Collected Works (Vol. II)

ASCENSION DAY 147 110 115 120 125 135 140 Ho! Iadopt the number. Look At the quaint wrapper of this book ! * I will deserve it ifI can: It is the number of a Man. So since in England Christ still stands With iron nails in bloody hands -Not pierced, but grasping ! to hoist high Children on cross of agony, I find him real for English lives. Up with my pretty pair of fives ! # I fight no ghosts. “But why revile ” (You urge me) ‘“‘in that vicious style The very faith whose truths you seem (Elsewhere) * to hold, to hymn supreme In your own soul?” Perhaps you know How mystic doctrines melt the snow Of any faith : redeem it to A fountain of reviving dew. So I with Christ : but few receive The Qabalistic Balm,*® believe Nothing—and choose to know instead. But, to that terror vague and dread, External worship ; all my lfe— War to the knife! War to the knife! No! on the other hand the Buddha Says: “I’m surprised at you! How coulda Person accept my law and still Use hatred, the sole means of ill, In Truth’s defence? In praise of light ?” Well! Well! I guess Brer Buddha’s right ! I am no brutal Cain * to smash an Abel ; I hear that blasphemy’s unfashionable : So in the quietest way well chat about it ; No need to show teeth, claws of cat about it ! With gentle words—fiat exordium ; Exeat dolor, intret gaudium ! * It had a design of 666 and Crowley's name in Hebrew (which, like most names, adds up to that figure) on the reverse. Necessity of poem. Mysticism wv. literal interpre- tation. Former excused. Buddha re- bukes poet. Detailed scheme of modified poem.