Jephthah and Other Mysteries

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. 5