Collected Works (Vol. I)

JEPHTHAH 77 Fought he against us, while three hundred years © We dwelt in Hl[eshbon and her towns, and Aroer And her white cities, and by Ammon’s coast? Why therefore did ye not recover them Then and not now? I have not sinned against thee ; But thou dost me foul wrong to bring thy sword And torch of rapine in my pleasant land. Between the folk of Ammon and the folk Of Israel this day be God the judge. [Exzt Second Herald. ELEAZAR. Well spoken: but the ear that will not hear Is deafer than the adder none may charm. JEPHTHAH. IT know it, and will not await the answer. But dawn shall see a solemn sacrifice, And solemn vows, and long swords glittering, And moving columns that shall shake the earth With firm and manly stride; and victory Most like a dove amid the altar-smoke. CHORUS. We, passing here the night in prayer, will wait And with thee offer up propitious doves, And firstline males of all the flocks of us, JEPIVITIATE. Not so: but [ will have you hence in haste To gather food and arins and carriages, That all our soldiers may have sustenance, And fresher weapons. I alone will spend The long hours with Jehovah, at His throne. And wrestle with the accuser. ‘So, depart ! CHorus, When the countenance fair of the morning And the lusty bright limbs of the day Race far through the west for a warning Of mght that is evil and gray ; When the light by the southward is dwindled, And the clouds as for sleep are unfurled, The moon in the east is rekindled, The hope of the passionate world. The stars for a token of glory Flash fire in the eyes of the night, And the holy immaculate story Of Heaven is flushed into light. For the night has a whisper to wake us, And the sunset a blossom to kiss, And the silences secretly take us To the well of the water that is?; For the darkness is pregnant with being, As earth that is glad of the rain, And the eyes? that are silent and seeing Are free of the trammels of pain. Like light through the portals they ? bounded, Their lithe limbs with cruelty curled, And the noise of their crying resounded To kindle the death of the world. For the heaven at sunset is sundered ; Its gates to the sages unclose, ‘And through waters that foamed and that wondered There flashes the heart of a rose; In its petals are beauty and passion, In its stem the foundation of earth, Its bloom the incarnadine fashion Of blessings that roar into birth ; And the gates+ that roll back on their hinges The soul of the sage may discern, Till the water® with crimson that tinges Beyond them miraculous burn ; And the presence of God to the senses Is the passion of God in the mind, As the string of a harp that intenses The note that its fire may not find, For here in the tumult and Jabour And blindness of cowering man, ' This emphatic use of ‘' to be” as a princi- paul verb is very common with Crowley, who thereby wishes to distinguish between the noumenon and the phenomenon, 2 The eyes of Jehovah: they are 700,000 spirits. See Idra Rabba Qadishah, xxxi. 4 “The eves. 1 The gates of Binah—understanding, 5 Binah, the great Sea. The colour of crimson is attributed to it by certain Qabalists.