Across the white skies Those terrible-cliffed Rocks, where the hours Beat vainly: where lies The horrible rift Of the earth's green bowers Where the wan ships drift, And the sun's rays shift, {175A} And the river runs Whose banks have no flowers, Whose waves have no suns. Sheer to the terror Of heaven, the walls Strike; and the mirror Of water recalls No truth, but dim error. The soul of me falls Down to the glamour Of dream; and fear Beats like a hammer. Here! it is here! Lost are my friends; The elements shrink Where the life-world ends On the icy brink Of the sunless river; Ends, and for ever! I pass to the portals Of death in my flight. I sound at the gates. I call the immortals Of death and of night. I call on the Fates By the summons of light. The gates are rended; The rocks divide; My soul hath descended Abreast of the tide. I, single and splendid, Death have defied! I pass by the terrible gates and the guardians dragon-eyed. I thunder adown The vast abyss. (The journey's crown Is a woman's kiss!), What terrors to master! What fear and disaster To gain the renown And the fadeless bliss! I thunder aloud On the rocks as I fly, Borne on a cloud In the gloomy sky. {175B} Shaped like a shroud, Draped like a pall, I shrink not; I fall To the blackness below With my soul aglow. No taint of a fear! For I know, I know Eurydice near, Eurydice here! The purpose divine Thrills my soul as wine. Now I pass to the soul of the dark, confronting the innermost shrine. Hail to ye, warders That guard the borders Of Hades! All hail to ye, dwellers of night! But I am the soul In a man's control. Ye have nought to do with the dweller of light! Hail to ye, hail In the hollow vale, Your weapons are lifted against me in vain. My lure shall charm ye, My voice disarm ye, For I am the soul overshadowed of pain! Hail to ye, wardens Of Death's grey gardens! O flowerless and vineless your bowerless vale! But I must alone To the wonderful throne. Let fall the vain spears, shadows! Hail to ye! Hail! The phantoms diminish, The shadows fall back. Lost in the vision In fires that finish Stark and black With lust and derision; {176A} And all the illusion Is fallen to the ground. The warders are beaten They go in confusion; Their place is not found. The air hath eaten With wide-gaping jaws A furious folk. Lost is the cause In Tartarean smoke. I, through the wall Of impassable gloom, Apart from the sun, Pass as a ghost, Bearing the lyre. The sad notes fall To the sorrowful womb; One after one They leap as a host With weapons of fire On a desolate coast, Where love is lost And the bitterness clings of fear, and the sadness gods of desire! Thrice girded with brass, Thrice bound with iron, The gate is in three Pillars of gold. But I will pass (My heart as a lion, My lyre as a key!) To the gates of old, To the place of despair And the walls of dread, The halls of the doomed, The homes of the dead, The houses where The beautiful air Is as air entombed. Nothing can shake Those terrible walls. No man can wake With silver calls The home of the lost and the lone, the gate of the Stygian thralls. {176B} But thou, O Titan! O splendour triform! Gloomiest dweller Of uttermost night! My journey enlighten! O soul of the storm! Waker and queller Of sombre delight, Hecate! hearken The soul of my prayer! Glitter and darken Through sulphurous air! Let the sacrifice move thee to joy, the invoker thy glory declare In words that shall please Thy terrible peace, O speedy to save, In flames of fine fire that bedew the deepest Tatarean cave! ["Invoking HECATE"] O triple form of darkness! Sombre splendour! Thou moon unseen of men! Thou huntress dread! Thou crowned demon of the crownless dead! O breasts of blood, too bitter and too tender! Unseen of gentle spring, Let me the offering Bring to thy shrine's sepulchral glittering! I slay the swart beast! I bestow the bloom Sown in the dusk, and gathered in the gloom Under the waning moon, At midnight hardly lightening the East; And the black lamb from the black ewe's dead womb I bring, and stir the slow infernal tune Fit for thy chosen priest. Here where the band of Ocean breaks the road Black-trodden, deeply-stooping, to the abyss, I shall salute thee with the nameless kiss Pronounced toward the uttermost abode Of thy supreme desire. I shall illume the fire Whence thy wild stryges shall obey the lyre, {177A} When thy Lemurs shall gather and spring round, Girdling me in the sad funereal ground With faces turned back, My face averted! I shall consummate The awful act of worship, O renowned Fear upon earth, and fear in hell, and black Fear in the sky beyond Fate! I hear the whining of thy wolves! I hear The howling of the hounds about thy form, Who comest in the terror of thy storm, And night falls faster ere thine eyes appear Glittering through the mist. Of face of woman unkissed Save by the dead whose love is taken ere they wist! Thee, thee I call! O dire one! O divine! I, the sole mortal, seek thy deadly shrine, Pour the dark stream of blood, A sleepy and reluctant river Even as thou drawest, with thine eyes on mine, To me across the sense-bewildering flood That holds my soul for ever! The night falls back; The shadows give place; The threefold form Appears in the black, As a direful face Half seen in the storm. I worship, I praise The wonderful ways Where the smitten rays Of darkness sunder. The hand is lifted; The gates are rifted; The sound is as thunder! She comes to the summons, Her face as a woman's, Her feet as a Fear's, Turned back on her path For a sign of wrath: -- She appears, she appears! {177B} I step to the river. The lyre-strings quiver; The limbs of me shudder; So cold is the mist; So dark is the stream; So fearful the boat; So horrid the rudder; So black is the tryst; So frightful the beam; So fearing to float; The steersman so dread, The shadowy shape of a ghost that guides the bark of the dead! Aged and foul, His locks wreathe about him. Horrid his scowl! Haggard his soul! My songs control While they fear him and doubt him. I step in the boat, And the waters ache, And the old boards shake. I shall hardly float, So heavy the soul Of a living man On those waters that roll Nine times around The fatal ground; Yet still to my singing we move on the river Tartarean. So darker and colder The stream as we float: Blacker and bleaker, The mist on the river! Stronger the shoulder Impels the sad boat. Sadder and weaker Shudder and quiver The notes of the lyre. Quenched is my fire In the fog of the air. Dim my desire Cuts through the snare. The cold confounds me; {178A} The mist surrounds me; Life trembles and lowers; Earth fades from my life. The love of my wife, The light of the flowers, Earth's beautiful bowers. Pass, and are not. I am awed by the soul of the place, the hopeless, the desolate spot. Here is the wharf Wearily standing, Misshapen and dwarf, Well fit for such landing! Darker the bloom Of the night-flowers glows, Shadowing the tomb, The indicible woes. Dark and unlovely the cypress still grows Deformed and blistered, Stunted and blackened, Where the dead gleams glistered, The dusk-lights slackened. Such is the shore Who reacheth may never Return o'er the river! Here pace evermore The terrible ghosts Malignant of men, Whose airless hosts In wars unjust Went down to the den; Whose fury and lust Turned poison or steel On their own bad lives. Here whirls the grim wheel Where the dead soul strives Ever to climb To the iron nave, Find Space and Time, Or a God to save, Or a way o'er the wave. The Fate contrives That he never thrives. Revolving anon, The gleam is gone, And the shadowy smile {178B} Of Hecate darkens. My sad soul hearkens; Moves fearfully on: -- O place of all places discrowned! Lamenting, I linger awhile! But fronting me tearful, Me full of lament, Shoots up the fearful Den of the hound. Ages they spent, Gods, in the graving That cavern profound, That temple of hate, Of horror and craving: -- O who shall abate The moaning, the raving? Dark the dull flame Of the altar, the flood Of the black lamb's blood! But who shall proclaim That his soul can descry The depth of that cavern immense where the guardian of Orcus may lie? Sleepest thou, devil? Monster of evil! Spawn of Typhon By Echidna's lust! The hateful revel In blood and dust! The obscene crone And the monster's terror! The hideous thrust Of an unclean thirst In the halls of error! Expunged and accurst, A lapping of hate, A bride-bed rotten, And thou, miscreate And misbegotten! O Hecate, hear me! The terrors awaken, The cavern is shaken With horrible groanings. Cryings and moanings And howlings draw near me. {179A} I tremble, I fear me! My lyre is forsaken. The heart of the hollow Is helpless to bear The notes of Apollo Through Stygian air. But heavier shrieking Revolves and resounds In the ghastly profounds; And the voice unspeaking Of the hound of the damned Runs eager, and bounds, Malignantly crammed In my ears, and the noise Of infernal joys In the houses of sin: -- Let me pass to a drier place, to the terrors unspoken within! Dead silence succeeds The sound of the prayer. Again the loud lyre Shudders and bleeds In the desolate air With a sound as of fire! The hound recedes; But the gates stand there, Barring desire, Barring the way Of the dead unburied, Unshrived, and unblessed; They stand and pray In legions serried, Beating the breast, Tearing the hair, Rending the raiment. There is none to care. No golden payment Availeth at all. There is none to call; There is none to pity: They stand in their pain At the gate of the city. There is none to feel Or give relief; They are lost; they are vain; They are eaten of grief. {179B} They are sore afraid, They are weary with care. There is none to aid. There is none to pity. They wail in despair At the gate of the city. But I, shall I halt At the thrice-barred portal In the lampless vault, I, half an immortal? By love of my mother, By might of my lyre, By Nature's assistance, I, I, not another Demand my desire, Rebuke your resistance, By mighty Apollo Whose power yet abides, Though his light may not follow Through Stygian tides! By my power over things Both living and dead, By my influence splendid In heavenly court, The song of me springs. My favour is dread. Be your portals rended! Your bolts be as nought! The ethereal kings Encompass my head. My soul hath transcended The limits of thought! Unbar me the gates! Revolve me the hinges! Mine be the Fate! Mine be the springes Wherein ye have taken The spirits forsaken! But I, shall I quail at a nod? Shall I fail for a God? Is the soul of me shaken? Darklier winding And steeper the way, Baffling and binding Eyes used to the day. {180A} Bocks cloven by thunder And shattered by storm Awry or asunder Rise and reform In marvellous coils Round the adamant road Whose tangles and toils Lead on the abode, Where dwell in the light Of justice infernal The judges that smite, That judge men aright, Whose laws are eternal! Those kings that in reigning For bribing or feigning Swerved never an hair From justice and truth; Turned never a care To wrath or to ruth; Did justice, and died. Thither I haste To face the austere Faces of peace. Shall the lyre cease? Its music be waste? Themselves not hear? I stride to the presence and sing: and my soul is not conquered of fear. Now the road widens and grows darker still As if the shadow of some ancient tower Cast its deep spell on the reluctant will. Still tortuous winds the deep descent; the hour Lies bitterer on my soul: I fear to fail, To loose in vain the lyre's dissolving power On the white souls armed in that triple mail Of justice, virtue, truth: percipience Beyond the mute and melancholy veil That covers from the drowsy eye of sense The subtle thought that hides behind the mask. I fear indeed: but now the soul intense {180B} Of truth precedes me and informs the task Of the steep ways: I gladden and go on Ready to sing, to answer, or to ask As all may happen: now the stern light shone Vivid across the blackness, and the rock Recedes: the narrow stair is changed and gone And the wide air invades: a mighty shock To my number senses void of vital air And to my lure reverberate to mock With changing echoes and discordant, where The dome reached up, almost to earth, so high Rolled back the pillars and the walls, aglare With iron justice' frightful symmetry Blazoned in blood-like flame, gushing from springs Unseen, unguessed, incredible! There fly The dreaded banners of the demon kings In fearful colours, and the vast inane Dome catches music from my mouth, and rings Back iron curses to the blessings vain I pour in desperate fervour from the lyre. So, baffled by the echoes of hell's pain, Blinded by grisly glamour of hell's fire, I take my refuge in the solitude And grandeur of that irony of ire, That mockery of mercy: thus I brood Apart, alone, upon the cause of Things And wait those fearful Three. A lifeless mood Stirs my grey being: ay! no passion springs In flowerless halls as these: awhile the mind Wanders on void unprofitable wings No whither: gains new strength at last to find Custom breed sight and hearing: in the hall The sounds grow clear, the black fires fail to blind. {181A} I see the mighty buttress of the wall Lost in its mighty measure: hear again The lyre's low notes and light distinctly fall A gentle influence in the place of pain. Oh now the central glory of the place Falls splendid on the unbewildered brain, And I am found contemplating a face More passionless than mortals': central sits Throned on pure iron, with brass for carapace, Minos: and either side of him befits The mighty Rhadamanthus throned on gold And canopied with silver: sternly knits His brows the awful AEacus, in cold Splendour of justice throned on carven lead; And o'er his head twin dragons bend and hold A cobra's hood made of some metal dread Impossible on earth: how calm, how keen Flash their wise eyes, those judges of the dead, In silent state: how eager, how serene Are the broad brows: the heart shrinks up and sinks, Seeing no gallery to slip between And pass those aged ones -- oft a man thinks He faces truth! I know this hour, alas! That face to face with naked truth he shrinks. His web of woven fiction may not pass (Though he believes it to be truth) with them Who see his mind as though it were a glass Without a shadow. Yet the ninefold gem And million-facet glory of my song Glittering, made splendid in the diadem Of flashing music shall assoil the wrong, A finer truth interpret. Though the heart And core of music hold a poisonous throng {181B} Of lies -- yet, sing it to sufficient Art, The lie abolishes itself -- the tune Redeems the darkness -- the keen flashes start Of truth availing though the midnight moon Darken, the stars be quenched in utter cloud, And the high sun eclipsed at very noon. So flash I back the glory calm and proud Irradiating the Three. So shall my lure Sweep the vast courts with acclamation loud Of splashing music, of exulting fire That revels in its penetrating cover Of azure life that smites its flickering spire Of sworded splendour inwards, to discover Not justice, not discernment, not desire, Not passion, but the sheer will of a lover! MINOS. Substantial, stern, and strong, Who lifts an alien lyre? Confounds our echoes dire With strange and stubborn song? AEACUS. Here in the House of Dole Where shadows hardly dare Stand, who doth deem to fare Forth from the outer air Mortal, a strenuous soul? RHADAMANTHUS. The large and lordly land Fertile of earth hath sent With dolorous intent Some shape or element. What spell of might hath rent The veil of Hell, and bent Death's purpose to his hand? MINOS. What shaft from the bow of Apollo? {182A} AEACUS. What quiver of wonder Hath cleft the black walls of the hollow RHADAMANTHUS. What terror? MINOS. What thunder Hath shaken Hell's gates to the base? AEACUS. Withstanding the guards to their face? RHADAMANTHUS. Hath rent him asunder The portals of Dis in his wrath? MINOS. Hath made for his will An arrow of light for his path? AEACUS. Left stagnant and chill The waters of Styx unappeased? The keys of our prison hath he seized. RHADAMANTHUS. A mortal! MINOS. An ill Most alien to Heaven, by Zeus! AEACUS. But impiety's doom, By Poseidon, shall fill for his use No well-omened tomb. RHADAMANTHUS. By Hades, our dogs let us loose! Let death in the gloom Bring peace to the Hall of the dead! {182B} MINOS. A passionate being! No weal to the light of his head In the place of the seeing! AEACUS. Awake, wild justice of dread! Lest shadows be fleeing In fear of the portent to lurk In a deeper-detested Cave, ere we wake to the work. RHADAMANTHUS. Black snakes many-crested, Arise! lest the calm of the murk From our places be wrested. MINOS. Who art thou? AEACUS. What ails thee to irk From earth tender-breasted To the milkless dugs of the grave And the iron breasts of the pit? RHADAMANTHUS. Can a bodily presence save Against a shadowy wit? MINOS. Thy hope doth dwell, O slave, Where thy mother fashioned it, Oh heart of a fool, in thy breast. AEACUS. Away, away to the skies! RHADAMANTHUS. That our dead may take their rest. MINOS. Arise to the air, arise! AEACUS. Away to the mountain crest! {183A} RHADAMANTHUS. Veil, veil from the awful eyes! MINOS. Endure thy heart as it may, And steel thine heart, Thou shalt hear and know and obey As I say "Depart"; Lest the arrow find its way And the sternly-shapen dart. AEACUS. A second our justice waits. RHADAMANTHUS. It falleth anon. MINOS. O fool of hopes and hates Arise and begone! AEACUS. O toy of the mirthless fates! Who art thou to con The mysteries of the dead in the back-souled bastion? MINOS, AEACUS, RHADAMANTHUS. Away! away! to the light of day! Now as it may: then as it must. We are loath to pardon, and loath to slay, Void of greed and anger and lust, -- But we are iron and thou art clay; We are marble and thou but dust. ORPHEUS. O iron, bow to silver's piercing note! O marble, see the shape of ivory! My justice fountains from a sweeter throat; My death is bound beyond eternity. O wise and just, hear ye the voice of man, Not seeking to involve in woven spells Or trickery the decree Tartarean, By words to blink that justice which is Hell's! {183B} I came indeed before this awful throne To seek a party favour, but I wait Shuddering and silent, steadfast and alone, And change my music at the call of Fate. For while ye spake in tumult, in this ear A music rang from earth's remotest mine, From star and comet, flaming wheel and sphere, From Hell's deep vault and from the House divine. A voice diverse, a voice identical Called me this hour from bitterest woes and black, Constraining eloquence and mighty thrall Of cosmic agony, and wrung me back From my poor plea to challenge in my song The whole domain of deeply-seated law, Launch thunders not Olympic at the strong Bars of the Order backed with strength and awe That men call Will of Zeus: the after scheme And primal fate and most primoridal plan Shaped from the earth's first protoplasmic dream Up to the last great mischief that is man. All this I challenge: that the suns and stars Work in due order and procession meet Without caprice in viewless, changeless bars, Nor self-determinate in their wingless feet. All nature and all consciousness and thought He hath thrown asunder and divided them; Fixing a gulf of agony athwart, Where rolls a tide no soul of man may stem. Himself fixed high, he mocked us with his name Of "reconciler," and of "one beyond all"; And cast his shadow to the deep, to shame That oneness in its own division's thrall; {184A} So that Himself appears in cloud and fire Distorted in the world's distorted mirror; And dark convulsion and confusion dire Stands for his form of error and of terror. But I perceive, I Orpheus, Lord of Song, And every Lord of Song that me shall follow Down steeps of time's own agony and wrong, Shall see the lightning bridge the dreadful hollow With jagged flame of master-music, hear The blind curse thunder forth against in vain When the swift glory of the rolling sphere Of song pours forth its utterance, keen with pain, Mad with delight, and calm beyond woe and pleasure. Yea, every son of this my soul shall know In the swift concourse of his music's measure One thing impatient of this to and fro March of hell's dancers. I perceive a key To lock the prison of the world on him That built the iron walls and made decree Long past in aeons now grown gray and dim, Like halls ancestral whence their folk have fled, The marbles all are broken, and the weeds Grown o'er the bones of the unquiet dead, And time's remorse avails not on its deeds. I see that time is one: future and past Are but one present; space is one, the North And South and all the sixfold shame holds fast No more: the poet's fiat hath gone forth And tamed the masters of division. Me Nor sun can burn, nor moon make mad, nor time Alter: I drown not in the deepest sea, Nor choke where icy mountain ridges climb {184B} The steeps of heaven; but these, these children, cry Their bitter cry for justice. Mighty Ones, Lords of the Dusk, incline ye, mercifully, Rightly, to misery of all stars and suns And planets and all grains of dust that sorrow -- Hark! from grim Tartarus, most doleful bound, Their throats of anguish notes of triumph borrow At my loud strain's unprofitable sound. For who are ye? Poor judges of the dead, In your stern eyes the sadness is mine own, Mingled with sense that all your forces dread Are vain to take the spirit from one stone. I would have called to ye in wild strong joy; "Arise, O Lords of Justice, and be girt With lightnings, and be ardent to destroy This Fool's creation and to heal its hurt With swift annihilation!" Ye are vain, Alas! poor powers! But yet the damned rejoice Hearing the splendour, prophet in my strain, And certain comfort in my mighty voice. For this shall be, that in the utter end Shall be an end, that in the vast of time Shall come a ceasing, and the steel bar bend Of the God's will, himself from his sublime Pinnacled house in heaven headlong cast Like his own thunder to the abyss of nought When space and time and being shall be past, And the grim thinker perish with his thought. Therefore I leave in hands unshakable The destinies of being, and care not For all the miseries of the damned in hell, Or the vain gods' unenviable lot. {185A} I leave the cry of chaos, and recall My private pang and woe particular, One drop of water by mischance let fall From some white slave's divinely carven jar. O Lords of justice, universal woe Hath yet its shadows in a singer's soul, He feels the arrow from a party bow Who yet hath strength to struggle with the whole. I love my wife. The many-coloured throne Of Grecian meadows hath nor charm nor lure Now she is gone. Lamenting and alone My dulled heart aches, most that it must endure. Give this decree, O masters! Few the days And light the hours since Heracles descended The dusky steep, the intolerable ways, And one prey -- Theseus -- from your prisons rended By might of godhead and the skill of man. But now with music from a Muse's breast Sweetened with milk of tenderness, I scan Your eyes with hope, and with a man's unrest And a man's purpose I appeal. Be just, O ye whom greater justice baulks and bars! Return my lover from the unkind dust To the sweet light of the eternal stars! Be kind, and from the unjust place of fear Return by kindness her, the innocent one, From the grey places to the waters clear And meadows fair, and light of moon and sun! Relent. Reverse the doom. I see your eyes Quiver despite ye: but your hands ye wring; Little by little bitter tears arise Like stubborn water from a frozen spring, {185B} And deep unrest is seated in your limbs. Ye pitty me. Ye pity. Mute and weak With the long trouble of persistent hymns I bow myself and listen while ye speak. MINOS. Brethern, what need of wonder That Hell is burst asunder Shaken from base to brow, as if with Zeus' own thunder? What wonder if our peace Broke, and our mysteries Quaked at the presence of these solemnities? AEACUS. Child of the earth and heaven, Our spirits thou has riven With words we must admit, with power of song -- whence given? Neither of God nor man, Thy song's amazing span Hath caused strange joy among the woes Tartarean. RHADAMANTHUS. Never in the centuries Till godlike Heracles Burst the wild bonds, hath mortal found the fatal knees; Nor hath the bitter cry Of worlds in agony Answered the groans of those who weep, and cannot die. MINOS. Iron of heart and strong, We also suffer wrong. We know these words are just. We avail not. Though thy song Were the sole word of Zeus, Should that avail to loose The bands of Being firm, invulnerable dews Tincturing its bitter brass, Shielding its vital mass From every word that cries, "Thus, and thy day shall pass." {186A} AEACUS. Typhon! Typhon! Typhon! Heard ye that awful moan Leap through the blackness from the miserable throne? Vain as each pallid ghost, Where is thy fatal boast, Destroyer named of old on Khem's<<1>> disastrous coast? Old power of evil curled Below the phantom world, Canst thou destroy, whose might to misery is hurled? <<1. Egypt.