1898.
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DAY startles the fawn from the avenues deep that look to the east in the
heart of the wood:
Light touches the trees of the hill with its lips, and God is above them
and sees they are good:
Night flings from her forehead the purple-black hood.
The thicket is sweet with the breath of the breeze made soft by the kisses
of slumbering maids;
The nymph and the satyr, the fair and the faulty alike are the guests of
these amorous shades;
The hour of Love flickers and falters and fades.
O, listen, my love, to the song of the brook, its murmurs and cadences,
trills and low chords;
Hark to its silence, that prelude of wonder ringing at last like the
clamour of swords
That clash in the wrath of the warring of lords.
Listen, oh, listen! the nightingale near us swoons a farewell to the
blossoming brake;
Listen, the thrush in the meadow is singing notes that move sinuous, lithe
as a snake;
The cushats are cooing, the world is awake. {90A}
Only one hour since you whispered the story out of your heart to my
tremulous ear;
Only one hour since the light of your eyes was the victor of violent
sorrow and fear;
Your lips were so set to the lips of me here.
Surely the victory ripens to perfect conquest of everything set in our
way.
We must be free as our hearts re, and gather strength for our limbs for
the heat of the fray:
The battle is ours if you say me not nay.
Fly with me far, where the ocean is bounded white by the walls of the
northernmost shore,
Where on a lone rocky island a castle laughs in its pride at the billows
that roar,
My home where our love may have peace evermore.
Yes, on one whisper the other is waiting patient to catch the low tone of
delight.
Kiss me again for the amorous answer; close your dear eyelids and think it
is night,
The hour of the even we fix for the flight.
LIFT up thine eyes! for night is shed around,
As light profound,
And visible as snow on steepled hills,
Where silence fills
The shaded hollows: night, a royal queen
Most dimly seen {90B}
Through silken curtains that bedeck the bed,
Lift up thine head!
For night is here, a dragon, to devour
The slow sweet hour
Filled with all smoke of incense, and the praise
More loud than day's
That swings its barren censer in the sky
And asks to die
Because the sea will hear no hollow moan
Beyond its own,
Because the sea that kissed dead Sappho2 sings
Of strange dark things --
Shapes of bright breasts that purple as the sun
Grows dark and dun,
Of pallid lips more haggard for the kiss
Of Salmacis,3
Of eager eyes that startle for the fear
Too dimly dear
Lest there come death, like passion, and fulfil
Their dreams of ill!
Oh! lift thy forehead to the night's cool wind!
The meekest hind
That fears the noonday in her grove is bold
To seek the gold
So pale and perfect as the moon puts on:
The light is gone.
Hardly as yet one sees the crescent maid
Move, half afraid,
Into the swarthy forest of the air
And breast made bare,
Gather her limbs about her for the chase
Through starry space,
And, while the lilies sway their heads, to bend
Her bow, to send {91A}
A swift white arrow at some recreant star.
The sea is far
Dropped in the hollows of the swooning land.
Oh! hold my hand!
Lift up thy deep eyes to my face, and let
Our lips forget
The dumb dead hours before they met together!
The snowbright weather
Calls us beyond the grassy down, to be
Beside the sea,
The slowly-breathing ocean of the south.
Oh, make thy mouth
A rosy flame like that most perfect star
Whose kisses are
So red and ripe! Oh, let thy limbs entwine
Like love with mine!
Oh, bend thy gracious body to my breast
To sleep, to rest!
But chiefly let thine eyes be set on me,
As when the sea
Lay like a mirror to reflect the shape
Of yonder cape
Where Sappho stood and touched the lips of death!
Thy subtle breath
Shall flow like incense in between our cheeks,
Where pleasure seeks
In vain a wiser happiness. And so
Our whispers low
Shall dim the utmost beauty of thy gaze
Through moveless days
And long nights equable with tranced pleasure:
So love at leisure
Shall make his model of our clinging looks,
And burn his books
To write a new sweet volume deeper much,
And frail to touch,
Being the mirror of a gossamer
Too soft and fair.
