enthusiasm for his poem on the Cam bynight. The faults in
these poems, which are obvious and abundant, can no doubt be
easily cured, especially the technical ones, such as the omission
of a line in one stanza of the Dedication, and the scanning of
flower as a dissyllable. Mr. Crowley has the instinct, and it is
that which in the end is its own reward. When he has more
years behind him he will no longer think it necessary to make
such a statement, rash alike in admission and in prophesy, as
this
a *I will not turn to Sodom any more.’”
—The J. C. R.
“We have received for review a little book of poems entitled
* Songs of the Spirit,’ by Aleister Crowley, whose initials ‘A. C.’
are not unknown to readers of ‘The Cantab’ and ‘ The Granta.’
Though we cannot identify ourselves with the sentiments ex-
pressed in its pages, we must acknowledge that the poems show
very considerable literary merit. Here is a description of the
Cam:
‘The corpse-lit river, whose dank vapours teem
Heavy and horrible, a deadly steam
Of murder’s black intolerable might.’ *
—TZhe Cantab.
“We imagine Mr. Aleister Crowley, author of ‘Songs of the
Spirit’ (Kegan Paul), to be a young man ; evidently he is just
passing through the Swinburnian epoch. His verse is full of
the influence of ‘Poems and Ballads’; it contains a riot of
words without much thought at the back of them. We seem,
for example, to have heard this sort of thing a good many times
before :
‘The garland I made in my sorrow
Was woven of infinite peace;
The joy that was white on the morrow
Made music of viols at ease.
The thoughts of the Highest would borrow
The roar of the seas.’
And yet, despite a good deal of bombast about ‘lust being one
with love,’ and the like, Mr. Crowley has many poetical
qualities, and a good deal of promise. His muse is windy, and
boyish in over-emphasis, but he has a true sense of musical
sound, and, metrically, he has scarcely a bad line. He should
mature and live to write very respectable verse.- We doubt if
he will ever be original ; but in the middle way of discipleship
he ought to do well enough.” —Liserature.
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