>> RHADAMANTHUS. What god beyond these twain Abides or may remain Seated, too strong to quell, exalted over pain? Aloof from time and chance, Fate, will and circumstance, Canst thou not wither Life with one indignant glance? Thy name we know not; Thine Is the unbuilded shrine. We doubt us if Thou be among the powers divine! MINOS. Bound by strict line and law, Fearful with might and awe, We hold the powerless power For many an aged hour. We move not from our place. We ask nor give not grace, Nor change our lordly looks before a suppliant's face. AEACUS. Stern in all justice, we Assent aloud to thee, We affirm thy cause as right: We put forth all the might Of aid: and all is done. Out utmost power is none To lift one soul to live and look upon the sun. {186B} RHADAMANTHUS. For righteous thought and deed Apportioning its meed; For evil act and mind Rewarding in its kind; So sit we: but our power Apportions not an hour To light the dying lamp, revive the faded flower. MINOS. Be thou, be strong to sing! AEACUS. Loose arrows from the string! RHADAMANTHUS. Bid the wild word take wing! MINOS. Hades hath evil fame To suppliants -- bitter shame! -- Inexorable. AEACUS. Aim Yet the swift prayer, abide His word whate'er betide. What worse? RHADAMANTHUS. The Gods thy guide! Go and assail him! MINOS. Stay, The Queen of Hell! AEACUS. That way Leads to the light of day. RHADAMANTHUS. A woman's heart may yearn, To a man's love may turn. {187A} MINOS. Should she, the ravished, spurn A man whose love is reft? AEACUS. Meadows and flower, she left To Him -- O bosom cleft With a wife's loss! -- a wife. RHADAMANTHUS. Too doubtful is the strife. MINOS. Yet go! perchance to life. AEACUS. Go! and the Gods above Guard thee, O soul of love! RHADAMANTHUS. I doubt me much thereof. ORPHEUS. Ah me! I find ye but ill counsellors. For I will conquer. Have I spent these stores Of will and song for nought? Hell's heart may rend, But mine endureth even to the end. Severe and righteous Lords, O fare ye well! Are not my feet forced forward on a road Leading to innermost abodes of Hell Exalted as above the green abode Of nymphs on broad Olympus, raises high Its head the kingly snow, gigantic load Of sombre whiteness cleaving through the sky For gods to dwell in? So I pass the hall And seek the gloomy thrones of majesty, Where I may pledge my last despairing call Unto the mightiest of the House of Dread, And loosen Death's inexorable thrall {187B} And bring my lover from among the dead. Now in the blackness of the rocks that span The dolorous way I spy a golden thread Veined in the strength of the obsidian Flowing and growing, joining vein to vein, Like fresh blood in the arteries of man, Up to the very heart. And as I go Loosen the knees of anguish and grow dim The shattering flames of pain: the songs of woe Flicker and alter to a solemn hymn Chanted in slowest measure in deep awe. Now as a yew-tree sends a mighty limb Shooting to sunset, the black road's black maw Gapes to the westward; the great trunk divides And all the armies of infernal law Stand ranked about the venerable sides Of the black cave: they speak not; dumb they stand And all the frost of all the air abides Upon them, as a vampire stooped and spanned The white throat of a maiden and held still Her powers by virtue of its hate's command, Somewhat like love's: so all the solemn chill Invades those statued ranks of warriors, And I pass through, the lightning of my will A steady stream of flame: high instinct pours Its limpid light of water on my mind, So that I range inhospitable shores Assured of Her I shall most surely find Ere the end be: awake, O living lyre, Since in the narrow way and pass confined I see a darkness infinite as fire, Clear as all spirit vision, lustrous yet As ebony shows in caverns rendered dire {188A} By dreadful magic, or as if pure jet Had taken of itself an inner light, And its own blackness filled night's coronet With a new jewel: so I see aright Where no light is like earth's. The path grows broad And lofty, till the whole hall springs to sight, And I am standing where the dreaded Lord And Lady of the region of the lost Hold awful sway: yet here the flaming sword Of sight is broken by the deadly frost That clusters round their thrones: a mist of fire Congealed to vital darkness: yet exhaust Like a seer's magic glass of air: expire The dumb black hours in fear: but I am ware, Well ware, by instinct surer still and higher Than the own sight of soul that they are there, No mockery of their presence: so even hither My mother's might is on me, on I flare Into wild war of song: my keen notes wither The flowers of frost about me and I turn Ever the strength and mastering frenzy thither With energy of madness: yea, I burn! My soul burns up upon the lyre! I lend My whole life's vigour to one song, to earn Their guerdon of the gods, a god to friend, And seek through devious ways a single end. ["Invoking" HADES. "Str." 1. Now is the gold gone of the year, and gone The glory of the world, and gathered close The silver of the frost. Far splendid snows Shine where the bright anemone once shone. Ay! for the laughter live Of youths and maids that strive {188B} In amorous play, the ancient saws of eld And wisdom mystical From bearded lips must fall, Old eyes behold what young eyes ne'er beheld: Namely, the things beyond the triple veil Of space and time and cause, eternal woof Of misery overproof: And aged thoughts assail The younger hopes, and passion stands aloof, And silence takes possession, and the tale Of earth is told and done. Then from the Sire of all the Gods, from War And Love and Wisdom and the eternal Sun Worship is torn afar: While unto Thee, O Hades, turn we now, Awful of breast and brow, And hear thee in the sea, behold thee in the Star. "Ant." 1 ["Echo of the Damned"]. Ay! is the earth and upper ether gone, And all the joy of earth, and gathered close The darkness and the death-wind and the snows On us on whom the sun of air once shone. What souls are left alive Vainly lament and strive, For they shall join the dead of utmost eld; The concourse mystical Who see the seasons fall Shall soon behold what all we have beheld: -- The accursed stream, the intolerable veil Of night and death and hell, disastrous woof Of anguish overproof That fruitless wills assail Ever in vain: good fortune stands aloof And all kind gods: we, taking up the tale Of dead men past and done, Declare that ceaseless is the eternal war, And victory stedfast set against the Sun. Yet we perceive afar Even in Hades, at the end, not now, Some light upon his brow, Some comfort in the sea, some refuge in the Star. {189A} "Str." 2. O thou! because thy chariot is golden, And beautiful thy coursers, and their manes Flecked with such foam as once upon the sea Bore Aphrodite, and thy face is olden, Worn with dim thought and unsuspected pains, And all thy soul fulfilled of majesty; Because the silence of thy house is great, And thy word second spoken after Fate, And thy light stricken of thine own grim hand; Because thy whisper exceedeth the command Of Zeus; thy dim light far outshines his glory; Because, as He the first is, Thou the last: -- Therefore I take up sorrow in my hands, And ply thine ear with my most doleful story, Asking a future, who have lost a past: A guerdon of my singing like the land's When spring breaks forth from winter, and the blood Of the old earth laughs in every new-born bud. "Ant." 2 ["Echo of the Damned"]. O thou! because thy lyre is keen and golden And beautiful thy numbers through our veins Pouring delight, as on the starry sea Burn gems of rapture; though the houses olden Relax awhile their unredeeming pains, And through dead slaves thrill bounteous majesty? Though the strong music of thy soul be great: -- Shall thy desire avail to alter Fate? Or impious hands unloose the awful hand? Or futile words reverse the great command? Or what availeth? Though great Hades' glory Stoop to thy prayer, and answer thee at last, Should Clotho catch the thread in weaving hands, {189B} Respin what Atropos once cut -- that story Were vain for thee -- that which is past is past, Nor can Omnipotence avail the land's Death -- Spring's is alien through ancestral blood, And a new birth is current in the bud. "Str." 3. Think, then, the deed impossible is done Since Theseus fared forth to the ambient air! His thread once cut -- was that indeed respun Or patched by witchery? a deceit? a snare? I tell ye; past and future are but one, And present -- nothing; shall not Hades dare His own omnipotence against the Sun, And let no tittle of his glory share With all the earth's recuperating wheel, And every dawn's sure falchion-flash of steel? "Ant." 3. ["Echo of the Damned"]. Indeed, a deed impossible was done Were the new Theseus heavier than the air. Nay! but a new thread phantom-frail was spun And men's blind eyes discovered not the snare, Else were that elder cord and this yet one, Cut but in fancy. Yet, shall mortal dare To fling a wanton word against the Sun, And stand forth candidate for lot and share Where hangs Prometheus, rolls Ixion's wheel, And the stone rolls upon the limbs of steel? "Epode." These echoes, in my mind foul torturers, Present my fears, and image my distrust. No answer comes, no voice the silence stirs With joyful "may" or melancholy "must." Nor, though the gloom requicken, may I see Hades enthroned, my prayers who heedeth nought, {190A} Nor glowing tear of bowed Persephone Drooped earthward for the ninefold misery wrought. In utter sorrow ever bound she stays, Hears not my song, nor heedeth anything, Whose mind lamenting turns to ancient days And Nysian meadows and the hour of spring. Yea, but perchance to touch that secret chord Were to awake that sorrow into life; Sting, as a wound a deep-envenomed sword, The inmost soul of the Aidonean wife. Listen! I tune my music to that hour; The careless maidens and the virgin laughter, The bloom of springtide and the fatal flower, And all that joy the sorrow echoing after. So that, dread Hades, thou mayst hear and yield, Thyself unmastered and inexorable, The gentle maid as crying in that field, Now thy soul's keeper on the throne of Hell! Hail, Hades! Thou who hearest not my song, Repealest not the heaven's unjust decree, Revengest not for me the woe and wrong, Shalt glean my sorrow from Persephone. Hail, Hades! In the gloom the echoing cry Swells, and the chorus darkens as I sing, And all the fibres of Eternity Shake as I loose the loud indignant string. Hail, Hades! hear thy wrong proclaimed aloud, And thou the wronger safe because too great. To like offence harden thy neck, and proud Blow thou the dismal challenge unto Fate! In Asia, on the Nysian plains, she played, A slender maid, With the deep-bosomed Oceanides; Where the tall trees Girded the meadow with grave walls of green. Alone, unseen, The tender little lady strayed, Moving across the breeze. {190B} It was a meadow of soft grass and flowers, Where the sweet hours Lingered and laughed awhile ere noon reposes. There were red roses And crocus, and flag-flowers, and violets, And hyacinth, regrets Of the ill-fortuned God, the quoit-player; And soft cool air Stirred all the field -- and there were jessamines And snaky columbines. So all these maidens played, and gathered them From sad green stem Rejoicing blooms with sunlight mixed therein. But she, for sin And iron heart of the ill-minded Zeus, Caught up the dews Deep on her ankles, and went noiselessly Toward the laughing sea, And sought new blossoms -- O the traitor, Earth, That brought to birth That day, as favouring the desire that swelled Beneath her heart of eld, Where dwelt the lonely, the detested one Intolerant of the sun, Hades! But Earth for love of him, for spite Of the young girl's delight, And shame of her own age, brought forth that hour The fatal flower, Narcissus -- which what soul of man shall smell Goes down to hell, Caught in the scent of sin -- for such a doom Demeter's flying loom Hath woven for revenge and punishment. The bright child went Thither; an hundred heads of blossom sprang; The green earth sang, And the skies laughed, and danced the sea's young feet For joy of it. So the child went across that fairest plain To pluck, to strain {191A} That blossom of all blossoms to her heart, Her long hands dart, Exceeding delicate and fair, to cull That bloom too beautiful, Eager to gather the fresh floral birth. The grim black earth Gaped; roared athwart the gulf the golden car; And flaming far The four white horses with their flashing manes! The might-resisting reins Lay in the ghastly hands, the arms of fear Of that dread charioteer, Death; and great Hades armed stood glittering, Stooped to his spring, And whirled the child to the beneath abode. O heavy load! O bitter harvest of rich-rolling tears! What cry who hears? A shrill shrill cry to father Zeus cried she, Forlorn Persephone! Heard was that agony of grief by none Save only by the Sun, And Her who sat within her awful cave, Contemplative and grave, Hecate, veiled with a shining veil Utterly frail As the strange web of dainty thoughts she wove, Somewhat like love. She heard, and great Apollo: neither stayed Hades, nor stretched to aid A pitying hand. O pitiful! O grief Baffling belief! The gentle child -- the cruel god -- Ah me! Persephone! Thus of thy grace, thy sorrow, thy young way Torn from the day Of all thy memory of soft shining flowers And happy-hearted hours, Mayst thou be very pitiful to me Who aye have pitied thee, Persephone! {191B} PERSEPHONE. Ah me! I feel a stirring in my blood. Pours through my veins a delicate pale flood Of memory. Not the pale and terrible Goddess whose throne is manifest in Hell -- I am again a child, a playful child. ORPHEUS. And therefore, O most beautiful and mild Sweet mother! art the girl beloved again Of Hades mighty on the Nysian plain. And therefore are thine eyes with sorrow dim For me, and thy word powerful with him. PERSEPHONE. Ah me! no fruit for guerdon, Who bore the blossom's burden; There shines no sunlight toward Persephone. Ravished, O iron-eyed! From my young sisters' side, Torn and dragged down below the sundered sea, No joy is mine in all thy bed, And all thy sorrow shaken on my head. Cursed above gods be thou Whose blind unruffled brow Rules the grim place of unsubstantial things! Hated, to me thy face Turns not the glance of grace. I rule unloved above the infernal kings, And only thee in all deep Hell I charm in vain, despair my royal spell. By might of famine long And supplication strong Demeter won the swift Hermetic word: In bitter days of eld Thus by great force compelled The glad earth saw me, careless of my lord, Rise to her crystal streams and sapphire seas, And Theseus thus owed life to Heracles. {192A} Thou mockest me with power; Thy sceptre's awful dower Avails me nothing. Shall a mortal bring Such pity wrapped in song And Echo's choral throng Of all things live and dead to hear me sing; -- And I by pity moved and love Have not thy voice to grant him grace thereof? Inexorable Lord! Accursed and abhorred Of men, begin in Hell to show thy grace! Not to a man's weak life, Not to thy shuddering wife, But to the queen's unfathomable face Dread beyond sorcery and prayer, And fearful even because it is so fair! Yea, from the ghastly throne Unchallenged and unknown Let the fierce accents roll athwart the skies! My voice is given, my power Fares forth to save the flower Broken but plucked not by these fingers wise. I love the song -- be thou not mute, But turn a lucky lot towards the suit! ORPHEUS. In vain, O thou veiled Immutable queen! Thy strong voice bewailed, Thy fair face was seen! It flushed up and paled; The song echoed clean -- But alas! for the veil of the night and the fear that is ever between! Of pity unfilled And void of remorse, He moves unappealed In the terrible course. But the lyre is unchilled: -- By force unto force He shall answer me power unto power at the source of its source! {192B} Dost thou hear how the weight Of the earth and the moon Shudder, as if fate Were involved in the tune? The portals of hate Shake at the rune Of the magical nature-cry, the song from the mountains hewn! To the horrible hollow In Tartarus steep, O song of me, follow! I flee to the deep. That word of Apollo Shall shudder and leap; That word in the uttermost night shall awake them who know not of sleep. Hear, O ye Three, In the innermost pit Dwellers that be! Tartarus, split! Arise unto me For I call ye with wit Of the words that constrain and compel, of the summons ordered and fit! O daughter of Earth, Tisiphone dread, The ophidian girth, And the blood-dripping head, In hideous mirth Bring living and dead To torture! Arise! I conjure by the might of the words I have said. Megaera, thou terror, O daughter of Night Whose sight in a mirror Is death of affright, Winged with error, I chain thee, and cite The words that thy soul must obey if a mortal but say them aright! {193A} Alecto! I call thee, My words ring thee round. My spells enwall thee. My lure is crowned With might to appal thee With terror profound. Arise! O Alecto, arise! for my song hath compelled thee and bound. Ye furies of Hell! Ye terrors in Heaven! The strength of the spell Is as thunder at even The rocks of the fell That hath blasted and riven Come forth! I invoke ye, Erinyes, the charm of the One that is seven. By the Five that are One, And the One that is Ten; By the snake in the sun And her mirror in men; By the four that run And return them again; By the fire that is lit in the Lion, the wave in the Scorpion den! By the One that is Seven, The whirling eyes; The Two made Eleven, The dragon's devise; The Eight against Heaven, All crowns of lies; Come forth! I invoke ye, Erinyes, move, answer, take shapes and arise! By the cross and the wheel I call ye to hear; By the dagger of steel I command ye, give ear! By the word that ye feel, The summons of Fear; Come forth! I invoke ye, Erinyes, move, answer, arise and appear! {193B} For my purpose is swift, And my vengeance strong; I shall not shift; I shall cry the wrong. My voice I uplift In terrible song As your forms take shape before me in the likeness for which ye long. The shape of my passion And bitter distress Shall clothe ye, and fashion An equal dress. Ye shall force compassion With awful stress From the soul that hat mocked me, and turned his heart from my song's excess. The ruler of Hell, The invisible Lord, Hath laughed at my spell, Hath slept at my word. He hath heard me well -- Awake, O Sword! Shall he flout a suppliant thus and no answer of favour accord? If mercy be sundered From splendour and power; If he answer with thunder The plaint of a flower; Shall justice wonder If Furies devour So bitter a heart, set a term to his date that was aye but an hour? Avenge me, ye forces Of horror and wrath! Clear the dread courses! Split open the path! With cruel remorse is His heart brought to scath. And a terror is on him at last, the seed of his hate's aftermath. MEGAERA. Ha! who invokes? What horror rages Here, to compel our murderous hands to smite? {194A} ALECTO. What mortal summons? Who his battle wages So strongly as to call the seed of Night? TISIPHONE. Ha! The grim tyrant of despair engages Our deadly anguish with his useless might. HADES. Detested fiends! avaunt! MEGAERA. He speaks! ALECTO. He thunders! TISIPHONE. His lightnings split the living rock. MEGAERA. Hell sunders The livid walls and iron-bound prisons of death. HADES. Thus! to your towers and wail! ALECTO. He speaks! TISIPHONE. His breath Is cold as ours. HADES. Depart! Due silence keep, Lest I enchain ye in a fouler deep Than aught your horror pictures! MEGAERA. Dost thou hear, Sister? ALECTO. Sweet sister! {194B} TISIPHONE. Dost thou think we fear Who are all fear? or feel, who are but pain? MEGAERA. Creep round his heart, and cluster in his brain, Ye serpents of my hair! ALECTO. His blood shall drip For sweet warm juice on my decaying lip. TISIPHONE. My fearful wings enfold him! ALECTO. My foul eyes Hold his in terror! MEGAERA. All my agonies Crawl in his vitals! TISIPHONE. He is mine, mine, mine! Pour forth of Thebes' abominable wine! Mine, O thou god, detested and