This is the hour when all the world is sleeping;
The winds are keeping
A lulling music on the frosty sea.
The air is free, {91B}
As free as summer-time, to sound or cease:
God's utmost peace
Lies like a cloud upon the quiet land.
O little hand!
White hand with rose leaves shed about the tips,
As if my lips
Had left their bloom upon it when they kissed
As if a mist
Of God's delicious dawn had overspread
Their face, and fled!
O wonderful fresh blossom of the wood!
O purpling blood!
O azure veins as clear as all the skies!
O longing eyes
That look upon me fondly to beget
Two faces, set
Either like lowers upon their laughing blue,
Where morning dew
Sparkles with all the passion of the dawn!
The happy lawn
Leads, by the stillest avenues, to groves
Made soft by loves;
And all the nymphs have made a mossy dell
Hard by the well
Where even a Satyr might behold the grace
Of such a face
As his4 who perished for his own delights,
So well requites
That witching fountain his desire that looks.
Two slow bright brooks
Encircle it with silver, and the moon
Strikes into tune
The ripples as they break. For here it was
Their steps did pass,
Dreamy Endymion's and Artemis',5
Who bent to kiss
Across the moss-grown rocks that build the well:
And here they tell {92A}
Of one6 beneath the hoary stone who hid
And watched unbid
When one most holy came across the glade,
Who saw a maid
So bright that mists were dim upon his eyes,
And yet he spies
So sweet a vision that his gentle breath
Sighed into death:
And others say that her the fairies bring
The fairy king,7
And crown him with a flower of eglantine,
And of the vine
Twist him a throne made perfect with wild roses,
And gathered posies
From all the streams that wander through the vale,
And crying, "Hail!
All hail, most beautiful of all our race!"
Cover his face
With blossoms gathered from a fairy tree
Like foam from sea,
So delicate that mortal eyes behold
Ephemeral gold
Flash, and not see a flower, but say the moon
Has shone too soon
Anxious to great Endymion; and this
Most dainty kiss
They cover him him withal, and Dian sees
Through all the trees
No pink pale blossom of his tender lips.
The little ships
Of silver leaf and briar-bloom sail here,
No storm to fear,
Though butterflies be all their mariners.
The whitethroat stirs
The beech-leaves to awake the tiny breeze
That soothes the seas,
And yet gives breath to shake their fairy sails;
Young nightingales,
Far through the golden plumage of the night,
With strong delight {92B}
Purple the evening with amazing song;
The moonbeams throng
In shining clusters to the fairy throat,
Whose clear trills float
And dive and run about the crystal deep
As sweet as sleep.
Only, fair love of this full heart of mine,
There lacks the wine
Our kisses might pour out for them; they wait,
And we are late;
Only, my flower of all the world, the thrush
(You hear him? Hush!)
Lingers, and sings not to his fullest yet:
Our love shall get
Such woodland welcome as none ever had
To make it glad.
Come, it is time, cling closer to my hand.
We understand.
We must go forth together, not to part.
O perfect heart!
O little heart that beats to mine, away
Before the day
Ring out the tocsin for our flight! My ship
Is keen to dip
Her plunging forehead in the silvering sea.
To-morrow we
Shall be so far away, and then to-morrow
Shall shake off sorrow
And be to-morrow and not change for ever:
No dawn shall sever
The sleepy eyelids of the night, no eve
Shall fall and cleave
The blue deep eyes of day. Your hand, my queen!
Look down and lean
Your whole weight on me, then leap out, as light
As swallow's flight,
And race across the shadows of the moon,
And keep the tune
With ringing hoofs across the fiery way.
Your eyes betray
How eager is your heart, and yet -- O dare
To fashion fair
A whole long life of love! Leap high, laugh low!
I love you -- so! -- {93A)
One kiss -- and then to freedom! See the bay
So far away,
But not too far for love! Ring out, sharp hoof,
And put to proof
The skill of him that steeled thee! Freedom! Set
As never yet
Thy straining sides for freedom! Gallant mare!
