Collected Works (Vol. I)

198 THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GHOST Ye airs, ye veils; ye bucklers of the Snake ! I knew the decpest cells, Where the foul spirit dwells ; Called to the dead, the drowsed, arise! awake ! Their dark profoundest thought Was less than She I sought, It was as nought ! I drew my soul, I dived beneath the burning lake. Thrice, in the vault of Hell, my Word was born, Abortive, in the empty wilderness. False echoes, made malicious, turn to scorn The awful accents, the Supreme address. The Fourth, the final word ! All chaos shrank and heard The terror that vibrated in the breath. Hell, Death, and Sin must hear, Tremble and visibly fear, Shake the intangible chain that hungereth. That Mother of Mankind Sprang in the thunder-wind ! The strong words bind For evermore, Amen! the keys of Hell and Death.! Central, supreme, most formidable, Night Gathered its garments, drew itself apart ; Gaunt limbs appear athwart the coprolite Veil of deep agony, display the heart ; Even as a gloomy sea, Wherein dead fishes be, Poisonous things, nameless ; the eightfold Fear, Misshapen crab and worm, The intolerable sperm, Lewd dragons slime-built. foul mere Crawled, moved, gave tongue, The essential soul of dung That lived and stung ; That spoke: no word that living head may hear ! Stagnant, the 1 Rev. i. 18. Even as a veil imaging Beauty’s eyes Behind, lifted, lets flash the maiden face ; So that dead putrefying sea supphes A veil to the unfathomable Place. Behind it grew a form, Wrapped in its own dire storm, Dark fires of horror about it and within, A changing, dreadful Shape: Now a distorted ape ; Now an impending vampire, vast and lean ; Last, a dark woman pressed The world unto her breast, Soothed and caressed With evil words and kisses of the mouth of Sin. The Breath of men adoring. ‘‘ Worship we! ‘““The mighty Wisdom, the astounding power, "©The Horror, the immense profundity, ‘¢ The stealthy, secret paces of thy Bower ! ‘* Thee we adore and praise ‘Whose breast is broad as day’s ; ‘¢Thee, thee, the mistress of the barren sea, ‘‘Deep, deadly, poisonous ; ‘* Accept the life of us, ‘¢Dwell in our midst; yea, show thy cruelty ! “Suck out the life and breath ‘* From breast that quickeneth ! ‘¢ Such pain is death, ‘‘Such terror, such delight—all, all is unto thee !” I too, I also, I have known thy kiss. I also drank the milk that poisons man, Sought to assume the impenetrable bliss By spells profound and draughts Canidian.! One lifted me: and, lo! Thalassian,? white as snow, 1 Canidia, a sorceress of Rome in the time of Horace, who attacked her. 2 From Oadacoa, the sea. But Crowley always uses the word as exalting, idealising, personifying the idea.