adored! MEGAERA. Mine! he is mine! my lover and my lord! ALECTO. Mine! I am in his shape! MEGAERA. Despair! Dispute Never my passion! TISIPHONE. Sisters! Be ye mute! I am the livid agony that starts Damp on his brow; the horror in his heart's Envenomed arteries! and I the fear, The torment, and the hate! {195A} MEGAERA. Be of good cheer! Rend him apart! Hunger and lust we sate, Equal in terror on that heart of hate. ALECTO. Hell's throne be kingless! TISIPHONE. Mortal! is it well, Our vengeance on the impious lord of Hell! ORPHEUS. Well! it is well! And yet my eyes are wet To see such anguish. MEGAERA. Tear the fatal net! ALECTO. Bite with strong acid his congealing blood! TISIPHONE. Rend out the bowels! MEGAERA. Pour the monstrous flood Of unclean wisdom in his soul! PERSEPHONE. Desist! ALECTO. O face of woman wretched and unkissed, What hast thou here to do with us? TISIPHONE. Be quiet! MEGAERA. Quench not the fire of murder! ALECTO. Loose the riot Of worms beneath the skull! {195B} TISIPHONE. Tear wide apart The jaws! MEGAERA. Force fear against the inmost heart! PERSEPHONE. Mercy! I plead, sweet sisters! ORPHEUS. And I plead Vengeance, and help in my extremest need Pile up the torture! Had he not the power, And silence mocked me? MEGAERA. Urge us hour by hour, Thou couldst not add one particle of pain. ALECTO. He speaks not! Bid his torture speak again! TISIPHONE. Speak, murderer! MEGAERA. Hades! answer us! ALECTO. Expel These torments from thy being, us from Hell, Or Zeus from Heaven! TISIPHONE. Or else obey! MEGAERA. Obey! ALECTO. Obey! HADES. O throne of hell! O night! O day Of anguish exquisite beyond control, Fibre and substance of my inmost soul! There is a power not mine, and yet in me Burning its cold and cruel agony {196} With icy flames, its cutting poison fangs Striking my being with detested pangs. Alas! of me and not to be expelled, Conjured, assuaged, averted. Grey as eld The juice of blood that stagnates in my veins Appals their current with avenging pains: -- O pain! O pitiful and hateful sense Of agony and grief and impotence! O misery of the day when Orpheus bore First his loud lyre across the Stygian shore! Hath Hell no warders? Is the threefold gate Brazen in vain against the foot of Fate? Now is but little choice -- abase my pride, Or sink for ever to the gloomy tide Of fire beneath the utmost reach and span Of Stygian deeps and walls Tartarean. Yet I abide. MEGAERA. Fall! Fall! ALECTO. Descend the abyss! TISIPHONE. Link the lewd fiend with your incestuous kiss! MEGAERA. Hither! ALECTO. O hither! HADES. Steams a newer shape Of threefold terror. TISIPHONE. Shall the god escape The monstrous wedlock? ALECTO. Let him turn again His horrid passion to the Nysian plain! MEGAERA. Echidna! {196A} ALECTO. Mother of the Sphinx and snake Of Colchus, and the marsh-beast of the lake Lernean, of Chimaera and Hell's hound -- TISIPHONE. Answer! ALECTO. Arise! MEGAERA. Awake from the profound! TISIPHONE. Here is a worthy partner unto thee To wake thy womb with monstrous progeny, Yet more detested and detestable Than all the shapeless brood of hate and Hell. ECHIDNA. Ha! rose-lipped lover! Welcome to this bed! MEGAERA. She plays with words of love! ALECTO. Her black eyes shed Disease for tears. TISIPHONE. Her fangs and lips are red With gouts of putrid blood. MEGAERA. Her guile employs The sweet soft shape of words of upper joys More bitterly to rack his soul. ALECTO. Ha, sister, The embrace! TISIPHONE. She conquers. {196A} MEGAERA. He hath moved. ALECTO. He hath kissed her! TISIPHONE. Ha! the worse hate of hate in love's white dress. MEGAERA. And lewdness tricked to look like loveliness. ALECTO. Uttermost pain in pleasure's hour supreme. MEGAERA. Hate's nightmare waking love's unreal dream. ALECTO. Claws, teeth, and poison! TISIPHONE. How she plies her pest! MEGAERA. Strangling she holds him. ALECTO. In the inmost breast Her hands defile him. TISIPHONE. In his rotting brain He teeth, her breath, pass all imagined pain. MEGAERA. Sisters! ALECTO. We conquer! TISIPHONE. Have we power? {197B} MEGAERA. The king Endures, and is not moved at anything. ALECTO. He will not now relent. TISIPHONE. He's ours for ever! HADES. Ai! Ai! MEGAERA. Hark! ALECTO. Listen! TISIPHONE. Now he yields -- or never! HADES. Release! Relent! ECHIDNA. Fair lover, let my embrace Still gladden thee to rapture! let my face Be like a garden of fresh flowers to cull, And all thy being and thy body full As mine of gentle love -- then sink to sleep! MEGAERA. Ha! Ha! She mocks him! In the utter deep, Her house of evil, sleep is stranger there. ALECTO. She sings! TISIPHONE. The final misery! Beware! ECHIDNA. O tender lover! My wings still cover Thy face, and my lips {198A} Are on thine, and my tresses Like Zephyr's caresses When the twilight dips. HADES. This passes all. Relent. Release! Depart! I yield: my power is broken, and my heart Riven, and all my pride ruined, and me Compelled to earth to loose Eurydice. ORPHEUS. Depart! ERINYES. Baffled! O misery! Bethink, Proud Hades, ere thy torture gar thee drink Humiliation's utmost dregs! HADES. I spake. Depart ye! lest my power regained awake, And smite ye with a terror more than ye. MEGAERA. We are borne on bitter winds. ALECTO. We sink. TISIPHONE. We flee! MEGAERA. To the abyss! ALECTO. Descend! TISIPHONE. Nor hope in vain The ill-hearted one shall feel our fangs again. MEGAERA. Murder and violation, deafened ear To suppliants, these our friends are. {198B} ALECTO. Hate and fear Leave not for long that bosom. TISIPHONE. Now away! Back from this night more splendid than our day! MEGAERA. We may not drag him down this chance. ALECTO. Despair Not, O my sisters! TISIPHONE. The next suppliant's prayer Rejected -- MEGAERA. Come, my sisters, we'll be there. HADES. Well, be it so. O wizard, by this strength Thou hast availed in deepest Hell at length. I grant thy prayer. Eurydice be given To the sweet light and pleasant air of heaven! Even on this wise. With Hermes for a guide Up the dread steeps there followeth thee thy bride, And thou before them singing. If thou yearn Towards her, if thy purpose change or turn While in these realms; if thou thy face revert; That shall be hostage unto me for hurt Of further magic: she shall fade and flee A phantom frail throughout Eternity, Driven on my winds, adrift upon my seas! These are thy favours, and thy duties these. Invoke thou Hermes, and thy lyre restring! ORPHEUS. This I accept and this shall be, O king! {199A} ["Invoking" HERMES.] O Light in light! O flashing wings of fire! The swiftest of the moments of the sea Is unto thee Even as some slow-foot Eternity With limbs that drag and wheels that tire. O subtle-minded flame of amber gyre, It seems a spark of gold Grown purple, and behold! A flame of gray! Then the dark night-wings glow With iridescent indigo, Shot with some violet ray; And all the vision flame across the horizon The millionth of no time -- and when we say: Hail! -- Thou art gone! The moon is dark beside thy crown; the Sun Seems a pale image of thy body bare; And for thine hair Flash comets lustrous with the dewfall rare Of tears of that most memorable One, The radiant Queen, the veiled Paphian. The wings of light divine Beneath thy body shine; The invisible Rayed with some tangible flame, Seeking to formulate a name, A citadel; And the winged heels are fiery with enormous speed, On spurning heaven; the other trampling hell; And thou -- recede! O Hermes! Messenger of inmost thought! Descent! Abide! Swift coursing in my veins Shoot dazzling pains, The word of Selfhood integrate of Nought, The Ineffable Amen! the Wonder wrought. Bring death if life exceed! Bid thy pale Hermit bleed, Yet Life exude; And wisdom and the Word of Him {199B} Drench the mute mind grown dim With quietude! Fix thy sharp lightnings in my night! My spirit free! Mix with my breath and life and name thy mood And self of Thee. [HERMES "appears:" ORPHEUS "departs." The magical task and the labour is ended; The toils are unwoven, the battle is done; My lover comes back to my arms, to the splendid Abyss of the air and abode of the sun. The sword be assuaged, and the bow be unbended! The labour is past, and the victory won. The arrows of song through Hell cease to hurtle. Away to the passionate gardens of Greece, Where the thrush is awake, and the voice of the turtle Is soft in the amorous places of peace, And the tamarisk groves and the olive and myrtle Stir ever with love and content and release. O bountiful bowers and O beautiful gardens! O isles in the azure Ionian deep! Ere ripens the sun, ere the spring-wind hardens Your fruits once again ye shall have me to keep. The sleep-god laments, and the love goddess pardons, When love at the last sinks unweary to sleep. The green-hearted hours shall burst into flowers. The winds shall waft roses from uttermost Ind. Our nuptial dowers shall be birds in our bowers, Our couches the delicate heaps of the wind. Where the lily-bloom showers all its light, and the powers Of earth in our twinning are wedded and twinned. {200A} So singing I make reverence and retire; Not with high words of worship fairly flung To that sad monarch from the magic lyre, And half the triumphs in my heart unsung, Surpassing, as such triumphs must, all praise Of golden strings and human-fashioned tongue. But now I follow the uprising ways By secret paths indubitably drawn Straight from the centre of the trackless maze To light of earth and beauty of the dawn, A sure swift passage taught of wit divine To the wide ocean, the Achaean lawn. For, wit ye well, not easy is that shrine Of access to the mortal, as some tell, Not knowing: easy and exact the line Of light to upper air: but awful spell And dire demand the inward journey needs: That is the labour, that the work: for Hell Is not designed for men's aspiring deeds. The air is fatal, and the fear unspanned, Even ere the traveller fronts the Stygian meads And utmost edge of the detested land. Wherefore already doth the light appear Shaped in the image of a little hand Far up the rocky cavern: warm and clear The good air sends its fragrance: glory then To the great work accomplished even here, Promise and purpose unto little men Bound in life's limits: death indeed I sever By will's efficiency and speechless ken Of power not God's but man's. Forget this never, O mortals chained in life's detested den! I leave this heritage to you for ever. O light of Apollo! O joy of the sky! We see thee, we follow, We draw to thee nigh. {200B} We see thee unclouded, Whose hearts have been thinned, Whose souls have been shrouded, Whose ears are bedinned By hell's clamour. How did The strength that has sinned Avail in the crowded Abodes of the wind? By lightning of rapture The soul of my song My love doth recapture; Lead up to the long Years in blithe measure Of summer and ease; Linger at leisure For passion and peace. Sadness and pleasure Relent and release: -- A torrent, a treasure, A garden of Greece! Selene, our sister, Our lover and friend, Thy light hath long missed her: That hour hath an end. All aeons to squander We chance at our will: We may woo, work or wander Through time to our fill, Hither or yonder By fountain or hill, Each day growing fonder, Each night growing still! Bright Hermes behind me Caduceus-armed Guides: shall he blind me? My spirit be charmed? The song shall not swerve her, Its glory shall shed Respite, deserve her From gulfs of the dead. Ah me! let it nerve her These conduits to tread That lead to the fervour Of earth overhead! {201A} Fire, thou dear splendour Of uppermost space, Turn to me tender Thine emerald face! Thy rubies be blended With diamond light! Thy sapphires be splendid, Extended to sight! The portals be rended That govern the night, And the guardians bended To magical might! O air of the glorious Garb of the globe, Don thy victorious Glittering robe! The sun is before us; The moon is above. Rise and adore us Ye dwellers thereof! The Muses restore us To Greece: as we move Swell the wild chorus Of welcome and love! Alas! that ever the dark place Should from its rocky base Give up no echo of the god's strong stride, And no one whisper steal and thrill My heart, dissolve the ill That gathers close and fears me for my bride. I were no worse if I were blind. I may not look behind to catch one glimpse of the dear face that follows, Lest I should gain forbidden lore And wisdom's dangerous store Of the black secrets of those heights and hollows. Alas! the way is over long, And weary of my song I sing who yearn to catch my love, and hold In such ten-thousandfold caress As shall annul distress, And from the iron hours bring the years of gold. {201B} Alas! my soul is filled with fear, Is the hard conquest here? Where is Eurydice? The god hath faded Back to invisible abodes And on these rocky roads Comes no deep perfume of her hair light-braided. Alas! I listen! and no breath Assures the walls of death That life remembers, that their hate is quelled. My ears, my scent avail me nought; My slavish eyes are brought By the command wherewith I am compelled. Alas! my heart sinks momently. Fear steals and misery. From faith in faith of Hell my thoughts dissever. Yet, O my heart! abide, endure! Seek not by sight to assure, Or she is lost to thee and lost for ever! {202Atop} Now breathes the night-air o'er the deep, And limb-dissolving sleep Laps my own country, and the maiden moon Gleams silver barley from the sea, And binds it royally Into a sheaf that waves to the wind's tune. The rocky portals rise above. Here I may clasp my love, Here Hermes shall deliver. Ah! how shook Yon cliff at the wind's ardent kiss! This is the hour of bliss -- The sea! The sea! Eurydice! Look, Look! Ai! but like wind-whirled flowers of frost The flying form is lost! Cancelled and empty of Eurydice The black paths where she trod! Ai! Ai! My God! My God! Apollo, why hast thou forsaken me? {202Btop. Full page follows.} EXPLICIT LIBER TERTIUS {202} LIBER QUARTUS VEL MORTIS TO MY WIFE LYSANDER ("reads"). "The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage." THESEUS. That is an old device. "Midsummer Night's Dream." What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore The Muse herself, for her enchanting son Whom universal Nature did lament When by the rout that made the hideous roar His gory body down the stream was sent Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore? "Lycidas." A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. . . . . . . Another Orpheus sings again And loves, and weeps, and dies. "Hellas." {columes resume} MOUNT IDA. THE COMPANY OF THE MAENADS. MAENADS. Evoe! Evoe Ho! Iacche! Iacche! Hail, O Dionysys! Hail! Winged son of Semele! Hail, O Hail! The stars are pale. Hidden the moonlight in the vale; Hidden the sunlight in the sea. {203A} Blessed is her happy lot Who beholdeth God; who moves Mighty-souled without a spot, Mingling in the godly rout Of the many mystic loves. Holy maidens, duly weave Dances for the mighty mother! Bacchanal to Bacchus cleave! Wave his narthex wand, and leave Earthy joys to earth to smother! {203B} Io! Evoe! Sisters, mingle In the choir, the dance, the revel! He divine, the Spirit single, He in every vein shall tingle. Sense and sorrow to the devil! Mingle in the laughing measure, Hand and lip to breast and thigh! In enthusiastic pleasure Grasp the solitary treasure! Laughs the untiring ecstasy! Sisters! Sisters! Raise your voices In the inspired divine delight! Now the sun sets; now the choice is Who rebels or who rejoices, Murmuring to the mystic night. Io! Evoe! Circle splendid! Dance, ye maids serene and subtle! Clotho's task is fairly ended. Atropos, thy power is rended! Ho, Lachesis! ply thy shuttle! Weave the human dance together With the life of rocks and trees! Let the blue delirious weather Bind all spirits in one tether, Overwhelming ecstasies! Io Evoe! I faint, I fall, Swoon in purple light; the grape Drowns my spirit in its thrall. Love me, love me over all, Spirit in the spirit shape! All is one! I murmur. Distant Sounds the shout, Evoe, Evoe! Evoe, Iacche! Soft, insistent Like to echo's voice persistent: -- Hail! Agave! Autonoe! AGAVE. Evoe Ho! Iacche! Hail, O Hail! Praise him! What dreams are these? AUTONOE. Sisters, O sisters! {204A} AGAVE. Say, are our brethren of the rocks awake? AUTONOE. The lion roars. MAENADS. O listen to the snake! AUTONOE. Evoe Ho! Give me to drink! AGAVE. Run wild! Mountain and mountain let us leap upon Like tigers on their prey! MAENADS. Crush, crush the world! AGAVE. Tread earth as 'twere a winepress! AUTONOE. Drink its blood, The sweet red wine! MAENADS. Ay, drink the old earth dry! AGAVE. Squeeze the last drops out till the frame collapse Like an old wineskin! AUTONOE. So the sooner sup Among the stars! AGAVE. The swift, swift stars! MAENADS. O night! Night, night, fall deep and sure! {204B} AUTONOE. Fall soft and sweet! AGAVE. Moaning for love the woods lie. AUTONOE. Sad the land Lies thirsty for our kisses. MAENADS. All wild things Yearn towards the kiss that ends in blood. AGAVE. Blood! Blood! Bring wine! Ha! Bromius, Bromius! MAENADS. Come, sweet God, Come forth and lie with us! AUTONOE. Us, maidens now And then and ever afterwards! AGAVE. Chaste, chaste! Our madness hath no touch of bitterness, No taste of foulness in the morning mouth. AUTONOE. O mouth of ripe red sunny grapes! God! God! Evoe! Dwell! Abide! AGAVE. I feel the wings Of love, of mystery; they waft soft streams Of night air to my heated breast and brow. MAENADS. He comes! He comes! {s205A} AGAVE. Silence, O girls, and peace! The God's most holy presence asks the hymn The solemn hymn, the hymn of agony, Lest in the air of glory that surrounds The child of Semele we lose the earth And corporal presence of the Zeus-begot. AUTONOE. Yea, sisters, raise the chant of riot! Lift Your wine-sweet voices, move your wine-stained limbs In joyful invocation! MAENADS. Ay, we sing. Hail, child of Semele! To her as unto thee Be reverence, be deity, be immortality! Shame! treachery of the spouse Of the Olympian house, Hera! thy grim device against the sweet carouse! Lo! in red roar and flame Did Zeus descend! What claim To feel the immortal fire had then the Theban dame! Caught in that fiery wave Her love and life she gave With one last kissing cry the unborn child to save. And thou, O Zeus, the sire Of Bromius -- hunger dire! -- Didst snatch the unborn babe from that Olympian fire: In thine own thigh most holy That offspring melancholy Didst hide, didst feed, on light, ambrosia, and moly. {205B} Ay! and with serpent hair And limbs divinely fair Didst thou, Dionysus, leap forth to the nectar air! Ay! thus the dreams of fate We dare commemorate, Twining in lovesome curls the spoil of mate and mate. O Dionysus, hear! Be close, be quick, be near, Whispering enchanted words in every curving ear! O Dionysys, start As the Apollonian dart! Bury thy horned head in every bleeding heart! AGAVE. He is here! He is here! AUTONOE. Tigers, appear! AGAVE. To the clap of my hand And the whish of my wand, Obey! AUTONOE. I have found A chariot crowned With ivy and vine, And the laurel divine, And the clustering smell Of the sage asphodel, And the Daedal flower Of the Cretan bower; Dittany's force, And larkspur's love, And blossoms of gorse Around and above. AGAVE. The tiger and panther Are here at my cry. Ho, girls! Span there Their sides! {206A} MAENADS. Here am I! And I! We are ready. AGAVE. Strong now and steady! FIRST MAENAD. The tiger is harnessed. SECOND MAENAD. The nightingale urges Our toil from her far nest. THIRD MAENAD. Ionian surges Roar back to our chant. FOURTH MAENAD. Aha! for the taunt Of Theban sages Is lost, lost, lost! The wine that enrages Our life is enforced. We dare them and daunt. AGAVE. The spirits that haunt The rocks and the river, The moors and the woods, The fields and the floods, Are with us for ever! MAENADS. Are of us for ever. Evoe! Evoe AUTONOE. Agave! He cometh! AGAVE. Cry ho! Autonoe! ALL. Ho! Ho! Evoe Ho! Iacche! Evoe! Evoe! The white air hummeth With force of the spirit. We are heirs: we inherit. Our joys are as theirs; Weave with you prayers The joys of a kiss! Ho! for the bliss Of the cup and the rod. He cometh! O lover! O friend and O God, Cover us, cover Our faces, and hover Above us, within us! Daintily shod, Daintily robed, His witcheries spin us A web of desire. Subtle as fire He cometh among us. The whole sky globed Is on fire with delight, Delight that hath stung us, The passion of night. Night be our mistress! That trees and this tress Weave with thy wind Into curls deep-vined! Passionate bliss! Rapture on rapture! Our hymns recapture The Bromian kiss. Blessed our souls! Blessed this even! We reach to the goals Of the starriest heaven. Daphnis, and Atthis, and Chrysis, and Chloe, Mingle, O maidens! Evoe! Evoe! DIONYSYS. I bring ye wine from above, From the vats of the storied sun; For every one of ye love, And life for every one. Ye shall dance on hill and level; Ye shall sing in hollow and height In the festal mystical revel, The rapturous Bacchanal rite! {207A} The rocks and trees are yours, And the waters under the hill, By the might of that which endures, The holy heaven of will! I kindle a flame like a torrent To rush from star to star; Your hair as a comet's horrent, Ye shall see things as they are! I lift the mask of matter; I open the heart of man; For I am of force to shatter The cast that hideth -- Pan! Your loves shall lap up slaughter, And dabled with roses of blood Each desperate darling daughter Shall swim in the fervid flood. I bring ye laughter and tears, The kisses that foam and bleed, The joys of a million years, The flowers that bear no seed. My life is bitter and sterile, Its flame is a wandering star. Ye shall pass in pleasure and peril Across the mystical bar That is set for wrath and weeping Against the children of earth; But ye in singing and sleeping Shall pass in measure and mirth! I lift my wand and wave you Through hill to hill of delight: My rosy rivers lave you In innermost lustral light I lead you, lord of the maze, In the darkness free of the sun; In spite of the spite that is day's We are wed, we are wild, we are one! FIRST MAENAD. O sweet soul of the waters! Chase me not! What would'st thou! A VOICE AS OF RUNNING BROOKS. Love! FIRST MAENAD. Love, love, I give, I give. I yield, I pant, I fall upon thy breast, {207B} O sacred soul of water. Kiss, ah kiss, With gentle waves like lips my breast, my two small breasts, Rose flames on ivory seas! SECOND MAENAD. Nay! Nay! O soul Of ivy, clingst thou so for love? A VOICE AS OF THE RUSTLING OF IVY. For love. SECOND MAENAD. Cling not so close! O no! cling closer then! Let thy green coolness twine about my limbs And still the raving blood: or closer yet, And link about my neck, and kill me so! THIRD MAENAD. Soul of the rock! Dost love me? A VOICE AS OF FALLING ROCK. I love thee. THIRD MAENAD. Woo me then! Let all the sharp hard spikes of crystal dart, Press hard upon my body! O, I fall, Fall from thy crags, still clinging, clinging so, Into the dark. Oblivion! A DISTANT VOICE. Io Evoe! [ORPHEUS "enters." CROWD OF MAENADS. Evoe! Evoe! It is a lion! FOURTH MAENAD. Lion, O lion, dost thou love? FIFTH MAENAD. Thee I love, O tawny king of these deep glades! {208A} SIXTH MAENAD. What wood Were worthy for thy dwelling? CHORUS. Come, come, come, O lion, and revel in our band! ORPHEUS. Alas! I sorrow, seeing ye rejoice. FIRST MAENAD. O lion! That is not kind. ORPHEUS. Too kind. Since all is sorrow, Sorrow implicit in the purest joy, Sorrow the cause of sorrow; evil still Fertile, and sterile love and righteousness. Eurydice, Eurydice! SECOND MAENAD. Drink wine! ORPHEUS. Ay, mask the grisly head of things that are By drowning sense. Such horror as is hid In life no man dare look upon. Woe! Woe! AGAVE. Call then reproach upon these maiden rites! ORPHEUS. Nay! virtue is the devil's name for vice, And all your righteousness is filthy rags Wherein ye strut, and hide the one base thought. To mask the truth, to worship, to forget; These three are one. AGAVE. What art thou then? a man? {208B} ORPHEUS. No more. AGAVE. No longer? ORPHEUS. Nothing. AGAVE. What then here Dost thou amid these sacred woods? ORPHEUS. I weep. AGAVE. Weep then red wine! AUTONOE. Or we will draw thy tears, Red tears of blood. AGAVE. On girls! this bitter fool Would stop our revel! ORPHEUS. Nay! ye bid me cease Weeping. AGAVE. Then listen! drink this deep full cup, Or here we tear thee limb from limb! ORPHEUS. Do so! Ay, me! I am Orpheus, poor lost fool of Fate! Orpheus, can charm the wildest to my lyre. Beasts, rocks, obey -- ah, Hades, didst thou mock, Alone of all, my songs? Thee I praise not. [AUTONOE "embraces him." Audacious woman! AGAVE. Tear the fool in shreds! Then to the dance! {209A} ORPHEUS.