The frosty air
Kindles the blood within us as we race.
O love! Thy face
Flames with the passion of our happy speed!
The noble steed
Pashes the first gold limit of the sand.
Ah love, thy hand!
We win, no foot pursuing spans the brow!
Yes, kiss me now!
NORTH, by the ice-belt, where the cliffs appease
Innumerable clamour of sundering seas,
And garlands of ungatherable foam
Wild as the horses maddening toward home,
Where through the thunderous burden of the thaw
Rings the sharp fury of the breaking flaw,
Where summer's hand is heavy on the snow,
And springtide bursts the insuperable floe,
North, by the limit of the ocean, stands
A castle, lord of those far footless hands
That are the wall of that most monstrous world
About whose pillars Behemoth is curled,
About whose gates Leviathan is strong,
Whose secret terror sweetens not for song.
The hoarse loud roar of gulphs of raging brine
That break in foam and fire on that divine
Cliff-base, is smothered in the misty air,
And no sound penetrates them, save a rare {93}
Music of sombre motion, swaying slow.
The sky above is one dark indigo
Voiceless and deep, no light is hard within
To shame love's lips and rouse the silky skin
From its dull olive to a perfect white.
For scarce an hour the golden rim of light
Tinges the southward bergs; for scarce an hour
The sun puts forth his seasonable flower,
And only for a little while the wind
Wakes at his coming, and beats cold and blind
On the wild sea that struggles to release
The hard grip from its throat, and lie at ease
Lapped in the eternal summer. But its waves
Roam through the solitude of empty caves
In vain; no faster wheels the moon above;
And still reluctant fly the hours of love.
It is so peaceful in the castle: here
The night of winter never froze a tear
On my love's cheek or mine; no sorrow came
To track our vessel by its wake of flame
Wherein the dolphin bathed his shining side;
No smallest cloud between me and my bride
Came like a little mist; one tender fear,
Too sweet to speak of, closed the dying year
With love more perfect, for its purple root
Might blossom outward to the snowy fruit
Whose bloom to-night lay sleeping on her breast,
As if a touch might stir the sunny nest,
Break the spell's power, and bid the spirit fly
Who had come near to dwell with us. But I
Bend through long hours above the dear twin life,
Look from love's guerdon to the lover-wife,
And back again to that small face so sweet,
And downwards to the little rosy feet,
And see myself no longer in her eyes
So perfectly as here, where passion lies
Buried and re-arisen and complete.
O happy life too sweet, too perfect sweet,
O happy love too perfectly made one
Not to arouse the envy of the sun {94A}
Who sulks six months8 for spite of it! O love,
Too pure and fond for those pale gods above,
Too perfect for their iron rods to break,
Arise, awake, and die for death's own sake!
That one forgetfulness may take us three,
Still three, still one, to the Lethean sea;
That all its waters may be sweet as those
We wandered by, sweet sisters of the rose,
That perfect night before we fled, we two
Who were so silent down that avenue
Grown golden with the moonlight, who should be
No longer two, but one; nor one, but three.
And now it is the spiring; the ice is breaking;
The waters roar; the winds their wings are shaking
To sweep upon the northland; we shall sail
Under the summer perfume of the gale
To some old valley where the altars steam
Before the gods, and where the maidens dream
Their little lives away, and where the trees
Shake laughing tresses at the rising breeze,
And where the wells of water lie profound,
And not unfrequent is the silver sound
Of shepherds tuneful as the leaves are green,
Whose reedy music echoes, clear and clean,
From rocky palaces where gnomes delight
To sport all springtime, where the brooding night
With cataract is musical, and thrushes
Throb their young love beside the stream that rushes
Headlong to beat its foamheads into snow,
Where the sad swallow calls, and pale songs flow
To match the music of the nightingale.
