The Equinox (Volume I, Number VIII)

HOMAGE PRELIMINARY The world of stranger deities and loves Than haunted Ida, or were hidden in The Cretan bowers, the Eleusinian groves, A world that trembles on thy Violin, Eager to be—and then the curtain drops Just as thy music, with my heart’s pulse, stops, Nay! To this world of ours they shall not reach. My rimes are shadows dancing in the breeze By moonlight; there is no delight in speech Such as the silence of our own heart’s ease; But even thy shadow is itself a sun Το the bleak universe of Everyone. Then open sesame! The fairy cavern Of gold and gems, strange land of misty truth, As witches‘ eyes in a polluted tavern Glow with the vampire vanity of youth Stolen from maids, so let thine own eyes shine In this fantastic mystery of thine! Thine eyes are love and truth and loyalty; Thine eyes are mystery unveiled to one. Let them ray forth incarnate deity Fit to assoil the eclipse—attainted sunl Let them point still my weather—beaten soul Infallibly the pathway of the pole! ALEISTER CROWLEV. xxxi