<> The old Egyptian spell! Stir, then, poor children, if ye can! Ah me! "Sings." Unity uttermost showed, I adore the might of thy breath, Supreme and terrible God Who makest the Gods and death To tremble before thee: -- I, I adore thee! O Hawk of gold with power enwalled, Whose face is like an emerald; Whose crown is indigo as night; Smaragdine snakes about thy brow Twine, and the disc of flaming light Is on thee, seated in the prow Of the Sun's bark, enthroned above With lapis-lazuli for love And ruby for enormous force Chosen to seat thee, thee girt round With leopard's pell, and golden sound Of planets choral in their course! O thou self-formulated sire! Self-master of thy dam's desire! Thine eyes blaze forth with fiery light' Thine heart a secret sun of flame! I adore the insuperable might: I bow before the unspoken Name. For I am Yesterday, and I To-day, and I to-morrow, born Now and again, on high, on high Travelling on Dian's naked horn! I am the Soul that doth create The Gods, and all the Kin of Breath. I come from the sequestered state; My birth is from the House of Death. Hail! ye twin hawks high pinnacled That watch upon the universe! Ye that the bier of God beheld! That bore it onwards, ministers Of peace within the House of Wrath, {209B} Servants of him that cometh forth At dawn with many-coloured lights Mounting from underneath the North, The shrine of the celestial Heights! He is in me, and I in Him! Mine is the crystal radiance That filleth aether to the brim Wherein all stars and suns may dance. I am the beautiful and glad, Rejoicing in the golden day. I am the spirit silken-clad That fareth on the fiery way. I have escaped from Him, whose eyes Are close at eventide, and wise To drag thee to the House of Wrong: -- I am armed! I am armed! I am strong! I am strong! I make my way: opposing horns Of secret foemen push their lust In vain: my song their fury scorns; They sink, they grovel in the dust. Hail, self-created Lord of Night! Inscrutable and infinite! Let Orpheus journey forth to see The Disk in peace and victory! Let him adore the splendid sight, The radiance of the Heaven of Nu; Soar like a bird, laved by the light, To pierce the far eternal blue! Hail! Hermes! thou the wands of ill Hast touched with strength, and they are shivered! The way is open unto will! The pregnant Goddess is delivered! Happy, yea, happy! happy is he That hath looked forth upon the Bier That goeth to the House of Rest! His heart is lit with melody; Peace in his house is master of fear; His holy Name is in the West When the sun sinks, and royal rays Of moonrise flash across the day's! {210A} I have risen! I have risen! as a mighty hawk of gold! From the golden egg I gather, and my wings the world enfold. I alight in mighty splendour from the throned boats of light; Companies of Spirits follow me; adore the Lords of Night. Yea, with gladness did they paean, bowing low before my car, In my ears their homage echoed from the sunrise to the star. I have risen! I am gathered as a lovely hawk of gold, I the first-born of the Mother in her ecstasy of old. Lo! I come to face the dweller in the sacred snake of Khem; Come to face the Babe and Lion, come to measure force with them! Ah! these locks flow down, a river, as the earth's before the Sun, As the earth's before the sunset, and the God and I are One. I who entered in a Fool, gain the God by clean endeavour; I am shaped as men and women, fair for ever and for ever. ("The" MAENADS "stand silent and quiet.") ORPHEUS.<> Worship with due rite, orderly attire, The makers of the world, the floating souls Whence fell these crystals we call earth. Praise Might The Limitless; praise Pallas, by whose Wisdom The One became divided. Praise ye Him, Chronos, from whom, the third, is form perceived. Praise ye Poseidon, his productive power, And Juno, secret nature of all things, On which all things are builded: praise ye Love, {210B} Idalian Aphrodite, strong as fair, Strong not to loosen Godhead's crown by deed To blind eyes not a God's: and praise pure Life, Apollo in his splendour, whom I praise Most, being his, and this song his, and his All my desire and all my life, and all My love, albeit he hath forsaken me. These are One God in many: praise ye Him! AGAVE. We praise indeed who made the choral world And stars the greatest, and all these the least Flowers at our feet: but also we may praise This Dionysus, lord of life and joy, In whom we may perceive a subtle world Hidden behind this masquerade of things. O sisters, hither, thither! ORPHEUS. All deceit. Delusive as this world of shadows is, That subtler world is more delusive yet, Involving deeper and still deeper: thought, Desire of life, in that warm atmosphere Spring up and blossom new, rank poisonous flowers, The enemies of peace. Nay! matter's all, And all is sorrow. Therefore not to be, Not to think, love, know, contemplate, exist; This Not is the one hope. AGAVE. Believe it not! Here is true joy -- the woodland revellings, The smile, the kiss, the laughter leaping up, And music inward, musings multiform, Manifold, multitudinous, involved Each in the deep bliss of the other's love; -- Ay me! my sisters. Thither! AUTONOE. Wake the dance! {211A} MAENADS. Pour luscious wine, cool, sweet, strong wine! Bring life, Life overflowing from the cup! ORPHEUS. Hush! Hush! I hymn the eternal matter, absolute, Divided, chaos, formless frame of force, Wheels of the luminous reach of space that men Know by the name of Pan. MAENADS. Hail! Hail! Pan! Son of Hermes! God of Arcady And all wild woodlands! ORPHEUS. Neither Son, nor Sire, Nor God: but he is all: all else in him Is hidden: he the secret and the self Shrined central in this orb of eyeless Fate, Phantom, elusive, permanent. In all, In spirit and in matter immanent, He also is the all, and all is ill. Three forms and functions hath the soul; the sea Murmurs their names repeating: "Maris" call The soul as it engendereth things below; "Neptune" the soul that contemplateth things Above; and "Ocean" as itself retracts Itself into itself: choose ye of these!<<1>> But I hymn Pan. Awake, O lyre, awake! As if it were for the last time, awake! ["He sings." <<1. Again from pseudo-Orpheus.>> In the spring, in the loud lost places. In the groves of Arcadian green, There are sounds and shadowy faces And strange things dimly seen. Though the face of the springtide as grace is, The sown and the woodland demesne Have a soul caught up in their spaces, Unkenned, and unclean! {211B} It takes up the cry of the wind. Its eyes with weeping are blind. A strong hate whirls it behind As it flees for ever. Mad, with the tokens of Fear; Branded, and sad, without cheer; Year after ghastly year, And it endeth never. And this is the mystical stranger, The subtle Arcadian God That lurks as for sorrow and danger, Yet rules all the earth with his rod. Abiding in spirit and sense Through the manifold changes of man, This soul is alone and intense And one -- He is Pan. More subtle than mass as ye deem it He abides in the strife that is dust. Than spirit more keen as ye dream it, He is laughter and loathing and lust. He is all. Nature's agonies scream it; Her joys quire it clear; in the must Of the vat is His shape in the steam. It Is Fear, and Disgust. For the spirit of all that is, The light in the lover's kiss, The shame and sorrow and bliss; They are all in Pan; The inmost wheel of the wheels, The feeling of all that feels, The God and the knee that kneels, And the foolish man. For Pan is the world above And the world that is hidden beneath; He grins from the mask of love; His sword has a jewelled sheath. What boots it a maiden to gird her? Her rape ere the aeons began Was sure; in one roar of red murder She breaks: He is Pan. He is strong to achieve, to forsake her; He is death as it clings to desire, Ah, woe to the Earth! If he wake her, Air, water and spirit and fire {212A} Rush in to uproot her and break her: -- Yet he is the broken; the pyre, And the flame and the victim; the maker, And master and sire! And all that is, is force. A fatal and witless course It follows without remorse With never an aim. Caught in the net we strive; We ruin, and think we thrive; And we die -- and remain alive: -- And Pan is our name! For the misery catches and winds us Deep, deep in the endless coil; Ourself is the cord that binds us, And ours is the selfsame toil. We are; we are not; yet our date is An age, though each life be a span; And ourself and our state and our fate is The Spirit of Pan. O wild is the maiden that dances In the dim waned light of the moon! Black stars are her myriad glances: Blue night is the infinite swoon! But in other array advances The car of the holier tune; And our one one chance is in mystical trances; -- Thessalian boon! For swift as the wheels may turn, And fierce as the flames may burn, The spirit of man may discern In the wheel of Will A drag on the wheels of Fate, A water the fires to abate, A soul the soul to make straight. And bid "be still!" But ye, ye invoke in your city And call on his name on the hill The God who is born without pity, The horrible heart that is chill; {212B} The secret corruption of ages Ye cling to, and hold as ye can, And abandon the songs of the sages For Passion -- and Pan! O thou heart of hate and inmost terror! O thou soul of subtle fear and lust! Loathsome shape of infamy, thy mirror Shown as spirit or displayed as dust! O thou worm in every soul of matter Crawling, feasting, rotting; slime of hell! Beat and batter! shear and shatter! Break the egg that hides thee well! Pan! I call thee! Pan! I see thee in thy whirling citadel. I alone of all men may unveil thee, Show the ghastly soul of all that is Unto them, that they themselves may hail thee, Festering corruption of thy kiss! Thou the soul of God! the soul of demon! Soul of matter, soul of man! Show the gross fools, thine, that think them freemen, What thou art, and what thy heart, And what they are, that they are thee, All creation, whole and part, Thine and thee, near and far: -- Come! I call thee, I who can. Pan! I know thee! Pan! I show thee! Burst thy coffin open, Pan! What have I said? What have I done? MAENADS. Pan! Pan! Evoe, Iacche! Pan! AGAVE. The victim! AUTONOE. Rend The sole pure thing in this impure gross lump, The shapeless, formless horror that is us And God -- Ah! rend him limb from limb! {213A} ORPHEUS. Apollo! This is the night. This is the end of all. No force detains. No power urges on. I am free! Alas! alas! -- Eurydice! ("He is torn to pieces. A faint voice -- like his -- is still heard, ever receding and failing.") O night! Fade, love! Fade, light! I pass beyond Life's law. I melt as snow; as ice I thaw; As mist I dissipate: I am borne, I draw Through chasms in the mountains: stormy gusts Of ancient sorrows and forgotten lusts Bear me along: they touch me not: I waste The memory of long lives interlaced Fades in my fading. I disintegrate, Fall into black oblivion of Fate. My being divides: I have forgot my name. I am blown out as a thin subtle flame. I am no more. A SPIRIT. What is? what chorus swells Through these dark gorges and untrodden dells! What whisper through the forest? Far entwines The low song with the roses and the vines, The high song with the mountains and the pines, The inmost song with secret fibre of light, And in the boiling pools and quorns and chasms Chases the stryges, Death's devote phantasms, Into a brilliant air wherein they are lost. Deep in the river moans the choral roar, Till the deep murmur of the Lesbian shore Washed of the luminous sea gives answer, while The angry wail of Nature doth beguile The hours, the wrath of Nature reft of one, The sole strong spirit that was Nature's sun, The orb she circled round, the one thing clean From all her gross machinery, obscene {213B} And helpless: -- and the lonely mother-cry, The Muse, her hope down-stricken. Magically The full deep chorus stirs the sky; Hark! one voice beyond all Gives love's own call, Not hers, Eurydice's, But thine, thou sweet blood-breasted nightingale Waking thy choral wail From Mitylene to remotest seas! THE RIVER HEBRUS. Was e'er a stream before So sad a burden bore Rolling a melancholy sorrow down from shore to shore? CALLIOPE. O this is bitterness beyond belief. Grief beyond grief. Boots it to weep? I holp him not with force: What should avail -- remorse? RIVER HEBRUS. Hear upon high the melancholy Antistrophe Matching the strophe's agony! Tides on a terrible sea! CALLIOPE. Bear, bear the laurelled head Of him I loved, him dead, O Hebrus, ever downward on thy bosom iron-red! RIVER HEBRUS. All Nature's tunes are dull. The beautiful, The harmony of life is null. CALLIOPE. What unto us remains But in these broken strains To hymn with voices jarred the jarred world's shriek of woe? O! O! {214A} RIVER HEBRUS. This discord is an agony Shuddering harsh in me; My waters will empoison the fair fresh-water sea! CALLIOPE. Nay! all is ended now. Cover the beaten brow! Carry the brain of music into the wide AEgean! No priest pronounce thy paean Ever again, Apollo, Thou false, thou fair, thou hollow! Die to a groan within a shrine! Despair thy force divine! Thou didst achieve this ruin; let the seas Roar o'er thy lost name of Musagetes! THE LESBIAN SHORE. Welcome, O holy head! Welcome, O force not dead! Reverberating joy of music subtly shed! Welcome, O glorious, O laurelled one! Own offspring of the Sun, The ancient harmony was hardly yet begun. By thee and by thy life Arose the Lesbian maiden. Thou art perished as thy wife; My shores with magic loves and songs of life are laden. CALLIOPE. Weep, weep no more! O loyal Lesbian shore, I hear a murmur sound more sweet than murmur ever bore. Not ocean's siren spell Soft-sounded in a spiral shell Were quite so exquisite, were all so admirable! LESBIAN SHORE. Nay! but the agony of the time Rings in the royal rime! She hath touched the intimate, and chanced on the sublime. {214B} CALLIOPE. Ay! Ay! a woman's silky tone Makes music for eternity her own, Till all men's victories in song seem a discordant groan. LESBIAN SHORE. Upon my cliffs of green, Beneath the azure skies, She stands with looks of fire, Sappho. Her hands between Lies the wild world; she flies From agony to agony of desire. CALLIOPE. Him, Orpheus, him she sings; Loosing the living strings, Till music fledged fares forth sunward on moon-wrought wings. LESBIAN SHORE. Yea, by the solar name, Orpheus her lips acclaim, The centre and the silence! O! the torrent of fine flame Like hair that shooteth forth To the ensanguine North Whence ran the drunken crew, Bassarids in their wrath. SAPPHO. Woe is me! the brow of a brazen morning Breaks in blood on water athirst of Hebrus. Sanguine horror starts on her hills tenebrous: Hell hath not heard her! Dumb and still thy birds, O Apollo, scorning Song; yells drown them, lecherous anthems gabbled, Laughter splashed of Bassarids, blood-be-dabbled, Mad with their murder! O thou many-coloured immortal maiden, Dawn! O dew, delight of a world! A sorrow Hides your holy faces awhile. To-morrow Comes for your calling? {215A} Still the notes of musical Orpheus, laden Never now of pain or of failing, follow; Follow up the height, or adown the hollow Fairy are falling. O my hopeless misery mind of longing! O the anguish born in a breast unlovered! Women, wail the face of a God uncovered, Brain dead and breath dumb! Wail the sense of infinite ardours thronging Fast and fast and faster athwart the heaven, Keen as light and cruel as fire, as levin Swift and as death dumb! Freedom, rapture, victory, fill the chorus, Dying, ever dying, among the billows; Whispered, ever whispered among the willows: -- Pour the libation! Now springs up a notable age. Adore us Masters now of music above his magic, Lords of change, leaps pastoral up to tragic, Thanks to the Thracian! Ah, my pain! what desolate female bosoms, Smitten hearts of delicate males, uncover; Grip not life for poet or sage or lover, Feed on derision. Yea, in these mature me avenger blossoms Swift as swords to sever the subtle ether, Lift the earth, see infinite space beneath her, Swoon at the vision. This, O Orpheus, this be a golden guerdon Unto thee for gift of amaze and wonder! This thy sorrow, sword of a heart asunder, Beareth a flower. This the heart of woman -- a bitter burden! -- Thou has filled with seed -- O a seed of madness! Seed of music! seed of a royal sadness! -- This be our dower! {215B} Ah! the bitter legacy left of lyre-light! Thou wast Nature's prophet, a wise magician; Magic fails, and love is a false physician: -- Deep our disease is! Now to us the crouching over the firelight, Eating out for hunger of love our vitals! (Eaten out the hollower for respitals Swift as the breeze is.) Ay! the golden age is a broken vessel. All the golden waters exhale, evanish. Joy of life and laughter of love we banish: Damned is the will dead. Now with brass and iron we writhe and wrestle. Now with clay the torrent of fire is tainted. Life apes death: the lily is curled and painted; Gold is regilded. Master, we lament thee, as awful anguish Seizes on the infinite maze of mortals. See we love that yearns to the golden portals Bound of the grey god. Love, thy children, laughter and sunlight, languish. Aphrodite, miracle of the flashed foam, Burns with beaten agony in the lashed foam; Down is the day-god. Ay! this first of Lesbian lamentations Still shall burn from aeon to idle aeon! (Chorus, epithany, ode, and paean Dumb or dishevelled!) Still my songs shall murmur across the nations, Gain their meed of misery, praise, and yearning, Smite their stroke on centuries foully burning, Drunk or bedevilled. Song? No beauty shine in a sphere of music! Me? my voice be dull, be a void, be toneless! Match me, sea! than me thou hast many a moan less, Many a million! {216A} Sun, be broken! Moon, be eclipsed; be dew sick! Ocean flat and poisonous, earth demented! Living souls go shuddering through the tented Air, his pavilion! Ay; the pectis clangs me a soulless discord: -- Let me break my visible heart a-weeping! Loving? Drinking? Misery. Singing, sleeping Touch not my sorrow. Orpheus, turn the sorrow-chord to the bliss-chord! All may rise the easier that the one set. So our eyes from saddening at the sunset Turn to to-morrow. CALLIOPE. Silence. I hear a voice That biddeth me rejoice. I know the whole wise plan Of fate regarding Man. THE LESBIAN SHORE. It is the sun's dark bride Nuith, the azure-eyed. No longer Sappho sings her spell; His heart divorced, her heart insatiable. There is deep silence. Earth hath passed To a new kingdom. In a purpose vast Her horoscope is cast. NUITH. Enough. it is ended, the story Of magical aeons of song; The sun is gone down in his glory To the Houses of Hate and of Wrong. Would ye see if he rise? In Hesperian skies Ye may look for his rising for long. The magical aeon beginneth Of song in the heart of desire, That smiteth and striveth and sinneth, But burns up the soul of the lyre: -- There is pain in the note: -- In the sorcerer's throat Is a sword, and his brain is afire! {216B} Long after (to men: but a moment To me in my mansion of rest) Is a sundawn to blaze what the glow meant Seen long after death in the west; A magical aeon! Nor love-song nor paean, But a flame with a silvery crest. There shall rise a sweet song of the soul Far deeper than love or distress; Beyond mortals and gods shall it roll; It shall find me, and crave, and caress. Ah! me it shall capture In torrents of rapture; It shall flood me, and fill, and possess. For brighter from age unto age The weary old world shall renew Its life at the lips of the sage, Its love at the lips of the dew. With kisses and tears The return of the years Is sure as the starlight is true. Yet the drift of the stars is to beauty, To strength, and to infinite pleasure. The toil and the worship and duty Shall turn them to laughter and leisure. Were the world understood Ye would see it was good, A dance to a delicate measure. Ye fools, interweaving in passion. The lyrical light of the mind! Go on, in your drivelling fashion! Ye shall surely seek long and not find. From without ye may see All the beauty of me, And my lips, that their kisses are kind. For Eurydice once I lamented; For Orpheus I do not lament: Her days were a span, and demented; His days are for aye, and content. Mere love is as nought To the love that is Thought, And idea is more than event. {217A} O lovers! O poets! O masters Of me, ye may ravish my frown! Aloof from my shocks and disasters! Impatient to kiss me, and crown! I am eager to yield. In the warrior field Ye shall fight me, and fasten me down. O poets! O masters! O lovers! Sweet souls of the strength of the sun! The couch of eternity covers Our loves, and our dreams are as done. Reality closes Our life into roses; We are infinite space: we are one. There is one<<1>> that hath sought me and found me In the heart of the sand and the snow: He hath caught me, and held me, and bound me, In the lands where no flower may grow. His voice is a spell, Hath enchanted me well! I am his, did I will it or no. <<1. Possibly intended as a reference to the poet himself.