There, where the pulses of the summer fail,
The fiery flakes of autumn fall, and there
Some warm perfection of the lazy air
Swims through the purpling veins of lovers. Hark!
A faint bird's note, as if a silver spark {94B}
Struck from a diamond; listen, wife, and know
How perfectly I love to watch you so.
Wake, lover, wake, but stir not yet the child:
Wake, and thy brow serene and low and mild
Shall take my kisses, and my lips shall seek
The pallid roses on thy perfect cheek,
And kiss them into poppies, and thy mouth
Shall lastly close to mine, as in the south
We see the sun close fast upon the sea;
So, my own heart, thy mouth must close on me.
Art thou awake? Those eyes of wondering love,
Sweet as the dawn and softer than the dove,
Seek no quick vision -- yet they move to me
And, slowly, to the child. How still are we!
Yes, and a smile betokens that they wake
Or dream a waking dream for kisses' sake;
Yes, I will touch thee, O my low sweet brow!
My wife, thy lips to mine -- yes, kiss me now!
HOLY as heaven, the home
Of winds, the land of foam,
The palace of the waves, the house of rain,
Deeper than ocean, dark
As dawn before the lark
Flings his sharp song to skyward, and is fain
To light his lampless eyes
At the flower-folded skies
Where stars are hidden in the blue, to fill
His beak with star-dropt dew,
His little heart anew
With love an song to swell it to his will;
Holy as heaven, the place
Before the golden face {95A}
Of God is very silent at the dawn.
The even keel is keen
To flash the waves between,
But no soft moving current is withdrawn:
We float upon the blue
Like sunlight specks in dew,
And like the moonlight on the lake we lie:
The northern gates are past,
And, following fair and fast,
The north wind drove us under such a sky,
Faint with the sun's desire,
And clad in fair attire
Of many driving cloudlets; and we flew
Like swallows to the South.
The ocean's curving mouth
Smiled day by day and nights of starry blue;
Nights when the sea would shake
Like sunlight where the wake
Was wonderful with flakes of living things
That leapt for joy to feel
The cold exultant keel
Flash, and the white ship dip her woven wings;
Nights when the moon would hold
Her lamp of whitest gold
To see us on the poop together set
With one desire, to be
Alone upon the sea
And touch soft hands, and hold white bosoms yet,
And see in silent eyes
More stars than all the skies
Together hold within their limits gray,
To watch the red lips move
For slow delight of love
Till the moon sigh and sink, and yield her sway
Unto the eastern lord
That draws a sanguine sword
And starts up eager in the dawn, to see
Bright eyes grow dim for sleep,
And lazy bosoms keep
Their slumber perfect and their sorcery,
While dawny winds arise,
And fast the white ship flies {95B}
To those young groves of olive by the shore,
The spring-clad shore we seek
That slopes to yonder peak
Snow-clad, bright-gleaming, as the silver ore
Plucked9 by pale fingers slow
In balmy Mexico,
A king on thunder throned, his diadem
The ruby rocks that flash
The sunlight like a lash
When sunlight touches, and sweeps over them
A crown of light! Behold!
The white seas touch the gold,
And flame like flowers of fire about the prow.
It is the hour for sleep: --
Lulled by the moveless deep
To sleep, sweet wife, to sleep! Yes, kiss me now!
THE wandering waters move about the world,
And lap the sand, with quietest complaint
Borne on the wings of dying breezes up,
To where we make toward the wooded top
Of yonder menacing hill. The night is fallen
Starless and moonless, black beyond belief,
Tremendous, only just the ripple keeps
Our souls from perishing in the inane,
With music borrowed from the soul of God.
We twain go thither, knowing no desire
To lead us; but some strong necessity
Urges, as lightning thunder, our slow steps
Upward. For on the pleasant meadow-land
That slopes to sunny bays, and limpid seas
(That breathe like maidens sleeping, for their breast
Is silver with the sand that lies below,)
Where our storm-strengthened dragon rests at last, {96A}
And by whose borders we have made a home,
More like a squirrel's bower than a house.
