The Star in the West

THE LOOKING -GLASS 23 Yet the little thing who “ stinks and stings ” was not satisfied, the second metaphor actually weakened the effect of the first , etc. , etc. With such have poets to contend , but I do not think such homunculi worry Aleister Crowley much . His poetry is his own , and he gives it us as it is written without respect of persons or opinions , for his masters have been the greatest of our race . In these poems we find a certain preponderance of Swinburne , Blake , Browning , Keats , Shelley , and Rossetti . In the dedication to “ Jephthah ,” which is addressed to Algernon Charles Swinburne , we read the following : As streams get water of the sun -smit sea , Seeking my ocean and my sun in thee . 1 And this discipleship to the greatest and last of the Victorian poets has given us many a subtle and enthralling line . The scene when Charicles wakes and catches Archais to his breast is worthy of the bard who sang of “ Tristram and Iseult.” It is as follows : He sprang , he caught her to his breast ; the maid Smiled and lay back to look at him . He laid Her tender body on the sloping field , And felt her sighs in his embraces yield A sweeter music than all birds . But she , Lost in the love she might not know , may see No further than his face, and yet, aware Of her own fate , resisted like a snare Her own soft wishes . As she looked and saw His eager face, the iron rod of law Grew like a misty pillar in the sky . In all her veins the blood's desires die, 2 Jephthah , vol. i, p. 66.