>> But I will it, I will it, I will it! His speck of a soul in its cars Shall lift up immensity! fill it With light of his lyrical bars. His soul shall concentre All space; he shall enter The beautiful land of the stars. He shall know me eternally wedded To the splendid and subtle of mind; For the pious, the arrogant-headed, He shall know they nor seek me nor find. O afloat in me curled! Cry aloud to the world That I and my kisses are kind! O lover! O poet! O maiden To me in my magical way! Be thy songs with the wilderness laden! Thy lure be adrift and astray: -- So to me thou shalt cling! So to me thou shalt sing Of the beautiful law of the day! {217B} I forbid thee to weep or to worship; I forbid thee to sing or to write! The Star-Goddess guideth us her ship; The sails belly out with the light. Beautiful head! We will sing on our bed Of the beautiful law of the Night! {218Atop} We are lulled by the whirr of the stars; We are fanned by the whisper, the wind; We are locked in the unbreakable bars, The love of the spirit and mind. The infinite powers Of rapture are ours; We are one, and our kisses are kind. {218Btop full page below} EXPLICIT LIBER QUARTUS {218} EPILOGUE AND DEDICATION "November 19, 1906." MY DEAR ION, -- I address you by the unfamiliar title in giving you, a man self-damned, God knows how unjustly, as the author of the phrase, "I am not an appreciator of poetry, and I have no Keats," these volumes. For the matter thereof is already in great part yours and as such cannot be given. The rest I offer because it is hardly possible to close definitely, as I do now, a period of many years' work, without reflecting upon that period as a whole. And, when I do so, I find you at the beginning like Ladas or Pheidippides of old, running -- ready to run until you achieve the goal or your heart burst; but you are among a crowd. I join you. Eight years ago this day you, Hermes, let me blindfold to awake a chosen runner of the course. "In all my wanderings in darkness your light shone before me though I knew it not." To-day (one may almost hope, turning into the straight) you and I are alone. Terrible and joyous! We shall find companions at the End, at the banquet, lissome and cool and garlanded; companions with a Silver Star or maybe a Jewelled Eye mobile and uncertain -- as if alive -- on their foreheads. We shall be bidden to sit, and they will wreathe us with immortal flowers, and give us to drink of the seemly wine of Iacchus -- well! but until then, unless my heart deceives me, no third shall appear to join us. Indeed, may two attain? It seems a thing impossible in nature. May it not be that -- near as the resounding roar of the viewless spectators sounds to our dust-dimmed ears -- there stands some awful opposer in the way, some fear or some seduction? Why do you grip that bar in your left hand? Does not this loin-cloth irk my limbs? We should have shave our heads before the race -- the curls are moist and heavy! Why did we cumber ourselves with sandals? Long ere now our feet would have grown hard. Well, if my heart bursts, it bursts; you must give these volumes to the young athletes, that they may learn wherefore I failed -- wherefore it was given unto me to run thus far. For, if I have put nothing else therein, most surely that is there. ALEISTER CROWLEY. EPILOGUE AND DEDICATION OF VOLUMES I., II., III. {columns resume} ELEUSIS. THOSE who are most familiar with the spirit of fair play which pervades our great public schools will have no difficulty, should they {219A} observe, in an obscure corner, the savage attack of Jones minor upon Robinson minimus, in deducing that the former has only just got over the "jolly good hiding" that Smith major had so long promised him, the {219B} determining factor of the same being Smith's defeat by Brown maximus behind the chapel, after Brown's interview with the Head-Master. We are most of us aware that cabinet ministers, bishops, and dons resemble each other in the important particular that all are still schoolboys, and their differences but the superficial one produced by greasing, soaping, and withering them respectively; so that it will meet with instant general approval if I open this paper by the remark that Christianity, as long as it flourished, was content to assimilate Paganism, never attacking it until its own life had been sapped by the insidious heresies of Pall. Time passed by, and they bullied Manes and Cerinthus; history repeated itself until it almost knew itself by heart; finally, at the present day, some hireling parasites of the decaying faith -- at once the origin and the product of that decay -- endeavour to take advantage of the "Greek movement" or the "Neo-pagan revival" in the vain hope of diverting the public attention from the phalanx of Rationalism -- traitorously admitted by Luther, and now sitting crowned and inexpugnable in the very citadel of the faith -- to their own dishonest lie that Paganism was a faith whose motto was "Carpe diem,"<<"Gather ye roses!" is the masterpiece of a Christian clergyman. -- A.C.>> and those methods were drink, Dance, and Studio Murder.<> Why is Procopius cleaner than Petronius? Even a Julian could confute this sort of thing; but are we to rest for ever in negation? No; a Robinson minimus ipse will turn, and it is quite time that science was given a chance to measure itself against bulk. I shall not be content with giving Christian apologists the lie direct, but proceed to convict them of the very materialism against which they froth. In a word, {220A} to-day Christianity is the irreligion of the materialist, or if your like, the sensualist; while in Paganism, we may find the expression of that ever-haunting love -- nay, necessity! -- of the Beyond which tortures and beautifies those of us who are poets. GR:pi-alpha-nu-tau-alpha kappa-alpha-theta-alpha-rho-alpha tau-omicron-iota-sigma kappa-alpha-theta-alpha-rho-omicron-iota-sigma -- and, while there is no logical break between the apparently chaste dogma of the Virgin Birth and the horrible grossness of R. P. Sanchez in his "De Matrimonio," Lib. ii. Cap. xxi., "Utium Virgo Maria semen emiserit in copulatione cum Spiritu Sancto," so long as we understand an historical Incarnation: the accomplishment of that half of the Magnum Opus which is glyphed in the mystic aphorism "Solve!" enables an Adept of that standing to see nothing but pure symbol and holy counsel in the no grosser legends of the Greeks. This is not a matter of choice: reason forbids us to take the Swan-lover in its literal silliness and obscenity; but, on the other hand, the Bishops will not allow us to attach a pure interpretation to the precisely similar story of the Dove.<> So far am I, indeed, from attacking Christian symbolism as such, that I am quite prepared to admit that it is, although or rather because it is the lowest, the best. Most others, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, lose themselves in metaphysical speculations only proper to those who are already Adepts. The Rosicrucian busies himself with the Next Step, for himself and his pupils; he is no more concerned to discuss Nibbana than a schoolmaster to "settle the doctrine of the enclithic GR:Delta-eta" in the mind of a child who is painfully grappling with the declension of GR:Nu-epsilon-alpha-nu-iota-alpha-sigma. We can read even orthodox {220B} Christian writers with benefit (such is the revivifying force of our Elixir) by seeking the essence in the First Matter of the Work; and we could commend many of them, notably St. Ignatius and even the rationalising Mansel and Newman, if they would only concentrate upon spiritual truth, instead of insisting on the truth of things, material and therefore immaterial, which only need the touch of a scholar's wand to crumble into the base dust from which their bloodstained towers arose. Whoso has been crucified with Christ can but laugh when it is proved that Christ was never crucified. The historian understands nothing of what we mean, either by Christ or by crucifixion, and is thus totally incompetent to criticise our position. On the other hand, we are of course equally ill-placed to convert him; but then we do not wish to do so; certainly not "qua" historian. We leave him alone. Whoso hath ears to hear, let him hear! and the first and last ordeals and rewards of the Adept are comprised in the maxim "Keep silence!" There should be no possible point of contact between the Church and the world: Paul began the ruin of Christianity, but Constantine completed it. The Church which begins to exteriorise is already lost. To control the ethics of the state is to adopt the ethics of the state: and the first duty of the state will be to expel the rival god Religion. In such a cycle we in England seem to be now revolving, and the new forced freedom of the Church is upon us. If only the destruction is sufficiently complete, if only all England will turn Atheist, we may perhaps be able to find some Christians here and there. As long as "church" means either a building, an assembly, or even has any meaning at all of a kind to be intelligible to the ordinary man, so long is Christ rejected, and the Pharisee supreme. Now the materialism which has always {221A} been the curse of Christianity was no doubt partly due to the fact that the early disciples were poor men. You cannot bribe a rich man with loaves and fishes: only the overfed long from the Simple Life. True, Christ bought the world by the promise of Fasts and Martyrdoms, glutted as it was by its surfeit of Augustan glories; but the poor were in a vast majority, and snatched greedily at all the gross pleasures and profits of which the educated and wealthy were sick even unto death. Further, the asceticism of surfeit is a false passion, and only lasts until a healthy hunger is attained; so that the change was an entire corruption, without redeeming aspect. Had there been five righteous men in Rome, a Cato, a Brutus, a Curtius, a Scipio, and a Julian, nothing would have occurred; but there was only the last, and he too late. No doubt Maximus, his teacher, was too holy an Adept to mingle in the affairs of the world; one indeed, perhaps, about to pass over to a higher sphere of action: such speculation is idle and impertinent; but the world was ruined, as never before since the fabled destruction of Atlantis, and I trust that I shall take my readers with me when I affirm so proud a belief in the might of the heart whose integrity is unassailable, clean of all crime, that I lay it down as a positive dictum that only by the decay in the mental and moral virility of Rome and not otherwise, was it possible for the slavish greed and anarchy of the Faith of Paul to gain a foothold. This faith was no new current of youth, sweeping away decadence: it was a force of the slime: a force with no single salutary germ of progress inherent herein. Even Mohammedanism, so often accused of materialism, did produce, at once, and in consequence, a revival of learning, a crowd of algebraists, astronomers, philosophers, whose names are still to be revered: but within the fold, from the death of Christ to the Renaissance -- a purely pagan movement -- we hear no more {221B} of art, literature, or philosophy.< :Adepts :Adepts : :Renaissance. Adepts: as :invis- :Renaissance, etc. :as Artists, Philo- :Adepts :ible : :sophers, Men of : They :to all.: :Science, &c. More :appear,: : :or less recognised :but as : : :(sooner or later) : fools : : :as great men. : and : : : :knaves.: : By the Progress of the World we mean that she is always giving adepts to God, and thus losing them; yet, through their aid, while they are still near enough to humanity to attract it, she reaches each time a higher point. Yet this point is never very high; so that Aeschylus, though in fact more ignorant than our schoolboys, holds his seat besides Ibsen and Newton in the Republic of the Adepti -- a good horse, but not to be run too hard. -- A. C.>> But we do hear -- well, what Gibbon has to say. There is surely a positive side to all this; we agree that Pagans must have been more spiritual than their successors, if only because themselves openly scoffed at their mythology without in the least abandoning the devout performance of its rites, while the Christian clung to irrelevant historical falsehood as if it were true and important. But it is justifiable -- nay, urgent -- to inquire how and why? Which having discovered, we are bound to proceed with the problem: "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?" receive the answer: "By taking heed thereto according {222A} to thy word," and interpret "thy word" as "The Works of Aleister Crowley." But this is to anticipate; let us answer the first question by returning to our phrase "The Church that exteriorises is already lost." On that hypothesis, the decay of Paganism was accomplished by the very outward and visible sign of its inward and spiritual grace, the raising of massive temples to the Gods in a style and manner to which history seeks in vain a parallel. Security is mortals' chiefest enemy; so also the perfection of balanced strength which enabled Hwang-sze to force his enemies to build the Great Wall was the mark of the imminent decay of his dynasty and race -- truly a terrible "Writing on the Wall." An end to the days of the Nine Sages; an end to the wisdoms of Lao Tan on his dun cow; an end to the making of classics of history and of odes and of ethics, to the Shu King and the Shih King, and the Li-Ki, {222B} and the mysterious glories of the holy Yi King itself! Civilisation, decadence, and the slime. Still the Great Wall keeps the Barbarians from China: it is the wall that the Church of Christ set up against science and philosophy, and even to-day its ruins stand, albeit wrapped in the lurid flames of Hell. It is the law of life, this cycle; decadence is perfection, and the perfect soul is assumed into the bosom of Nephthys, so that for a while the world lies fallow. It is in failing to see this constant fume of incense rising from the earth that pessimistic philosophies make their grand fundamental error: in that, and in assuming the very point in dispute, the nature of the laws of other worlds and the prospects of the individual soul. Confess, O subtle author, that thou thyself art even now in the same trap! Willingly, reader; these slips happen when, although one cannot prove to others, one knows.<> Thou too shall know, and thou wilt: -- ask how, and we come suddenly back to our subject, just as a dreamer may wander through countless nightmares, to find himself in the end on the top of a precipice, whence falling, he shall find himself in bed. Hear wisdom! the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. A man is almost obliged to be in communion with God when God is blowing his hat off, drenching him to the skin, whistling through his very bones, scaring him almost to death with a flash of lightning, and so on. When he gets time to think, he thinks just that. In a church all is too clearly the work of man: in the matter of man's comfort man's devices are so obviously superior to God's: so that we compare hats and languidly discuss the preacher. Religion is alive in Wales, because people have to walk miles to chapel. {223A} Religion is alive among Mohammedans, who pray (as they live) out of doors, and who will fight and die for their ideas; and among Hindus, whose bloody sacrifices bring them daily face to face with death. Pan-Islam is possible; pan-Germany is possible; but pan-Christendom would be absurd. There were saints in the times of the Crusades, and Crusaders in the times of the Saints: for though the foe was more artificial than real, and the object chimerical, a foe and an aim of whatever sort assist the concentration which alone is life. So that we need not be surprised to see as we do that religion is dead in London, where it demands no greater sacrifice than that of an hour's leisure in the week, and even offers to repay that with social consideration for the old, and opportunities of flirtation for the young. The word "dear" has two senses, and these two are one. Pressing the "out-of-doors" argument, as we may call it, I will challenge each of my readers to a simple experiment. Go out one night to a distant an lonely heath, if no mountain summit is available: then at midnight repeat the Lord's Prayer, or any invocation with which you happen to be familiar, or one made up by yourself, or one consisting wholly of senseless and barbarous words.<> Repeat it solemnly and {223B} aloud, expectant of some great and mysterious result. I pledge myself, if you have a spark of religion in you, that is, if you are properly a human being, that you will (at the very least) experience a deeper sense of spiritual communion that you have ever obtained by any course of church-going. After which you will, if you are worth your salt, devote your life to the development of this communion, and to the search for an instructed master who can tell you more than I can. Now the earlier paganism is simply overflowing with this spirit of communion. The boy goes down to the pool, musing, as boys will; is it strange that a nymph should reward him, sometimes even with wine from the purple vats of death? Poor dullards! in your zeal to extinguish the light upon our altars you have had to drench your own with the bitter waters of {224A} most general unbelief. Where are the witches and the fairies and the angels, and the visions of the divine St. John? You are annoyed at my mention of angels and witches; because you know yourselves to be sceptics, and that I have any amount of "scriptural warrant" to throw at your heads, if I deigned; you are all embarassed when Maude Adams leans over the footlights with a goo-goo accent so excessive that you die of diabetes in a week, and asks you point-blank: "Do you believe in fairies?" while, for your visions, you do not go to St. John's Island, and share his exile; but to his Wood, and waste your money. The early pagan worships Demeter in dim groves; there is silence; there is no organisation of ritual; there the worship is spontaneous and individual. In short, the work of religion is thrown upon the religious faculty, instead of being delegated to the quite inferior and irrelevant faculties of mere decorum or even stage-craft. A Christian of the type of Browning understands this perfectly. True, he approves the sincerity which he finds to pervade the otherwise disgusting chapel; but he cares nothing whatever for the "raree-show of Peter's successor," and though I daresay his ghost will be shocked and annoyed by my mention of the fact, Browning himself does not get his illumination in any human temple, but only when he is out with the universe alone in the storm. Nor does Browning anywhere draw so perfect and so credible a picture of the intercourse between man and God as the exquisite vision of Pan in "Pheidippides." It is all perfectly natural and therefore miraculous; there is no straining at the gnats of vestment in the hope of swallowing the camel of Illumination. In the matter of Pentecost, we hear only, in the way of the "conditions of the experiment," that "they were all with one accord in one place." Now, this being {224B} the only instance in the world's history of more than two people in one place being of one accord, it is naturally also the only instance of a miracle which happened in church. The Quakers, arguing soundly enough that women were such a cause of contention chiefly on account of their tongues, and getting a glimpse of these truths which I have so laboriously been endeavouring to expound, hoped for inspiration from the effects of silence alone, and strove (even by a symbolic silence in costume) to repeat the experiment of Pentecost. But they lacked the stimulus of Syrian air, and that of the stirring times of the already visible sparks of national revolt: they should have sought to replace these by passing the bottle round in their assemblies, and something would probably have happened, an 'twere only a raid of the police. Better get forty shillings or a month that live and die as lived and died John Bright! Better be a Shaker, or a camp-meeting homunculus, or a Chataqua gurl, or a Keswick week lunatic, or an Even Roberts revivalist, or even a common maniac, than a smug Evangelical banker's clerk with a greasy wife and three gifted children -- to be bank clerks after him! Better be a flagellant, or one who dances as David danced before the Lord, than a bishop who is universally respected, even by the boys he used to baste when he was headmaster of a great English public school! That is, if religion is your aim: if you are spiritually minded: if you interpret every phenomenon that is presented to your sensorium as a particular dealing of God with your soul. But if you come back from the celebration of the Eucharist and say, "Mr. Hogwash was very dull to-day," you will never get to heaven, where the good poets live, and nobody else; nor to hell, whose inhabitants are exclusively bad poets. {225A} There is more hope for a man who should go to Lord's and say he saw the angels of God ascending and descending upon C. B. Fry. It is God who sees the possibility of Light in Chaos; it is the Churches who blaspheme the superb body of Truth which Adepts of old enshrined in the Cross, by degrading the Story of the Crucifixion to a mere paragraph in the "Daily Mail" of the time of Pontius Pilate. Bill Blake took tea with Ezekiel: Tennyson saw no more in the Arthurian legends than a prophecy of the Prince Consort (though Lancelot has little in common with John Brown), and the result of all is that Tennyson is dead and buried -- as shown by the fact that he is still popular -- and Blake lives, for poets read and love him. Now when Paganism became popular, organised, state-regulated, it ceased to be individual: that is to say, it ceased to exist as a religion, and became a social institution little better than the Church which has replaced it. But initiates -- men who had