For in this blue Sicilian summertime
The trees arch tenderly for lovers' sleep,
And all the interwoven leaves are fine
To freshen us with dewdrops at the dawn,
Or let the summer shower sing through to us,
And welcome kisses of the silver rain
That raps and rustles in the solitude.
But in the night there came to us a cry:
"The mountains are your portion, and the hills
Your temple, and you are chosen." Then I woke
Pondering, and my lover woke and said:
"I heard a voice of one majestical
With waving beard, most ancient, beautiful,
Concealed and not concealed;<<Macroprosopus.>> and awoke,
Feeling a stronger compulsion on my soul
To go some whither." And the dreams were one
(We somehow knew), and, looking such a kiss
As lovers' eyes can interchange, our lips
Met in the mute agreement to obey.
So, girding on our raiment, as to pass
Some whither of long doubtful journeying,
We went forth blindly to the horrible
Damp darkness of the pines above. And there
Strange beasts crossed path of ours, such beasts as earth
Bears not, distorted, tortured, loathable,
Mouthing with hateful lips some recent blood,
or snarling at our feet. But these attacked
No courage of our hearts, we faltered not,
And they fell back, snake's mouth and leopard's throat,
Afraid. But others fawning came behind
With clumsy leapings as in friendliness,
Dogs with men's faces, and we beat them off
With scabbard, and the hideous path wound on.
And these perplexed our goings, for no light
Gleamed through the bare pine-ruins lava-struck, {96B}
Nor even the hellish fire of Etna's maw.
But lucklessly we came upon a pool
Dank, dark, and stagnant, evil to the touch,
Oozing towards us, but sucked suddenly,
Silently, horribly, by slow compulsion
Into the slipping sand, and vanishing,
Whereon we saw a little boat appear,
And in it such a figure as we knew
Was Death. But she, intolerant of delay,
Hailed him. The vessel floated to our feet,
And Death was not. She leapt within, and bent
Her own white shoulders to the thwart, and bade
Me steer, and keep stern watch with sword unsheathed
For fear of something that her soul had seen
Above. And thus upon the oily black
Silent swift river we sailed out to reach
Its source, no longer feeling as compelled,
But led by some incomprehensible
Passion. And here lewd fishes snapped at us,
And watersnakes writhed silently toward
Our craft. But these I fought against, and smote
head from foul body, to our further ill,
For frightful jelly-monsters grew apace,
And all the water grew one slimy mass
Of crawling tentacles. My sword was swift
That slashed and slew them, chiefly to protect
The toiling woman, and assure our path
Through this foul hell. And now the very air
Is thick with cold wet horrors. With my sword
Trenchant, that tore their scaly essences --
Like Lucian's sailor writhing in the clutch
Of those witch-vines -- I slashed about like light,
And noises horrible of death devoured
The hateful suction of their clinging arms
And wash of slipping bellies. Presently
Sense failed, and -- Nothing!
By-and-by we woke
In a most beautiful canoe of pearl
Lucent on lucent water, in a sun {97A}
That was the heart of spring. But the green land
Seemed distant, with a sense of aery height;
As if it were below us far, that seemed
Around. And as we gazed the water grew
Ethereal, thin, most delicately hued,
Misty, as if its substance were dissolved
In some more subtle element. We heard
"O passers over water, do ye dare
To tread the deadlier kingdoms of the air?"
Whereat I cried: Arise! And then the pearl
Budded with nautilius-wings, and upward now
Soared. And our souls began to know the death
That was about to take us. All our veins
Boiled with tumultuous and bursting blood;
Our flesh broke bounds, and all our bones grew fierce,
As if some poison ate us up. And lo!
The air is peopled with a devil-tribe
Born of our own selves. These, grown furious
At dispossession by the subtle air,
Contend with us, who know the agony
Of half life drawn out lingering, who groan
Eaten as if by worms, who dash ourselves
Vainly against the ethereal essences
That make our boat, who vainly strive to cast
Our stricken bodies over the pale edge
And drop and end it all. No nerve obeys;
But in the torn web of our brains is born
The knowledge that release is higher yet.
