THE VIRGIN
69
“
Can that have been human ? ” I see you point through
the drizzling
night to a cramped and shivering
form
.
Can that have been a woman ? That living
death , de
graded by crime , brutalized by vice , vitiated , unsouled ;
lower
than
a slave , worse
than
a dog ;
spurned by
man , shunned by woman , a human wreck , a growing
horror ? Even so , once a smiling girl , sweet as a rose ,
pure as a lily ; now the bedraggled
gin -sodden har
ridan .
O ! marriage , thy name
is Failure
: 0 ! priest ,
what hast thou done ? Cramped
the human mind , be
trayed thy trust , sacrificed love on the altar of Mam
mon , leaving
the heart as a blighted
flower , the soul
as a hollow shell , void , execrable .
Even love is sold , the solace of all woe
Is turned to deadliest agony , old age
Shivers in selfish beauty's loathing arms
And youth's corrupted impulses prepare
A life of horror from the blighting
bane
Of commerce ; whilst the pestilence that springs
From unenjoying sensualism, has filled
All human
life with hydra -headed
woes.
So
sang
Shelley .
Now
let
us
turn
to
Aleister
Crowley , and
we shall
find
his ideal
no
less
great ,
noble
and true
than that of
Shelley's ,
the
divinest
of
the
poets and pioneers
of Truth , Freedom , and
Beauty .
Love
is
the
finding
in others what
others cannot
find in them , and it is of two degrees .
The love of a
mother towards
her child ; and the
love of man and
“ large as this total may appear , it is not improbable that it is
below the reality than above it.
One thing
is certain
—if it be
an exaggerated
statement -that the
real number is swollen
every succeeding year , for prostitution is an inevitable
attend
ant upon
extended civilization
and increased
population .”
London Labour and London Poor , p. 213.