themselves seen God face to face, and lived -- preserved the vital essence. They chose men; they tested them; they instructed them in methods of invoking the Visible Image of the Invisible. Thus by a living chain religion lived -- in the Mysteries of Eleusis. Further, recognising that the Great Work was henceforth to be secret, a worship of caverns and midnight groves and catacombs, no more of open fields and smiling bowers, they caused to be written in symbols by one of the lesser initiates the whole Mystery of Godliness, so that after the renaissance those who were fitted to the work might infallibly discover the first matter of the Work and even many of the processes thereof. Such writings are those of the neo-Platonists, and in modern times the God-illumined Adept Berkeley, Christian though the called himself, is perhaps the most distinguished {225B} of those who have understood this truth. <> But the orthodox Christian, confronted with this fact, is annoyed; just as the American, knowing himself to be of the {226A} filthiest dregs of mankind, pretends that there is no such thing as natural aristocracy, though to be sure he gives himself away badly enough when confronted with either a nigger or a gentleman, since to ape {226B} dominance is the complement of his natural slavishness. So the blind groveller, Mr. Conformity, and his twin, Mr. Nonconformity, agree to pretend that initiates are always either dupes or impostors; they deny that man can see God and live. Look! There goes John Compromise to church, speculating, like Lot's wife, on the probable slump in sulphur and the gloomy outlook for the Insurance Companies. It will never do for his Christ to be a man of like passions with himself, else people might expect him to aim at a life like Christ's. He wants to wallow and swill, and hope for an impossible heaven. So that it will be imprudent of you (if you want to be asked out to dinner) to point out that if you tell the story of the life of Christ, without mentioning names, to a Musulman, he will ask, "What was the {227A} name of that great sheikh?" to a Hindu, "Who was this venerable Yogi?" to a Buddhist, "Haven't you made a mistake to two? I wasn't a dove, but an elephant with six tusks: and He died of dysentery." The fact being that it is within the personal experience of all these persons that men yet live and walk this earth who live in all essentials the life that Christ lived, to whom all His miracles are commonplace, who die His death daily, and partake daily in the Mysteries of His resurrection and ascension. Whether this is scientifically so or not is of no importance to the argument. I am not addressing the man of science, but the man of intelligence: and the scientist himself will back me when I say that the evidence for the one is just as strong and as weak as {227B} for the others. God forbid that I should rest this paper on a historical basis! I am talking about the certain results of human psychology: and science can neither help nor hinder me. True, when Huxley and Tyndall were alive, their miserable intelligences were always feeding us up with the idea that science might one day be able to answer some of the simpler questions which one can put: but that was because of their mystical leanings; they are dead, and have left no successors. To-day we have the certitude, "Science never can tell," of the laborious Ray Lankester "Whose zeal for knowledge mocks the curfew's call, And after midnight, to make Lodge look silly, Studies anatomy -- in Piccadilly." Really, we almost echo his despair. When, only too many years ago, I was learning chemistry, the text-books were content with some three pages on Camphor: to-day, a mere abstract of what is known occupies 400 closely printed pages: but the Knowledge is in no wise advanced. It is no doubt more difficult to learn "Paradise Lost" by heart than "We are Seven"; but when you have done it, you are no better at figure-skating. I am not denying that the vast storehouses of fact do help us to a certain distillation (as it were) of their grain: but I may be allowed to complain with Maudsley that there is nobody competent to do it. Even when a genius does come along, his results will likely be as empirical as the facts they cover. Evolution is no better than creation to explain things, as Spencer showed. The truth of the matter appears to be that as reason is incompetent to solve the problems of philosophy and religion, "a fortiori" science is incompetent. All that science can do is to present reason with new facts. To such good purpose has it done this, that no modern scientist can hope to do more than know a little about one bud on his pet twig of the particular branch he has {228A} chosen to study, as it hangs temptingly from one bough of the Tree of Knowledge. One of the most brilliant of the younger school of chemists remarks in the course of a stirring discourse upon malt analysis: "Of extremely complex organic bodies the constitution of some 250,000 is known with certainty, and the number grows daily. No one chemist pretends to an intimate acquaintance with more than a few of these ..." Why not leave it alone, and try to be God? But even had we Maudsley's committee of geniuses, should we be in any real sense the better? Not while the reason is, as at present, the best guide known to men, not until humanity has developed a mental power of an entirely different kind. For to the philosopher it soon becomes apparent that reason is a weapon inadequate to the task. Hume saw it, and became a sceptic in the widest sense of the term. Mansel saw it, and counsels us to try Faith, as if it was not the very fact that Faith was futile that bade us appeal to reason. Huxley saw it, and, no remedy presenting itself but a vague faith in the possibilities of human evolution, called himself an agnostic: Kant saw it for a moment, but it soon hid itself behind his terminology; Spencer saw it, and tried to gloss it over by smooth talk, and to bury it beneath the ponderous tomes of his unwiedly erudition. I see it, too, and the way out to Life. But the labyrinth, if you please, before the clue: the Minotaur before the maiden! Thank you, madam; would you care to look at our new line in Minotaurs at 2s. 3d.? This way, please. I have taken a good deal of trouble lately to prove the proposition "All arguments are arguments in a circle." Without wearying my readers with the formal proof, which I hope to advance one day in an essay on the syllogism, I will take (as sketchily as you please!) the obvious and important case of the consciousness. A. The consciousness is made up exclusively {228B} of impressions (The tendency to certain impressions is itself a result of impressions on the ancestors of the conscious being). Locke, Hume, &c. B. Without a consciousness no impression can exist. Berkeley, Fichte, &c. Both A. and B. have been proved times without number, and quite irrefutably. Yet they are mutually exclusive. The "progress" of philosophy has consisted almost entirely of advances in accuracy of language by rival schools who emphasised A. and B. alternately. It is easy to see that all propositions can, with a little ingenuity, be reduced to one form or the other.<> Thus, if I say that grass is green, I mean that an external thing is an internal thing: for the grass is certainly not in my eye, and the green certainly "is" in it. As all will admit. So, if you throw a material brick at your wife, and hit her (as may happen to all of us), there is a most serious difficulty in the question, "At what point did your (spiritual) affection for her transform into the (material) brick, and that again into her (spiritual) reformation?" Similarly, we have Kant's clear proof that in studying the laws of nature we only study the laws of our own minds: since, for one thing, the language in which we announce a law is entirely the product of our mental conceptions. While, on the other hand, it is clear enough that our minds depend upon the laws of nature, since, for one thing, the apprehension that six savages will rob and murder you is immediately allayed by the passage of a leaden bullet weighting 230 grains, and moving at the rate of 1200 feet per second, through the bodies of two of the ringleaders. {229A} It would of course be simple to go on and show that after all we attach no meaning to weight and motion, lead and bullet, but a purely spiritual one: that they are mere phases of our thought, as interpreted by our senses: and on the other that apprehension is only a name for a certain group of chemical changes in certain of the contents of our very material skulls: but enough! the whole controversy is verbal, and no more. Since therefore philosophy and "a fortiori" science are bankrupt, and the official receiver is highly unlikely to grant either a discharge; since the only aid we get from the Bishops is a friendly counsel to drink Beer -- in place of the spiritual wine of Omar Khayyam and Abdullah el Haji (on whom be peace!) -- we are compelled to fend for ourselves. We have heard a good deal of late years about Oriental religions. I am myself the chief of sinners. Still, we may all freely confess that they are in many ways picturesque: and they do lead one to the Vision of God face to face, as one who hath so been led doth here solemnly lift up his voice and testify; but their method is incredibly tedious, and unsuited to most, if not all, Europeans. Let us never forget that no poetry of the higher sort, no art of the higher sort, has ever been produced by any Asiatic race. We are the poets! we are the children of wood and stream, of mist and mountain, of sun and wind! We adore the moon and the stars, and go into the London streets at midnight seeking Their kisses as our birthright. We are the Greeks -- and God grant ye all, my brothers, to be as happy in your loves! -- and to us the rites of Eleusis should open the doors of Heaven, and we shall enter in and see God face to face! Alas! "None can read the text, not even I; And none can read the comment but myself."<<1>> {229B} <<1. Tennyson must have stolen these lines; they are simple and expressive.>> The comment is the Qabalah, and that I have indeed read as deeply as my poor powers allow: but the text is decipherable only under the stars by one who hath drunken of the dew of the moon. Under the stars will I go forth, my brothers, and drink of that lustral dew: I will return, my brothers, when I have seen God face to face, and read within those eternal eyes the secret that shall make you free. {230Atop} Then will I choose you and test you and instruct you in the Mysteries of Eleusis, oh ye brave hearts, and cool eyes, and trembling lips! I will put a live coal upon your lips, and flowers upon your eyes, and a sword in your hearts, and ye also shall see God face to face. Thus shall we give back its youth to the world, for like tongues of triple flame we shall brood upon the Great Deep -- Hail unto the Lords of the Groves of Eleusis! {230Btop. Full page below} END OF VOL. III {230} A P P E N D I C E S APPENDIX A NOTES TOWARDS AN OUTLINE OF A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS IN PROSE AND VERSE OF ALEISTER CROWLEY<<1>> <<1. For the bulk of these notes we are indebted to the late Mr. L. C. R. Duncombe-Jewell.>> {columns resume} EDITIONES PRINCIPES (I) [ACELDAMA: 1898] Aceldama, | a Place to Bury Strangers in. | a philosophical poem | by a gentleman of the University of Cambridge. | privately printed | London: | 1898. Collation: -- Crown 8vo, pp. 29, consisting of Half-title, quotation on reverse from "Songs of the Spirit," p. 13, ll. 1-4; Title-page as above, quotation on reverse St. John xii. 24, 25; prose Prologue, quotation on reverse Acts i, 18, 19; Dedication dated "Midnight, 1897-1898," on reverse "a toi"; second half-title, quotation on reverse from Swinburne's "The Leper"; "Poems and Ballads," 1866, pp. 1-10; Text, pp. 11-27; no headline; Epilogue p. 28; no imprint, but printed by an obscure printer in the Brompton-road, London. Edition: 2 copies on vellum, numbered 1, 2;<<1>> 20 copies on Japanese vellum, numbered 3 - 12;<<2>> 88 copies on hand-made paper, numbered 13-100. Issued in Japanese vellum turned-in wrapper repeating title-page. <<1. These large-paper copies measure 7 1/2 x 20, printed on thick vellum, wrapper of Japanese vellum.>> <<2. These large-paper copies measure 7 1/2 x 10, on thick Japanese vellum, wrapper of thin Japanese vellum.>> [THE TALE OF ARCHAIS: 1898] The | Tale of Archais | a Romance in Verse | by a Gentleman of the University | of Cambridge {233A} | London | Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. | MDCCCXCVIII. Collation: -- Pott 4to, pp. viii + 89, consisting of Half-title, Title-page in red and black as above (with imprint: "Chiswick Press: -- Charles Whittingham & Co. | Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London." on reverse), pp. iii - iv.; Dedication "To | The White Maidens of England | this Tale of Greece | is | dedicated" (with blank reverse), pp. v - vi; continued in verse, pp. vii - viii.; Prologue in verse, pp. 1 - 5; second Half-title, p. 7; Text, pp. 8 - 84; Epilogue, pp. 85 - 89. There are headlines throughout. The imprint -- "Chiswick Press: -- Charles Whittingham and Co. | Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London." -- is repeated at the foot of the last page. Editon: 2 copies on Roman vellum, 250 on hand-made paper. Issued in slate-blue, dull-green, and brick-red boards with white holland backs, and white paper back label. The published price was five shillings. [THE HONOURABLE ADULTERERS: 1899] The | Honourable Adulterers | a tragedy | by A. E. C. | 1899. Collation: -- Demy 8vo, cut edges, pp. 8, pagination from 119 - 126,<<1>> consisting of Title {233B} as above; Text, pp. 119 - 126. Headlines throughout. No imprint. Edition: 5 copies, on smooth purplish paper. Issued in blue paper wrapper, repeating title page. <<1. The pagination is accounted for by the fact that these three pamphlets were printed off from the paged type of "Jephthah and Other Mysteries," then in the press, and issued separately.>> [JEPHTHAH AND OTHER MYSTERIES 1899] Jephthah | and other mysteries | lyrical and dramatic | by Aleister Crowley | London: Kegan Paul, Trench, | Trubner and Company, Ltd. | 1899 | "all rights reserved." Collation: -- Demy 8vo, pp. xxii + 233, consisting of Half-title, quotation on reverse from "Il Penseroso;" Title page as above, quotation on reverse from SAPPHO; Quotation from "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage"; on reverse "The dedication | is to | Algernon Charles Swinburne"; Dedication in verse, pp. vii - xii; Contents, pp. xiii - xiv; Prelude, xv - xxi; second Half-title, "Jephthah, | a tragedy," on reverse quotation from "Hamlet;" second Dedication, "To | Gerald Kelly, | poet and painter, | I dedicate | this tragedy"; dated "Cambridge, November, 1898." Text, pp. 5 - 221; Epilogue, pp. 222 - 223. On reverse, imprint "Chiswick Press: -- Charles Whittingham and co. | Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London," surmounted by colophon, upon a mound, "a lion rampant, grasping an anchor entwined with a dolphin, the flukes and head in base." Advertisements at end of book pp. 8. Headlines throughout. Editions: 1000 copies on machine-made paper, 6 copies on India paper. Issued in brick-red boards, linen backs, white paper label, "Crowley | Jephthah | & other | mysteries | lyrical & | dramatic | Kegan Paul, | Trench | Trubner & | Co. Ltd. | 1899 | Price 7s. 6d." The six India-paper copies issued in old gold coloured buckram, lettered on cover "Jephthah" in red. [SONGS OF THE SPIRIT: 1898] Songs of the Spirit | by | Aleister Crowley | "Sublimi feriam sidera vertice" HOR. | London | Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. | MDCCCXCVIII. Collation: -- Pott 8bvo, pp. x + 109. Half-title; on reverse, quotation from "The Tale of" {234A} "Archais;" Title in red and black as above; reverse, quotation from "Ecclesiastes," "a fool also is full of words," p. iv. Dedication in verse to J. L. B.,<<1>> pp. v - vii. Contents, pp. ix - x; Second Half-title; Text, pp. 3 - 104; Epilogue, pp. 105 - 109. Imprint on last page, "Chiswick Press: -- Charles Whitingham and Co. | Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London"; surmounted by colophon. No headlines. Edition: 1 copy on vellum, 50 copies on hand-made paper numbered and signed,<<2>> 300 copies on machine-made paper. Issued in Japanese vellum with gold lettering on front of cover "Songs of the Spirit" for copies printed on hand-made paper; and in grey cloth boards, lettered on back "Songs | of the | Spirit | Aleister Crowley | 1898" in crimson for those printed on machine-made paper. Priced 3s. 6d. <<1. J. L. Baker, the alchymist.>> <<2. Carelessly done or not done at all.>> [THE POEM: 1898] The Poem | a little drama in four scenes | by | Aleister Crowley | printed privately | London | 1898. Collation: -- Demy 8vo, cut edges, pp. 20, pagination 99 - 118*; consisting of Half-title, "The Poem. | a little drama in four scenes"; Dedication, p. 101; Text, pp. 103 - 117. Headlines throughout. No imprint. Edition: 10 copies on smooth paper. Issued in Japanese vellum wrapper repeating title-page. [JEZEBEL: 1898] Jezebel | and other | Tragic Poems | By Count Vladimir Svareff | Edited, with an Introduction and Epilogue, by | Aleister Crowley | Vignette of Armorial Design of Chiswick Press | London | Privately printed at the Chiswick Press | 1898. Collation: -- Demy 4to, pp. 23, with 8 unnumbered preliminary pages printed from the Caxton fount of antique type; Half-title; Title as above, "Jezebel" and "London" in red; Dedication in verse dated, "Londres, Juin 1898," in French, {234B} "a Gerald"; Contents; Introduction in verse signed "A. C." p. i.; Text, pp. 3 - 22; Epilogue signed "A. C." p. 23; colophon, printer's mark, "argent, a printer's maul in pale," the shield surrounded by a scroll; below the imprint, "Chiswick Press: Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London." No headlines. Edition: 2 copies on vellum, 10 copies on Japanese vellum, 40 copies on hand- made paper. Issued in Japanese vellum turned-in wrapper, with legend "Jezebel | and other Tragic Poems" enclosed in ornamental border on front of cover in gold. Unpriced: copies were sold at half-a-guinea. [AN APPEAL TO THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC: 1899] Price Sixpence | An Appeal | to the | American Republic | design of Union Flag and United States Ensign crossed | by | Aleister Crowley | London | Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd. | 1899. Collation: -- Demy 4to, pp. 12. Crimson wrapper and Title-page in one. Text, pp. 1 - 12. Imprint at foot of last page, "Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham and Co., Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London." Edition: 500 copies on machine-made paper. [JEPHTHAH: 1898] Jephthah | a Tragedy | by | a gentleman of the University of | Cambridge | (Aleister Crowley) | London | 1898 | [not for sale]. Collation: -- Demy 8vo, cut edges, pp. 71; consisting of Half-title, "Jephthah | a tragedy," on reverse quotation from "Hamlet;" Dedication "To | Gerald Kelly, | Poet Painter, | I dedicate | this tragedy; because his friendship was the turquoise, which I had of him before I was a bachelor; and which I would not have given for a wilderness of monkeys."<<1>> Dated "Cambridge, November 1898"; {235A} Text, pp. 5 - 69; "A Note on Jephthah," pp. 70 - 71. Headlines throughout. No imprint. Edition: 25 copies on machine-made paper. Issued in grey paper with an auto-lithograph in black ink, "Aleister Crowley | Jephthah," on cover. <<1. The reference is to "The Merchant of Venice," Act III, Scene 1."Bachelor" refers to the degree of "B.A.," which the Author was expecting to take at the time of writing the Dedication; but which in fact he did not take.>> [THE MOTHER'S TRAGEDY: 1901] The Mother's | Tragedy | and | Other Poems | by | Aleister Crowley | Privately printed | 1901. Collation: -- Medium 8vo, pp. xii + 111: consisting of Half-title; Title as above; Contents, pp. v - vi; Prologue, pp. vii - xii; Text, pp. 1 - 106; Epilogue, pp. 107 - 111. No imprint. Headlines throughout. Edition: 500 copies on machine-made paper. Issued in blue boards, linen backs, white paper back-label, "Crowley | The | Mother's | Tragedy | and other | Poems." Priced at 5s. 0d. [THE SOUL OF OSIRIS: 1901] The Soul of Osiris | a history | by | Aleister Crowley | London: Kegan Paul, Trench | Trubner and Company, Ltd. | 1901 | "All rights reserved." Collation: -- Medium 8vo, pp. ix + 129; consisting of Half-title; Title as above, on reverse imprint "Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham and Co. | Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London"; Contents, pp. v - vi; Prologue, pp. vii - ix; Text, pp. 3 - 129; Epilogue, "The Epilogue is silence," on reverse imprint of Chiswick Press as before. Edition: 500 copies on machine-made paper, 6 copies on India paper. Issued in brick-red boards, linen backs, white paper back-label, "Crowley | The | Soul | of | Osiris | Kegan Paul, Trench | Trubner & | Co. Ltd. Price 5s. 0d. [CARMEN SAECULARE: 1901] Carmen Saeculare | by | St. E. A. of M. and S. | London | Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner {235B} & Co. Ltd. | Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road | 1901. Collation: -- Demy 4to, pp. 30; consisting of Half-title; Dedication to "The Countess of Glenstrae"; Title as above; Prologue, pp. 5 - 7; Text pp. 9 - 25; Epilogue, pp. 27 - 30, dated "S. S. Pennsylvania, July 4, 1900." No headlines. Edition: 450 copies on machine-made paper, 6 copies on Roman vellum and 50 copies (?) on hand-made paper with title-page, "Carmen Saeculare | by | St. E. A. of M. and S. | Privately issued | London, 1901" Issued in green paper wrapper repeating title-page with design of shamrock in centre. Price 1s. 0d. [TANNHAUSER: 1902] Tannhauser | A story of all time | by | Aleister Crowley | London | Kegan Paul;, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd. | Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road | 1902. Collation: -- Demy 4to, 142 pp., consisting of Half-title, quotation on reverse from Browning's "Master Hughes of Saxe-Gotha;" Title-page as above, on reverse "all rights reserved"; Dedication in verse, pp. 5 - 7; Prose preface, pp. 9 - 16, dated "Kandy, Ceylon, Sept. 1901." Second Half- title; Text, pp. 18 - 142. Imprint at foot, "Turnbull and Spears, Printers, Edinburgh." Two pages of advertisements at end. No headlines. Edition: 6 copies on Japanese vellum, 500 copies on machine-made paper. Issued in royal-blue boards, linen backs, white paper back-label, "Crowley | Tannhauser<> | a story of | all time | Kegan Paul, | Trench, | Trubner & | Co. Ltd. | 1902. Price 5s. 0d. [NEW YEAR'S CARD, 1903] New Year, 1903 A sonnet printed in gold on fly-sheets of Roman vellum (12) and hand-made paper (50) within a broad scarlet border, size 5 7/8 x 6 7/8, "from Aleister Crowley, | wishing you a speedy termination of existence." Printed throughout in capital letters. {236A} [BERASHITH: 1903] A. B. 2447, | Paris | HB:Bet-Resh-Aleph-Shin-Taw | and Essay | in | ontology | with some remarks on ceremonial magic | by | Abhavananda | (Aleister Crowley) | Privately printed for the Sangha of | the West. Collation: -- Size 9 x 7 3/8, pp. 24, consisting of Title-page and wrapper in one as above, on reverse, Number of Copy and Errata; Text, pp. 1 - 24; Imprint at foot of last page, "Clarke & Bishop, Printers, Etc., 338, Rue St. Honore, Paris." No headlines. Edition: 200 copies on China paper numbered. Issued in wrapper and title in one on machine-made paper 10 5/8 x 8 5/16. Price 5 francs. [SUMA SPES: undated] Summa | Spes | Aleister | Crowley. Collation: -- Single poem on Japanese vellum 9 x 7 1/8, printed in red with green ornamental border. Photograph of Haweis and Coles in front, and colophon by T. Spicer Simpson on back. [BALZAC: 1903] Balzac | "Hommage a Auguste Rodin." A sonnet which occurs in "Ahab" in a slightly altered form. Was issued in Paris by request, on a single unfolded sheet of Japanese vellum 14 5/8 x 9 1/4 inches: 3 copies printed vertically, and 15 horizontally on the right half of the paper; also 6 copies on China paper 12 3/8 x 9 1/2 inches printed vertically in the upper moiety of the sheet. No imprint. [AHAB: 1903] Ahab | and other Poems | By Aleister Crowley | with an introduction and Epilogue by | Count Vladimir Svareff | Design of the Chiswick Press, vignette | London. Privately printed at the Chiswick Press | 1903. Collation: -- Demy 4to, pp. 35, and 6 unnumbered preliminary pages, consisting of half-title; Title in red and black as above; Dedication in verse to G. C. J.,<<1>> dated Paris, December 9, 1902; Contents; {236B} Rondel, p. 1; Text, pp. 3 - 33; Epilogue, signed "V. S.," p. 35. Printed from the Caxton fount of antique type: no headlines: no imprint. Edition: 2 copies on vellum, 10 copies on Japanese vellum, 150 copies on hand- made paper. Issued in Japanese vellum turned-in wrapper with legend "Ahab | and other poems" enclosed in ornamental border on front of cover in gold. Price 5s. 0d. <<1. George Cecil Jones, the Theurgist.