So, lightened of the devils that possessed
In myriad hideousness our earthier lives,
With one swift impulse, we ourselves shake off
The clinging fiends, and shaking even the boat
As dust beneath our feet, leap up and run
Upward, and flash, and suddenly sigh back
Happy, and rest with limbs entwined at last
On pale blue air, the empyreal floor,
As on a bank of flowers in the old days
Before this journey. So I think we slept.
But now, awaking, suddenly we feel
A sound as if within us, and without,
So penetrating and so self-inspired {97B}
Sounded the voice we knew as God's. The words
Were not a question any more, but said:
"The last and greatest is within you now."
Then fire too subtle and omniscient
Devoured our substance, and we moved again
Not down, not up, but inwards mystically
Involving self in self, and light in light.
And this was not a pain, but peaceable
Like young-eyed love, reviving; it consumed
And consecrated and made savour sweet
To our changed senses. And the dual self
Of love grew less distinct and I began
To feel her heart in mine, her lips in mine. ...
Then mistier grew the sense of God without,
And God was I, and nothing might exist,
Subsist, or be at all, outside of Me,
Myself Existence of Existences.
. . . . .
We had passed unknowing to the woody crown
Of the little hill. There was a secret Vault.
We entered. All without the walls appeared
As fire, and all within as icy light;
The altar was of gold, and on it burnt
Some ancient perfume. Then I saw myself
And her together, as a priest, whose robe
Was white and frail, and covered with a cope
Of scarlet bound with gold: upon the head
A golden crown, wherein a diamond shone;
Within which diamond we beheld our self
The higher priest, not clothed, but clothed upon
With the white brilliance of high nakedness
As with a garment.11 Then of our self there came
A voice: "Ye have attained to That which Is;
Kiss, and the vision is fulfilled." And so
Our bodies met, and, meeting did not touch
But interpenetrated in the kiss
. . . . .
This writing is engraved on lamina
Of silver, found by me, the trusted friend {98A}
And loving servant of my lady and lord,
In that abandoned Vault, of late destroyed
By Etna's fury. Nothing else remained
(Save in the ante-room the sword we knew
So often flashing at the column-head)
Within. I think my lord has written this.
Now for the child, whose rearing is my care,
And in whose life is left my single hope,
This writing shall conclude the book of song
His father made in worship and true love
Of his fair lady, and these songs shall be
His hope, and his tradition, and his pride.
Thus have I written for the sake of truth,
And for his sake who bears his father's sword --
I pray God under my fond guardianship
As worthily. Thus far, and so -- the end.
1. Crowley's biographer will note the astonishing coincidences of scene and incident between this poem and the events of 1903-4.
2. Sappho, the great lyric poet of Greece, plunged from a rock into the sea, according to later tradition.
3. A stream into which a man plunged, and was united, as a Hermaphrodite, with its attendant nymph. The reference is connected with Sappho's loves. See her Ode to Aphrodite and Swinburn's Anactoria and Hermaphroditus.
4. Narcissus, a beautiful youth, inaccessible to love. Echo, a nymph enamoured of him, died of neglect. To punish him, Nemesis caused him to behold his image in a pool; he pined of love for the reflection, and was changed into the flower which still bears his name.
5. The reader may consult Keats's poem of "Endymion."
6. A gentle sophistication of the story of Actaeon who beheld Artemis at the bath, and being changed into a stag, was torn to pieces by her hounds.
7. From sophistication Crowley proceeds to pure invention.
8. In Arctic latitudes the sun hardly rises at all from September to March, and is only visible in the south.
9. Referring to the story of the accidental discovery of the mine of Potosi by a man who, plucking of a plant, found its roots shining with silver.
10. The Spiritual Journey towards the Supreme Knowledge which is life and bliss.
11. See the Description of the robes and crown of the Magus in the"Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage."