The Sword of Song

NOTES 59 Browning to be called “Ascension Day and Pentecost” was conceived (and resolved upon) on Friday, November 15, 1901. On that day I left Ceylon, where I had been for several months, practising Hindu meditations, and exposing the dishonesty of the Missionaries, in the intervals of big game shooting. The follow-ing day I wrote “Ascension Day,” and “Pente-cost” on the Sunday, sitting outside the dak-bangala at Madura. These original drafts were small as compared to the present poems. Ascension Day consisted of :— p. 2,* I flung . . . p. 4, Pray do . . . p. 5, “But why . . . p. 7, Here’s just . . . p. 9, I will . . . to p. 18, . . . but in Hell ! . . . p. 19, You see . . . to end. Pentecost consisted of :— p. 22, To-day . . . p. 26, How very hard . . . to p. 28, “Proceed !” . . . p. 30, Nor lull my soul . . . to p. 32, . . . and the vision. p. 34, How easy . . . to end. “Berashith” was written at D elhi, March 20 and 21, 1902. Its original title w as “Crowley- mas Day.” It was issued privately in Paris in January 1903. It and “Science and Buddhism” are added to complete the logical sequence from 1898 till now . A ll, how ever, has been repeatedly revised. Wherever there seemed a lacuna in the argument an insertion was made, till all appeared a perfect chrysolite. Most of this was done, while the weary hours of the summer (save the mark !) of 1902 rolled over Camp Misery and Camp Despair on the Chogo Ri Glacier, in those rare intervals when one’s preoccuption with lice, tinned food, malaria, insoaking water, general soreness, mental misery, and the everlasting snowstorm gave place to a momentary glimmer of any higher form of intelligence than that ever necessarily concentrated on the actual business of camp life. The rest, and the final revision, occupied a good deal of my time during the winter of 1902-1903. The MS. was accepted by the S. P. R. T. in May of this year, and after a post- final revision, rendered necessary by my Irish descent, went to press. 618. Each life bound over to the wheel.72— Cf. Whatley, “Revelation of a Future State.” [* These page r eferences have been alter ed to conform to the pagination of this e-text– T.S.] 652. This, that, the other atheist’s death73— Their stories are usually untrue ; but let us follow our plan, and grant them all they ask. 709. A cannibal.74—This w ord is inept, as it predicates humanity of Christian-hate- Christian. J’accuse the English language : anthropo- phagous must always remain a comic word. 731. The Flaming Star.75—Or Pentagram, mystically referred to Jeheshua. 732. Zohar.76—“Splendour,” the three Central Books of the Dogmatic Qabalah. 733. Pigeon.77—Says an old writer, whom I translate roughly : “Thou to thy Lamb and Dove devoutly bow, But leave me, prithee, yet my Hawk and Cow : And I approve thy G reybeard dotard’s smile, If thou wilt that of Egypt’s crocodile.” 746. Lost ! Lost ! Lost !78—See The Lay of the Last Minstrel. 759. Ain Elohim.79—“There is no God !” so our Bible. But this is really the most sublime affirmation of the Q abalist. “A in is God” For the meaning of Ain, and of this idea, see “Berashith,” infra. The “fool” is He of the Tarot, to whom the number 0 is attached, to make the meaning patent to a child. “I insult your idol,” quoth the good missionary ; “ he is but of dead stone. He does not avenge himself. He does not punish me.” “I insult your god,” replied the Hindu ; “he is invisible. He does not avenge himself, nor punish me.” “My God will punish you when you die !” “So, when you die, will my idol punish you !” No earnest student of religion or draw poker should fail to commit this anecdote to memory. 767. Mr Chesterton.80—I must take this opportunity to protest against the charge brought by Mr. Chesterton against the English- men “who write philosophical essays on the splendour of Eastern thought.” If he confines his strictures to the translators of that well-known Eastern work the “Old Testament” I am w ith him ; any modern Biblical critic w ill tell him w hat I mean. It took a long time, too, for the missionaries (and Tommy Atkins) to discover that “Budd” was not a “great Gawd.” But then they did not want to, and in any case sympath and in- telligence are not precisely the most salient qualities in either soldiers or missionaries. But nothing is more absurd than to compare men like Sir W. Jones, Sir R. Burton, Von Hammer-Purgstall, Sir E. Arnold, Prof. Max Müuller, Me, Prof. Rhys Davis, Lane, and the rest of our illustrious Orientalists to the poor