>> [ALICE: 1903] Alice: an | Adultery | privately printed | 1903. Collation: -- Fcp. 8vo, pp. xx + 95, consisting of Half-title, Title as above; Introduction by the Editor dated "Yokohama, April, 1901," pp. i - xii; Critical Essay on "Alice" signed "G. K.,"<<1>> pp. xiii - xx. Prefatory poems, pp. 1 - 17. Second Half-title; Text, pp. 21 - 95. No headlines. No imprint. Edition: 100 copies on China paper. Price to subscribers, 10s. 6d.; published price, 21s. od. Issued in green camel-hair, turned-in wrapper lettered on front cover, "Alice," in white. <<1. Gerald Kelly. Both the Introduction and Critical Essay are the result of the collaboration of four men -- A. C., G. K., D. J.- F., and I. B.>> [THE GOD-EATER: 1903] The God-Eater | A Tragedy of Satire | by | Aleister Crowley | Watts & Co. | 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London, E. C. | 1903. Collation: -- Cr. 4to, pp. 32, consisting of Half-Title, on reverse announcement of works "by the same author"; Title-page as above; Dedication; Text, pp. 7 - 32, Imprint "R. Clay and Sons, Ltd., Bread St. Hill, E. C., and Bungay, Suffolk," at foot of last page. Edition: 2 copies on Roman vellum, 300 on machine-made paper. Issued in green camel-hair wrapper lettered in red, "The | God-eater | A Tragedy | of Satire | By | Aleister Crowley | Watts & Co. | 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London, E. C. | 1903." Price 2s. 6d. {237A} [THE STAR AND THE GARTER: 1903] The Star & | The Garter | By Aleister | Crowley | Watts & Co. | 17 Johnson's Court | London | 1903. Collation: -- Demy 4to, pp. 89, consisting of Half-title; Title-page as above; Invocation in Greek; Text, pp. 7 - 77; Appendix, prose and verse, pp. 79 - 86; Press notices, pp. 87 - 89; reply to Invocation in Greek, p. 78; advertisement one page. Imprint in centre of last page, "printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh." Edition: 2 copies on Roman vellum, fifty copies on hand-made paper. Issued in green camel's-hair wrapper, lettered in white on front of cover, "The | Star & | The Garter | by Aleister | Crowley." [THE ARGONAUTS: 1904] The Argonauts | by | Aleister Crowley | Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth | Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness | 1904. Collation: -- Crown 8vo, pp. 102, consisting of Half-title; Title-page as above; sub-title, "Jason,"<<1>> dedication on reverse; Text of "Jason," pp. 3 - 17; sub-title of "Argo," dedication on reverse; Text of "Argo," pp. 3 - 19; sub-title "Medea," dedication on reverse; Text of "Medea," p. 3 - 19; sub-title "Sirenae," dedication on reverse; Text of "Sirenae," pp. 3 - 24; sub-title "Ares," dedication on reverse; Text of "Ares," pp. 3 - 23. Imprint at foot of last page, "Chiswick Press: printed by Charles Whittingham and Co | Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London." Announcement of works by the same author on reverse. No headlines. Edition: 2 copies on Roman vellum, 200 copies on machine-made paper. Issued in green camel's-hair wrapper, lettered in red on front of cover, "The Argonauts | by | Aleister Crowley." Price 5s. 0d. {237B} <<1. Each Act is a separate play on the Greek model separately paginated.>> [THE SWORD OF SONG: 1904] The Sword of Song | called by Christians | The Book of the Beast | Aleister Crowley | Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth | Benares | 1904. Collation: -- Post 4to, pp. ix + 194, printed in red and black, consisting of Half-title, parody of passage from "Through the Looking Glass" on reverse; Title-page as above, Dedication on reverse; Introductory poem "Nothung;" Half-title; Prose Introduction to "Ascension Day and Pentecost," pp. iii - ix; Text, pp. 1 - 62; Notes, pp. 63 - 91; Appendices, pp. 93 - 121; "HB:Bet-Resh-Aleph-Shin-Yod-Taw | an essay | in ontology | with some remarks on | ceremonial magic," pp. 123 - 148; "Science and Buddhism," pp. 149 - 192; Epilogue in verse, pp. 193 - 194; Index on last page, imprint on reverse, "printed | by | Philippe Renouard | 19, rue des Saints-Peres, 19 | Paris." Headlines throughout. Editions: 100 copies on a glazed foreign paper.<> Issued in navy blue wrapper front page lettered in gold "Ye Sword | of Song," with design in centre "666" thrice repeated on a golden square ["vide" pp. 4 - 5 of book), on reverse publishers' advertisement; back of cover author's name in Hebrew characters adding up to "666," in gold; inside of back page of cover list of author's works in gold; back of cover "The | Sword | of | Song." Price 10s. 0d. [GOETIA: 1904] The Book of the | Goetia | of | Solomon the King | translated into the English Tongue by a | Dead Hand | and adorned with divers other matters germane | delightful to the wise | the whole | edited, verified, introduced and commented | by | Aleister Crowley | Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth | Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness | 1904. Collation: -- Demy 4to, pp. ix + 65, consisting of Half-title, Invocation in Greek on reverse; Frontispiece; Title-page as above, talisman on reverse; Prefatory Note, pp. v - vi; Preliminary Invocation, pp. vii - ix; Text, pp. 1 - 65; colophon of Chiswick {238A} Press Mark of reverse of last page. No headlines. Two illustrations besides Frontispiece. Edition: 200 copies on machine-made paper, 1 copy on vellum, 10 copies on Japanese vellum. Issued in green camel's hair-wrapper, lettered in red "Goetia" in centre, surrounded by the legend "Goetia vel clavicula Salomonis Regis" frequently repeated. Price 21s. 0d., raise from subscription price of 10s. 0d. Japanese vellum copies in white and gold. Japanese vellum turned-in wrapper, same lettering. [WHY JESUS WEPT: 1904] Why | Jesus Wept | a Study of Society | and of | The Grace of God | by | Aleister Crowley | Privately Printed | 1904. Collation: -- Post 4to, pp. 16 + 80. Half-title; advertisement (of the 21s. edition); Title as above; letter from author's mother, 2 pp.; Persons studied; Quotation from "Times" newspaper and John xi. 35. Dedications 6 pp. to various persons (all these pages unnumbered); Text, pp. 1 - 80; inset, a slip "Note to pp. 75-76; also, loose inset, a pamplet "Mr. Crowley and the Creeds" and "The Creed of Mr. Chesterton, &c. &c." No imprint, but printed by Philippe Renouard. Edition: 100 copies on hand-made paper, 20 in Japanese vellum; 1 on Roman vellum. Issued in turned-in Japanese wrapper; front, "Why | Jesus | Wept | Aleister | Crowley |"; reverse, colophon of Press; back, "Why Jesus Wept." [ORACLES: THE BIOGRAPHY OF AN ART: 1905] Oracles | the biography of an art | unpublished fragments of the work of Aleister Crowley | with | explanatory notes by R. P. Lester and | the Author | 1905 | Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth | Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness. Collation: -- Demy 8vo, pp. viii + 175 + 16 advertisements, consisting of Half-title: Title as above; prefatory note "To Explain"; Contents, pp. vii, viii; Text, pp. 1 - 175 {238B} Advertisement, pp. 1 - 16. Headlines throughout. Edition: 500 copies on machine-made paper. Issued in green camel-hair paper, on back in large white letters, ALEISTER ORACLES CROWLEY The price was 5s. [ORPHEUS: 1905] Orpheus | a lyrical legend by | Aleister Crowley in two volumes of which | this is volume . one | : | each one crown | "Left." Society | for the | Propagation of | . two | Religious | Truth | "Right." Boleskine | Foyers | Inverness | 1905. Printed in Red and Black. Collation: -- Demy 8vo, pp. 156, consisting of Half-title; Title as above; Contents, pp. 7 - 9; Warning, pp. 11 - 14; Exordium, pp. 15 - 19; Half- title, Liber Primus vel Carminum, p. 21; Dedication "To Oscar Echenstein," &c., p. 23; Quotations, p. 24; Text, pp. 25 - 106; Half-title, Liber Secundus vel Amoris, p. 107; Dedication "To Mary Beaton," &c., 109, Quotations, p. 110; Text, pp. 111 - 155; Printer's name, p. 156. Headlines throughout. Volume ii. similarly arranged. Dedications to "The Memory of Jhei Aour," &c., and "To my Wife," p. 148. Edition: 1 copy on Roman vellum, 500 copies on hand-made paper. Issued in white boards, linen backs, white label "ORPHEUS | I. (or II.") | Two volumes | Ten Shillings | Boards | CROWLEY. [COLLECTED WORKS] The Works | of | Aleister Crowley | Volume I. | Foyers | Society for the Propagation of | Religious Truth | 1906 | ["All rights reserved"]. Collation: -- Extra crown. In Three Volumes. Vol. I., pp. x + 269, consisting of Half-title; Title as above; Preface; Contents, pp. vii - ix; Text, pp. 1 - 269; Vol. II., pp. viii + 283, consisting of Half-title; Title as above; Contents, v - vii; Text, pp. 1 - 283. Vol. III., pp. vii + 230, consisting {239A} of Half-title; Title as above; Contents, pp. v - vii; Text, pp. 1 + 230. Appendices, half-title, and pp. 233 - 248. Edition: 1 copy on vellum, 1000 copies on India paper. Issued in camel-hair paper cover; on front cover, in large white letters, "The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley." [GARGOYLES: 1906] Gargoyles | being| Strangely Wrought Images | of Life and Death | by | Aleister Crowley | Foyers | Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth | 1906. Collation: -- Pott 8vo, pp. vi + 113. Half-title [reverse ' . ' Fifty copies only, &c., on the hand-made copies]; Title as above in red and black; Contents, pp. v, vi. Prose Dedication ("To Lola Bentrovata") in red and black, pp. 1, 2, and Text, pp. 3 - 112; (presumably) Dedicatory Epilogue, p. 113, printed in red. Chiswick Press imprint, p. 114. Edition: 2 copies on Roman vellum, 50 on hand-made paper numbered and signed, 300 copies on machine-made paper. Issued in fascimile to "Songs of the Spirit." No price, but sold at 3s. 6d. net cash to the trade. [ROSA MUNDI: 1905] Rosa Mundi | a poem | by | H. D. Carr | with an original composition by | Auguste Rodin | prix: vingt francs | price: sixteen shillings net | Paris: Ph-Renouard, rue des Saints Peres | London -- of H. D. Carr, care of E. Dennes, 22 Chancery Lane | and through all booksellers | 1905. Collation: -- Foreign glazed paper, measuring 13" x 10" approximately. Half- title, reverse "tirage;" 2 copies on vellum, 10 copies on China paper, 488 copies on hand-made paper; Lithograph by Clot from A. Rodin, woman seated, her arms clasping her knees. Title as above; Text, pp. 1 - 15; p. 17, printer's imprint; Edition as above. Issued in rose wrappers; front, Auguste Rodin | Rosa Mundi | H. D. Carr; reverse, design of curves. {239B} {full page follows} APPENDIX B INDEX OF FIRST LINES TO VOLUMES I., II., III. {columns resume} ABOVE us on the mast is spread, ii. 108 A brief consultation, ii. 227 Accept me as I am! iii. 7 A curious conflict this of love and fear, ii. 77 Act II. Sc. i. adds little new to our thesis, ii. 188 Act IV. develops the plot, ii. 189 Adonis, awake, it is day; it is spring! iii. 114 Adonis dies. Imagination hears, iii. 122 A faded skirt, a silken petticoat, ii. 52 A faint sweet smell of ether haunts, iii. 9 A fool indeed! For why complain, iii. 2 A foolish and a cruel thing is said, i. 182 Again the unveiled goddess of delight, ii. 73 Against the fiat of that God discrowned, ii. 64 Age and despair, poverty and distress, iii. 112 A good stout song, friend Argus, ii. 92 Ah! Christ ascends? Ascension day? ii. 163 Ah me! no fruit for guerdon, iii. 192 Ah! ten days yet to Pentecost, ii. 163 Ah! there be two sides to all shapes of truth, ii. 85 Alas! that ever the dark place, iii. 201 Ali bade Hassan to his house to sup, iii. 86 Alice was desperately ill at morn, ii. 75 A lion's mane, a leopard's skin, i. 129 All day we chose each moment possible, ii. 70 All night no change, no whisper, ii. 10 Allow me to introduce myself, ii. 206 All that we are from mind results, ii. 44 All things are branded change, iii. 18 "All things are good" exclaimed the boy, iii. 93 All thought of work ins almost cast aside, ii. 66 Al Malik the magnificent, iii. 86 A lonely spirit seeks the midnight hour, i. 53 Although I cannot leave these bitter leas, iii. 65 Amata's path is Earnestness, ii. 46 "Amat janua limen!" ["Closes book"] Now, my friend, iii. 72 Amid earth's motly, Gaia's cap and bells, 1. 250 Amid the drowsy dream, ii. 61 A miner laboured in a mine, iii. 90 {240A} Among the lilies of the sacred stream, i. 38 And death in kissing. How I have despised, i. 230 And now (I'll quote you Scripture anyhow), ii. 176 And though you claim Salvation sure, ii. 159 And thus to-day that "Christ ascends," ii. 162 And who is then the moon? Bend close, iii. 13 And you -- what are you doing here? i. 57 Anemones grow in the wood by the stream, iii. 58 An island of the mist, i. 102 Another day rose of unceasing fire, ii. 70 As, after long observation and careful study, i. 223 As far as normal reasoning goes, ii. 173 As for a quiet talk on physics, ii. 150 Ashes and dust, i. 112 As I one day to nature made lament, ii. 18 As I pass in my flight, iii. 174 As I sit in the sound, iii. 154 As some lone mountebank of the stage, ii. 52 As the tides invisible of ocean, iii. 131 At last I met a maniac, ii. 165 At last we arrive at the end, ii. 194 At least your faith should be content, ii. 163 At noon she sailed for home, ii. 84 At Paris upon Dead Man's Day. iii. 102 "At the hour of the great Initiation" ii. 231 Aum! I unfold the tinted robe, iii. 66 Aum! Let us meditate aright, ii. 177 Aum! Let us meditate aright, ii. 184 Ay! I would murder not my brother only, ii. 104 Ay! Let him rise and answer, ii. 159 Ay! There's a law! For this recede, iii. 14 BEFORE the altar of Famine and Desire, i. 181 Before the darkness, earlier than being, i. 105 Behold a virgin to the Lord, i. 83 Behold, I am; a circle on whose hands, ii. 19 {240B} Bend down in dream the shadow-shape, ii. 128 Beneath the living cross I lie, ii. 62 Better than bliss of floral kiss, iii. 64 Bitter reproaches passed between us, ii. 77 Black Ares hath called, ii. 112 Black thine abyss of noon, ii. 30 Blind agony of thought! Who turns his pen, iii. 118 Blind Chesterton is sure to err, ii. 185 Blind the iron pinnacles edge the twilight, i. 27 Blood, mist, and foam, then darkness, i. 109 Blow on the flame, ii. 7 Brethren, what need of wonder, iii. 186 Brutal refinement of deep-seated vice, iii. 123 Buddham Saranangachami, ii. 259 But first; I must insist on taking, ii. 149 But if das Essen is das Nichts, ii. 171 "But if," you cry, "the world's designed, ii 157 But never mind! Call them idolaters, ii. 156 But now (you say) broad-minded folk, ii. 156. But, surely, (let me corner you!), ii. 180 But then you argue, and with sense, ii. 180 But thou, O Lord, O Apollo, ii. 35 But to-night the lamp must be wasted, ii. 36 But why revile, ii. 147 By palm and pagoda enchaunted, ii. 121 By Wisdom framed from ancient days, ii. 97 CALL down that star whose tender eyes, i. 171 Can you believe the deadly will's decree, i. 254 Chaldean fools, who prayed to stars and fires, ii. 19 Clear, deep, and blue, the sky, i. 49 Cloistral seclusion of the galleried pines, iii. 119 Clytie, beyond all praise, i. 120 Coiled in the hollow of the rock they kiss, iii. 122 Come back, come back, come back, Eyrydice! iii. 158 Come, child of wonder, i. 167 Come, love, and kiss my shoulders, i. 233 Come over the water, love, to me, ii. 108 Consummate beauty built of ugliness, iii. 123 Could ivory blush with a stain of the sunset, iii. 67 Crouched o'er the tripod, ii. 52 Crowned with Eternity, beyond beginning, iii. 150 DANCE a measure, iii. 87 Darkness and daylight in divided measure, iii. 145 Dark night, red night, i. 2 Daughter of Glory, child, iii. 168 Day startles the fawn, i. 90 {241A} Dead Pharoah's eyes from out the tomb, iii. 100 Deep melancholy -- O, the child of folly, i. 183 Dim goes the sun down there, ii. 33 Divine Philosopher! Dear Friend! i, 1 Dora steals across the floor, iii. 59 Droop the great eylids purple-veined! iii. 65 EACH to his trade! live out your life, ii. 167 Ecstasy, break through poetry's beautiful barriers, iii. 67 Egg of the Slime! Thy loose abortive lips, ii. 8 Enough. It is ended, the story, iii. 216 Ere fades the last red glimmer of the sun, i. 116 Ere the grape of joy is golden, i. 9 Even as beasts, where the sepulchral ocean sobs, i. 178 Even as the traitor's breath, i. 148 Evoe! Evoe Ho! Iacche! Iacche! iii. 203 Exalted over earth, from hell arisen, i. 122 Exile from human kind, i. 118 Existence being sorrow, ii. 200 Exquisite fairy, flower from stone begotten, iii. 118 FAIRER than woman blushing at the kiss, i. 21 Farewell, my book, ii. 8 Farewell! O Light of day, i. 263 First. "Here's a johnny with a cancer, ii. 209 First, here's philosophy's despair, ii. 166 First word of my song, iii. 131 Fivefold the shape sublime that lifts its head, iii. 150 Fling down the foolish lyre, the witless power! iii. 159 Floating in the summer air, ii. 2 For, at first, this practice leads, ii. 176 Forged by God's fingers in His furnace, ii. 63 For our God is as a fire, i. 68 For the web of the battle is woven, i. 74 Fraught with the glory of a dead despair, iii. 59 Fresh breath from the woodland blows sweet, i. 117 Fresh in the savage vigour of the time, iii. 117 From darkness of fugitive thought, iii. 127 From fourfold quarters, iii. 133 From the abyss, the horrible lone world, 1, 200 From youth and love to sorrow is one stride, iii. 116 Full amber-breasted light of harvest-moon, 148 Full is the joy of maidenhood made strong, iii. 147 {241B} GIANT, with iron secrecies ennighted, iii. 122 Glory and praise to thee, O Satan, ii. 18 God, I have rowed! iii. 28 God of the golden face and fiery forehead, ii. 22 Gone to his Goddess! the poor worm's asleep, i. 239 Good bends and breathes into the rosy shell, iii. 120 Go to the woodlands, English maid, i. 7 Great Liberator, come again, ii. 3 Green and gold the meadows lie, i. 24 HA! HA! In the storm I ride, ii. 136 Hail, child of Semele! iii. 205 Hail! Hail! Hail! ii. 130 Hail, O Dionysus! Hail! iii. 203 Hail, sweet my sister! hail, adulterous spouse, iii. 86 Hail to Thee, Lady bright, i. 243 Hail, Tyche! From the Amalthean horn, iii. 120 Hangs over me the fine false gold, ii. 127 Ha! who invokes! What horror rages, iii. 194 He did not kiss me with his mouth, i. 100 He's gone -- his belly filled enough, ii. 163 He hath made His face as a fire, i. 89 He is here! He is here! iii. 206 He is the equal of the gods, my queen, i. 250 Hence I account no promise worse, ii. 156 Here goes my arrow to the gold, ii. 154 Here in the evening curl white mists, i. 118 Here in the extreme west of all the earth, ii. 67 Here, in the home of a friend, i. 154 Here in the wild Caucasian night, i. 125 Here is a man! For all the world to see, iii. 110 Here most philosophers agree, ii. 173 Here, on the crimson strand of blood-red waters, i. 15 Here's a test, ii. 179 Here's how I got a better learning, ii. 164 Here's just the chance you'd have, ii. 149 Here, then, lives the pretty piece of goods, iii. 38 Here we come to what in a way is the fundamental joke of these precepts, ii. 193 Heroic helpmeet of the silent home! iii. 118 Hers was the first sufficient sacrifice, ii. 52 He who desires desires a change, iii. 87 Holy as heaven, the home of winds, i. 95 Horace, in the fruitful Sabine country, i. 127 How barren is the Valley of Delight, i. 179 How easy to excite derision, ii. 176 How hardly a man, iii. 151 How light and how agreeable, i. 156 How sweet the soft looks shoot, ii. 78 How tedious I always find, ii. 184 How things are changed since Alice was so ill, ii. 81 "How very hard it is to be," ii. 168 "How you bungle!" growled Ganesha, ii. 228 I ALMOST wonder if I ought, iii. 89 I am a boy in this. Alas! iii. 3 I am a man, Consider first, iii. 8 I am a pretty advocate, iii, 6 I am so sad, being alone to-night, iii. 66 I behold in a mist of hair involving, iii. 58 I bring ye wine from above, iii. 207 Icarus cries: "My love is robed in light, iii. 120 I come to tell you why I shun, ii. 169 I could not let her leave me, ii. 82 I do not feel myself inclined, ii. 173 I draw no picture of the Fates, iii. 22 I drew a hideous talisman of lust, ii. 66 I