Collected Works (Vol. II)

ASCENSION DAY 151 Are dumb, the drum doth come and make us mute: The Englishman, half huckster and half brute, 260 Raves through his silk hat of the Absolute. The British Don, half pedant and half hermit, Begins: ‘‘The Ding an sich *—as Germans term it—” We stop him short ; he readjusts his glasses, Turns to his folio—'twill eclipse all precedent, 265 Reveal God’s nature, every dent a blessed dent ! The Donkey : written by an ass, for asses. So, with permission, let us be Orthodox to our finger-ends ; What the bulk hold, High Church or Friends, 270 Or Hard-shell Baptists—and we'll see. I will not now invite attack By proving white a shade of black, Or Christ (as some have lately tried) | An epileptic maniac, Citing some cases, “ where a dose Of Bromide duly given in time Drags a distemper so morose At last to visions less sublime ; Soft breezes stir the lyre Aeolian, 280 No more the equinoctial gales ; The patient reefs his mental sails ; His Panic din that shocked the Tmolian * Admits a softer run of scales— Seems no more God, but mere Napoleon 285 Or possibly the Prince of Wales” :— Concluding such a half-cured case With the remark ‘“ where Bromide fails !— But Bromide people did not know Those 1900 years ago.” 290 I think we may concede to Crowley an Impartial attitude. to=~!bot) And so I scorn the thousand subtle points Wherein a man might find a fulcrum 205 (Ex utero Matris ad sepulcrum, * Vide infra, Science and Buddhism, and the writings of Immanuel Kant and his successors. Basis of poem to be that of the Compro- mise of 1870. Non-medical nature of poem. Crowley J. No mention will be made of the Figs and the Pigs.