The Book of Lies

**Mr. Aleister Crowley has set his metrical skill to the congenial business of a rhyming symbolic legend. He has succeeded uncommonly well. The line runs easily; there is loads of colour and poetic force about it, and the atmosphere of a remote, almost religious purpose; while Mr. Crowley has kept a tight hold on the archaic diction, he has used it happily, and successfully avoided the tricks and concéits that one might have expectedin such a venture.”—Manchester Guardian. Hail Mary. 1s. ‘Thisis a garland of some fifty or sixty devo- tional hymns to the Virgin, in which the author, while not exceeding the bounds of Catholic ortho- doxy, fills his verses with quaint and charming conceits, very muchin the style of the‘ metaphysi- cal’ poets of the seventeenth century, Indeed, in turning over the pages of ‘ Amphora,’ as the little volume was entitled when published ‘anonymously two years ago, by Burns and Oates, we feel them to be the work of a recipient of the tradition of Vaughan the Silurist, George Herbert, and Cra- shaw, although Mr. Crowleyis smooth where they are rugged, plain where they are perplexing. ‘*These poems indicate a mind full of earnest aspiration towards his spiritual Queen, a mind of an engaging zaiveté, untroubled by the religious and philosophical problems which weary more com- plex intelligences. This little work can be cordially recommended to Catholic readers.”—Paris Daily Mail. “We crave for poetry in England, but we do not like poets, unless they are exceeding conventional when we can laureate them, becausein the national search for whatis called character we condemn the vagaries which are the attributes of genius. Every school-girl reads Shelley, yet how badly we treated him! Byronis not allowed to rest in Poet’s Corner. We treated Swinburne as if he were Crippen. And we have treated Mr. Aleister Crowleyin much the same way. Yet Mr. Crowleyis one of our few real poets. He has written thingsin ‘Ambergris’ which will never die. Some years ago a little book of verse appeared, called ‘Amphora,’ which being anony- 129 i