feel thee shudder, clinging to my arm, i. 119 I find some folks think me (for one), ii. 177 I flung out of chapel and church, ii. 144 If you please sir, a gentleman has called, i. 60 I had a fearful dream, ii. 73 I have no heart to sing, ii. 68 I hear the waters faint and far, ii. 106 I killed my wife -- not meaning to, indeed, i. 182 I kissed the face of Flavia fair, iii. 60 I know. When Ramoth-Gilead's field, i. 131 I lay within the forest's virgin womb, ii. 32 I looked beneath her eyelids, i. 98 I learnt at last some sort of confidence, ii. 68 I lie in liquid moonlight, ii. 34 I love you. That seems simple? No! iii. 6 I met a Christian clergyman, ii. 149 I moved. Remote from fear and pain, iii. 105 Impossible that we shall ever part, ii. 82 I must be ready for my friend to-night, ii. 37 In Act III. we have another illustration, ii. 188 In all the skies the planets and the stars, ii. 53 In Ares' grove, the sworded trees, ii. 90 In Asia, no the nysian plains, she played, iii. 190 In child-like meditative mood, iii. 165 In Life what hope is always unto men, ii. 65 In middle music of Apollo's corn. i. 193 In my distress I made complain to Death, i. 181 In mystic dolour wrapt, the ascetic turns, iii. 121 {242B} Infinite delicacy in great strength, iii. 118 In presenting this theory of the Universe, ii. 233 In response to many suggestions, ii. 3 In such a conflict I stand neuter, ii. 183 In the Beginning God began, i. 251 In the blind hour of madness, i. 64 In the brave old days, i. 82 In the days of the spring of my being, iii. 129 In the dim porchway, ii. 69 In the fevered days and nights, ii. 195 In the grim woods, i. 36 In the heather deeply hidden, iii. 136 In the hospital bed she lay, ii. 1 In the night my passion fancies, i. 175 In the sorrow of the silence of the sunset, ii. 25 In the spring, in the loud lost places, iii. 211 In the storm that divides the wild night, i. 48 In the ways of the North and the South, i. 144 Into the inmost agony of things, iii. 115 In vain I sit by Kandy Lake, iii. 21 I, of the Moderns, have let alone Greek, ii. 145 I practice then, with conscious power, ii. 179 I saw in a trance or a vision, ii. 53 I saw the Russian peasants build a ring, i. 180 I scorn the thousand subtle points, ii. 151 I see the centuries wax and wane, i. 207 I shall not tell thee that I love thee, i. 222 Isis am I, and from my life are fed, i. 228 Isis am I, and from my life are fed, i. 262 Is it your glance that told me? Nay, iii. 2 Is love indeed eternal? ii. 85 Is there a soul behind the mask? iii. 6 I stole her money, even then to prove, ii. 84 I stood within Death's gate, i. 202 It has often been pointed out, ii. 58 I think, Sir, that I have you still, ii. 157 I think the souls of many men are here, i. 44 It is a commonplace of scientific men that metaphysics is mostly moonshine, ii. 258 It is a lamentable circumstance, ii. 185 It is fitting that I, Ambrose, ii. 212 It is loftily amusing to the student, ii. 203 It is summer and sun on the sea, i. 177 It is the seasonable sun of spring, i. 202 It matters little whether we, ii. 170 It may be that pure Nought will fail, ii. 177 It may possibly be objected by the censorious, ii. 189 It really seemed as if fate was against him, ii. 228 It shall be said, when all is done, iii. 113 It should be clearly understood, ii. 254 It thank you, M. Davenport! iii. 26 {243A} I took another way to shield my love, ii. 65 I took three Hottentots alive, ii. 102 It's rather hard, isn't it, sir, ii. 145 It was impossible that she should come, ii. 74 I've talked too long: you're very good, ii. 183 I was a fool to hide it, iii. 8 I was most weary of my work, ii. 67 I was so hopeless that I turned away, ii. 65 I will not, and you will not. Stay! iii. 12 I will not bring abuse to point my pen, ii. 5 I will not now invite attack, ii. 151 I will not shake thy hand, old man, ii. 1 I will not waste my own time and that of my readers, ii. 254 JEHJAOUR was a mighty magician, ii. 226 Just and the fletcher shapes his shaft, ii. 46 KHEPHRA, thou Beetle-headed God, iii. 17 Kiss me, O sister, kiss me down to death! iii. 121 Know ye my children? From the old strong breast, iii. 149 LADY, awake the dread abyss, iii. 15 Last night -- but the boy shrieked, ii. 71 Lay them together for the sake of Love, i. 37 Let me give a rapid resume of what we have gone through, ii. 260 Let me help Babu Chander Grish up, ii. 148 Let me pass out beyond the city gate, i. 30 Let no ill memory of an ancient wrong, i. 71 Let the far music of oblivious years, iii. 161 Let us first destroy the argument of fools, ii. 153 'Leven o' th' clock! Plague take these lovers! iii. 68 Libertine touches of small fingers, i. 208 Lie still, O love, and let there be delight, iii. 64 Life hidden in death, iii. 144 Lift up thine eyes! for night is shed around, i. 90 Lift up thine head, disastrous Jezebel, i. 180 Lift up this love of peace and bliss, ii. 110 Light in the sky, i. 242 Light shed from seaward over breakers, ii. 105 Like leaves that fall before the sullen wind, i. 129 Like memories of love they come, iii. 96 Like pensive cattle couched upon the sand, ii. 16 Like snows on the mountain, i. 55 Linked in the tiny shelf upon the ship, ii. 77 Listen! The venerable monk pursued, iii. 104 {243B} "Listen to the Jataka!" said the Buddha, ii. 225 Lo! in the interstellar space of night, iii. 155 Long days and nights succeeded in despair, i. 16 Look now it leaps towards the leaper's curl, iii. 119 Love comes to flit, a spark of steel, iii. 113 Lured by the loud big-breasted courtesan, ii. 36 Lust, impotence, and knowledge of thy soul, i. 116 MAKE me a roseleaf with your mouth, iii. 4 Man's days are dim, his deeds are dust, i. 8 Mary, Mary, subtle and softly breathing, iii. 61 May I who know so bitterly the tedium of this truly dreadful poem, iii. 126 Mere terror struck into our souls, ii. 81 Mightiest Self! Supreme in Self-Contentment, ii. 23 Mild glimpses of the quiet moon, iii. 146 Mistress and maiden and mother, ii. 29 Mistress, I pray thee, when the wind, i. 184 Moreover (just a word) this chance, iii. 18 Mortal distrust of mortal happiness, i. 182 Mortals are not for nectar all the time, ii. 80 Mortals never learn from stories, i. 156 My beauty in thy deep pure love, i. 108 My comedy has changed its blithe aspect, ii. 74 My dreams are sweet, i. 14 My head is split. The crashing axe, iii. 85 My heavy hair upon my olive skin, i. 6 My home is set between two ivory towers, ii. 2 My little lady light o' limb, iii. 116 My soul is aching with the sense of sound, i. 113 NAKED as dawn, the purpose of the hour, i. 157 Nathless she locked her cabin door, ii. 78 Nay, ere ye pass your people pass, ii. 35 "Nay! that were nothing," say you now, iii. 11 Night brings madness, i. 173 Night, like a devil, with lidless eyes, iii. 90 Night the voluptuous, night the chaste, iii. 88 Nine times I kissed my love in her sleep, i. 183 Nine voices that raise high the eternal hymn, i. 215 No higher? No higher? iii. 24 No! on the other hand the Buddha, ii. 147 No passion stirs the cool white throat of her, i. 168 Norah, my wee shy child of wonderment, iii. 61 Nor can I see what sort of gain, ii. 172 North, by the ice-belt, i. 93 {244A} Not a word to introduce my introduction, ii. 141 Note from this day no possible event, ii. 81 Not winged forms, nor powers of air, i. 74 Now (higher on the Human Ladder), ii. 210 Now is our sin requited of the Lord, i. 66 Now is the gold gone of the year, iii. 188 Now on the land the woods are green, i. 120 Now the great elephant strode with lordly footsteps in the forest, ii. 227 Now the road widens and grows darker still, iii. 180 Now, when the sun falls in the dismal sky, ii. 85 Now your grave eyes are filled with tears, iii. 11 O BLUEBELL of the inmost wood, iii. 14 O body pale and beautiful with sin, i. 117 O chainless Love, the frost is in my brain, i. 109 O coiled and constricted and chosen, ii. 96 O crimson cheeks of love's fierce fever, i. 171 Of course I might have know it was a lie, ii.74 O friends and brothers, ii. 127 O good St. Patrick, turn again, ii. 48 O Gretchen, when the morn is gray, i. 243 O happy of mortals, ii. 103 Oh! I had such a bad dream, i. 58 "Oh, very well!" I think you say, ii. 160 O if these words were sword, i. 167 O iron, bow to silver's piercing note! iii. 183 O kissable Tarshitering! the wild bird calls its mate -- and I? iii. 87 O Lesbian maiden, ii. 6 O light in Light! O flashing wings of fire! iii. 199 O light of Apollo! iii. 200 O Lord our God, i. 24 O love! and were I with thee ever! iii. 3 O Love! Pure mystery of life, i. 247 O lover, I am lonely here, ii. 109 O Man of Sorrows: brother unto Grief, i. 207 O master of the ring of love, i. 179 O mortal, tossed on life's unceasing ocean, ii. 107 O Mother of Love, i. 17 One day from landing, ii. 80 One way sets free, ii. 53 On his couch Imperial Alpin, i. 101 O Night! the very mother of us all, i. 34 On rocky mountain bare, i. 43 O Rose of dawn! O star of evening! iii. 39 O rosy star, i. 22 {244B} O Self Divine! O Living Lord of Me. ii. 20 O sleep of lazy love, be near, ii. 115 O tearless sorrow of long years, ii. 82 O the deep wells and springs of tears! iii. 63 O the gloom of these distasteful tomes, iii. 25 O there is edged the waning moon, iii. 36 O the time of dule and teen, i. 87 O thou, of Angels fairest and most wise, ii. 15 O triple form of darkness! Sombre splendour! iii. 177 Our hair deep laden with the scent of earth, iii. 141 Our love takes on a tinge of melancholy, ii. 84 Out of the seething cauldron of my woes, i. 202 Out of the waters of the sea, i. 79 Over a sea like stained glass, ii. 111 Over the western water lies a solar fire, i. 214 O virgin! O my sister! Hear me, death! iii. 102 O voice of sightless magic, i. 103 O what pale thoughts like gum exude, iii. 12 O who shall overcome this earth, ii. 47 O world of moonlight, i. 205 PALE vapours lie like phantoms on the sea, i. 122 Paolo ignites, Francesca is consumed, iii. 120 Perfectly sad and perfectly resolved, iii. 114 Peintre, que ton amour inspire, i. 129 Pilgrim of the sun, be this thy script, ii. 121 Poor child, poor child, how are you? i. 62 Pray do not ask me where I stand, ii. 146 QUITE careless whether golden gales, ii. 76 RAIN, rain in May. The river sadly flows, i. 116 Recall, my soul, the sight we twain have looked upon, ii. 17 Red is the angry sunset, ii. 5 Rest, like a star at sea, i. 45 Roll, strong life-current of these very veins, iii. 171 Roll through the caverns of matter, i. 211 Rose of the World! iii. 51 Rose of the world! Ay, love, in that warm hour, iii. 91 Rose on the breast of the world of spring, iii. 64 SACRED, between the serpent fangs of pain, i. 199 1. Sakkaya-di"tt"hi. Belief in a "soul," ii. 249 {245A} "Scepticus." Well, my dear Babu, I trust you have slept well, ii. 267 Second, your facts are neatly put, ii. 210 Seed of Abel, eat, drink, sleep, ii. 15 Self-damned, the leprous moisture of thy veins sickens the sunshine, i. 115 Senseless the eyes: the brow bereft of sense, iii. 122 Shall beauty avail thee, Carytid, crouched, iii. 112 She dared not come into my room to-night, ii. 73 She grew most fearful, ii 73 She lay within the water, i. 7 She sits and screams above the folk of peace, iii. 119 She was more graceful than the royal palm, ii. 65 Show by thy magic art, iii. 168 Sibyl says nothing -- she's a Sphinx! iii. 19 Sidonia the Sorceress! I revel in her amber skin, i. 178 Sing, happy nightingale, sing, i. 124 Sing, little bird, it is dawn, i. 14 Six days. Creation took no longer, i. 226 Sleep, O deep splendour of disastrous years, ii. 82 Slow wheels of unbegotten hate, i. 145 Small coffin-worms that burrow in thy brain, ii. 8 Snow-hills and streams, dew-diamonded, i. 14 So faded all the dream, iii. 169 So far at least. I must concede, ii. 181 So far my pen has touched with vivid truth, iii. 46 So fearful is the wrath divine, ii. 120 So have the leaves departed, i. 127 So here is my tribute -- a jolly good strong 'un, ii. 168 So, love, not thus for your and me! iii. 13 Some lives complain of their own happiness, i. 194 Some sins assume a garb so fine and white, i. 132 Sometimes I think my blood in waves appears, ii. 18 Some years ago I thought to try, ii. 178 So much when philosophy's lacteal river, ii. 168 So not one word derogatory, ii. 152 So now the Earl was well a-weary, ii. 49 Sophie! I loved her, tenderly at worst, i. 194 (1) Sorrow. -- Existence is Sorrow, ii. 245 So since in England Christ still stands, ii. 147 {245B} So, with permission, let us be, ii. 151 Speak, O my sister, O my spouse, speak, iii. 64 Spell-bound we sat: the vivid violin, iii. 123 Spirit of the Gods! O single, i. 152 Still grave, my budding Arahat? iii. 8 Substantial, stern, and strong, iii. 182 Surely, my God, now I am left alone, i. 78 Surely the secret whisper of sweet life, iii. 113 Sweet are the swift hard struggles, ii. 79 Sweet, do you scold? I had rather have you scold, iii. 62 Sweet, sweet are May and June, dear, i. 230 Swift and subtle and thin are the arrows of Art, iii. 112 Syrinx is caught upon the Arcadian field, iii. 119 TAKE Oscar Eckenstein -- he climbs, ii. 210 Tender the phrase, and faint the melody, i. 249 Tender the smile, and faint the lover's sigh, i. 249 Terror, and darkness, and horrid despair, ii. 1 That which is highest as the deep, i. 34 The ashen sky, too sick for sleep, ii. 12 The conqueror rides at last, i. 85 The constant ripple of your long white hands, i. 113 The crown of Gods and mortals within, ii. 141 The essential features of Buddhism, ii. 244 The eternal spring is in the heart of youth, iii. 116 The Evolution of things is thus described by the Qabalists, i. 265 The figure of the Marquis of Glenstrae, iii. 38 The foolish bells with their discordant clang, i. 202 The fragrant gateways of the dawn, i. 204 The frosty fingers of the wind, iii. 62 The ghosts of abject days flit by, i. 211 The Hand. From mystery that is cloud, control, iii. 115 The heart of a man as the sea, i. 68 The hearts of Greeks with sharper flames, ii. 109 The heavy hand is held, iii. 143 The incense steams before the Christ, i. 52 The inexpiable fate whose shuddering wing, ii. 78 The Khing-Ghost is abroad. His spectre legions, iii. 107 The king was silent, i. 186 The keystone of this arch of misery, i. 164 The large pale limbs of the earth, i. 68 The law of causation is formally identical with this, ii. 249 {246A} The life, by angels; touch divinely lifted, i. 31 The life to live? The thought to think, ii. 144 The light streams stronger through the lamps of sense, iii. 95 The little money that we had to spend, ii. 83 The magical task and the labour is ended, iii. 200 The Meeting-House of the Brethren Gathered Together To The Name Of The Lord Jesus, iii. 46 The mere result of all this was a dream, ii. 67 The metaphysics of these verses, ii. 170 The mighty sound of forests, i. 51 The mind with visions clouded, i. 50 The moon spans Heaven's architrave, ii. 63 The night is void of stars: the moon is full, iii. 62 The "Nineteenth Mahakalpa" brought out its April Number, ii. 230 Then let no memory shrink abashed, iii. 10 Then one-third of all humanity are steady, ii. 156 The note of the silence is changed, iii. 15 The old sun rolls; the old earth spins, iii. 111 The physiologist reproaches, ii. 209 The poet slept. His fingers twine, iii. 89 The polished silver flings me back, ii. 121 The premiss major. Life at best, ii. 171 The premiss minor. I deplore, ii. 176 The prophecies are spoken in vain, ii. 81 The purpose of this essay, ii. 244 Therefore I burnt the wicked pantacle, ii. 66 Therefore poor Crowley lights his pipe, ii. 210 There is a bare black headland which the sea, i. 46 There is a lake amid the snows, ii. 174 There is an eye through which the Kabbalist, iii. 17 There is an idol in my house, iii. 97 There is a sense of passion after death, i. 182 There is much sorcery in the word eleven, ii. 68 There is no hell but earth, ii. 53 "There is only one more birth," he groaned, ii. 229 There leapt upon a breach and laughed, iii. 101 There was no secret cave, ii. 70 The rose of the springtime that bended, ii. 72 The roses of the world are sad, ii. 71 The schoolboy drudges through his Greek, iii. 63 The scorpion kisses and the stings of sin, i. 54 The seas that lap the sand, i. 46 {246B} The Second Precept is directed against theft, ii. 193 These portraits, darling, are they yours? iii. 10 The serpent glimmered through the primal tree, iii. 121 These strictures must include the liar, ii. 248 The seven Wise Men of Martaban, iii. 103 The ship to the breezes is bended, 1, 220 The solemn hour, and the magnetic swoon, i. 180 The sound of the hammer and steel, ii. 92 The spears of the night at her onset, iii. 93 The story as it runs is this, ii. 182 The story of a fool, ii. 53 The strange look of a woman of the town, ii. 19 The sun of love shone through my love's deep eyes, ii. 9 The sword is made sharp in our hands, i. 70 The sword that was broken is perfect, iii. 58 The Three Characteristics, ii. 246 The third time bitterly came reason back, ii. 79 The unutterable void of Hell is stirred, i. 185 The valleys, that are splendid, i. 174 The vault of purple that I strove, i. 29 The veil o' th' mist of the quiet wood is lifted to the seer's gaze, iii. 117 The Virgin lies at Bethlehem, ii. 14 The wail of the wind in the desolate land, i. 49 The wandering waters move about the world, i. 96 The wand of Hermes, the caduceus wonder-working, iii. 132 The waterpot is broken at the well, iii. 121 The waving surf shone from the Peaceful Sea, ii. 64 The Winged Bull that dwelled in the north, ii. 33 The woodland hollows know us, ii. 75 The woods are very quiet, i. 36 The world is borne upon thy breast, ii. 130 The world is dusk, expectant of its doom, i. 47 The world moves not, i. 32 The worst of meals is that we have to meet, i. 181 The young men are girded with swords, i. 72 This forbids the taking life in any form, ii. 192 This is my point; the world lies bleeding, ii. 157 This meditation differs fundamentally from the usual Hindu methods, ii. 252 This precept, against adultery, ii. 193 This prescription has been made up before, sir, iii. 44 {247A} This, then, is what I deem occurred, ii. 182 This time she set her will against my will, ii. 75 Those who are most familiar with the spirit of fair play which pervades our great public schools, iii. 219 Thou fair Republic oversea afar, i. 136 Thou knowest, O Love, ii. 83 Thou Sun, whose swift desire to-day is dull, i. 39 Through fields of foam ungarnered, i. 149 Thus all conceptions fail and fall, ii. 172 Thus, in Ascension, you and I, ii. 152 Thy brazen forehead, and its lustre gloom i. 166 To-day thrice halves the lunar week, ii. 164 To die amid the blossoms of the frost, i. 135 To love you, Love, is all my happiness, i. 181 To-night I tread the unsubstantial way, i. 196 To return from our little digression to the original plan of our essay, ii. 256 To sea! To sea! The ship is trim, iii. 5 Towards the mountains and the night, i. 89 To what God should he appeal? ii. 226 Truth, like old Gaul, is split in three, iii. 3 Turn back from safety: in my love abide, i. 133 "Truth, that's the gold!" ii. 144 'Twas dark when church was out! iii. 60 Twilight is over, i. 53 ULYSSES 'scaped the sorceries of that queen, i. 121 Under the stars the die was cast to win, iii. 65 Under the summer leaves, ii. 7 Unity uttermost showed, iii. 209 Unto what likeness shall I liken thee, i. 114 Unwilling as I am to sap the foundations, ii. 192 Upheaved from Chaos, ii. 33 Up, up, my bride! Away to ride, iii. 56 WAKE, fairy maid, for the day, i. 14 Was it a sense of uttermost relief, ii. 83 Was thy fault to be too tender, ii. 3 Waters that weep upon the barren shore, ii. 26 We fear indeed that in the trap, ii. 99 We have forgotten all the days of fear, ii. 80 We know what fools (only) call, ii. 169 We lost a day! Nor kisses, nor regret, ii. 78 Well, but another way remains, ii. 155 Well have I said, "O God, Thou art, i. 193 Well, I am lost! The whistle brings no hound, i. 259 "M." Well, Scepticus, are your restored to health? ii. 262 {247B} We ride upon the fury of the blast, i. 47 What ails thee, earth? ii. 31 What change of language! Ah, my dear, iii. 18 What is my soul? The shadow of my will, i. 194 What makes God then of all the curses, ii. 17 What power or fascination lie, i. 180 What sadness closes in between, iii. 2 What words are these that shudder through my sleep, i. 103 When a battle is all but lost and won, ii. 270 When, at the awful Judgment-day, God stands, iii. 115 Whence the black lands shudder, ii. 55 When God bethought Him, i. 10 When God uplifted hands to smite, i. 82 When I go to take Pansil, ii. 194 When illegitimate criticism is met with a smart swing on the point of the jaw, iii. 109 When I think of the hundreds of women, i. 195 When the chill of earth black-breasted, ii. 283 When the countenance fair, i. 76 When the wearily falling blossom of midnight, iii. 67 Where, in the coppice, oak and pine, i. 169 Where was light when thy body came, ii. 9 Whether we adopt Herbert Spencer's dictum, ii. 250 Who art thou, love, by what sweet name I quicken? iii. 169 Who is Love, that he should find me as I strive, i. 45 Who is that slinkard moping down the street, iii. 99 Who is this maiden robed for a bride, i. 237 Why did you smile when the summer was dying, i. 113 {248A} Why is thy back made stiff, unrighteous priest, i. 141 Will you not come: the unequal fever, iii. 4 Will you not learn to separate, iii. 7 Wild pennons of sunrise the splendid, i. 218 With calm and philosophic mind, ii. 169 With feet set terribly dancing, ii. 36 Within the forest gloom, i. 15 With this our "Christian" parents marred, i. 194 Woe is me! the brow of a brazen morning, iii. 215 Would God that I were dead, ii. 124 YE rivers, and ye elemental caves, i. 197 Yes! it's all so blessed and romantic, my dear, thank the Lord! iii. 46 "Yes!" said Ganesha gloomily, ii. 226 Yes, there are other phases, dear! iii. 9 Yet by-and-by I hope to weave, ii. 146 Yet ere the stars paled slowly in the east, ii. 79 Yet God created (did he not?), ii. 158 "You are sad!" the Knight said, ii. 140 You are silent. That we always were, iii. 2 You buy my spirit with those peerless eyes, i. 132 You do not well to swell the list, ii. 182 You laughing little light of wickedness, iii. 114 "You're a muddler and an idiot!" ii. 227 You see I do not base my thesis, ii. 161 You see, when I was young, they said, ii. 153 You will not believe what I tell you? iii. 41 You weary me with proof enough, ii. 178 ZOHRA the king by feathered fans, ii. 38 Zounds, man! have a care with thy goings, iii. 69 {248B and end}