Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1898 · PDF PAGE 116

Songs of the Spirit

…emis’ arrows are fleeter than rays of the moon. My hope in the ocean was founded, Nor changed for the wind and the tide ; My love by the heaven was bounded, And knew not a barrier beside ; My faith beyond heaven was grounded, as God to abide. Though death be the stain on our roses, The roses of heaven are white ; Though day on the world of us closes, The stars only dream of the night As of music that roars and reposes and dies in delight. 106

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1898 · PDF PAGE 110

Songs of the Spirit

…t, Went out. So lonely in mysterious night A wild, strange light Flickers around the sacred head of man, And bids him scan The scroll of heaven, and see if there be not, Black with no blot Of cloud, but golden lettered on the blue That mothers dew, This message of good hope, good trust, good fate And good estate : Work on, hope ever, let your faith be built Of gold ungilt ; Your love exceed the starry vault for height, The heaven for might ; 100

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1898 · PDF PAGE 73

Songs of the Spirit

…ST, like a star at sea Thrice loved, thrice blest, Burns. Will there come to me Rest ? By these suppressed Desires my soul must flee, By heaven’s crest, I pray that secretly Toward God’s breast I draw, to find, maybe, Rest ! 63

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1898 · PDF PAGE 90

Songs of the Spirit

A RONDEL. THE wail of the wind in the desolate land Lifts voice where the heaven lies pallid and blind ; Sweeps over the hills from the sea and the sand The wail of the wind. The earth gives a bleak echo back, and behind Lurk sorrows and sins in the grasp of a hand, And love and despair are the lords of mankind. The mountains are steadfast ; immutably grand, Bid me to their bosom the chain to unbind : At peace and at pity I now understand The wail of the wind. 80

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1898 · PDF PAGE 95

Songs of the Spirit

…and content my brow, My eyes are large and deep. The morning shall behold On feet and plumes of gold My spirit soon enfold The flocks on heaven’s steep. Refreshed, encouraged, lightened, Sent on the Way Whose Sun and Star have brightened From dawning into day, I set my face, a flint, Toward where the holy glint Of lamps affords the hint That leads me—where it may. 85

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1898 · PDF PAGE 109

Songs of the Spirit

…irth New thoughts with which life long has travailed ; As if one dead Should rise and utter secrets of the tomb, And from hell’s womb Or heaven’s breast bring all the load of fears, Toils of long years, Sorrows of life and agonies of death, Hard caught-up breath, The labouring hands of love, the cheeks of shame, The gloomy flame 99

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1898 · PDF PAGE 89

Songs of the Spirit

…lifts his eyelids, but his dreams lend eyes their light. So dreams and days are wed, And soul and body lie Ambrosial in Love’s bed. See, heaven with stars is spread— So glad of life am I If an angel came to call me I am sure I would not die. 79

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1898 · PDF PAGE 99

Songs of the Spirit

… The foam-born lamp of beaten gold And secret might ; Because my forehead bears the sacred name, And my lips bear the brand Of Him whose heaven is one flame, Whose holy hand Gathers this earth, who built the vaults of space, Moulded the stars, and fixed the iron sea, Because His love lights through my face And all of me. Because my hand may fasten on the sword If my heart falter not, and smite Those lampless limits most abhorred Of iron night, 89

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1898 · PDF PAGE 97

Songs of the Spirit

…ror the sharp sea That slept, and wove its golden hair Most mournfully ; The rending of the earth at his command Who wields the wrath of heaven, and is dumb ; Hell starts up—and before his hand Is overcome. It heard these voices, and beheld afar These dread works wrought at his behest : And on his forehead, lo ! a star, And on his breast. 87

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1898 · PDF PAGE 103

Songs of the Spirit

…ils hope at last, To the unburied peace ; To gladden the reluctant past With silent harmonies. The song grows wilder now and strives All heaven to enchain, As who should grasp a thousand lives, And draw their breath again Into some cavern where he dives, A hell of grisly pain. And now behold ! the barren Cross Bursts out in vernal flowers ; The music weeps, as on the moss The summer’s kissing showers, And there sweep, as sweeps an albatross, The happy-hearted hours. 93

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1898 · PDF PAGE 104

Songs of the Spirit

…s grow more eager now, God smites within the host, White fires illuminate my brow Lit of the Holy Ghost ; I see the angel figures bow On heaven’s silent coast. Eternity, a wheel of light, And Time, a fleece of snow, I saw, and deep beyond the night, The steady mystic glow Of that lamp’s flame unearthly bright That watches Earth below. Long avenues of sleepy trees And bowers arched with love, And kisses woven for a breeze, And lips that scarcely move, Save as long ripples on the seas, That murmur like a dove. I saw the burning lips of God Set fa…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 98

Songs of the Spirit

… about his brow, Yet, for the whiteness of my own desire, I see him now ; Because my footsteps follow his, and tread The awful bounds of heaven, and make 88

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1898 · PDF PAGE 30

Songs of the Spirit

…leep’s angel clings About the children with her dreamy wings, And all the world is silent for a space. The waving of thy dusky plumes in heaven Alone breathes gentle music to mine ears, So that despair is fain to flee, and fear Cowers far away amid the shades of even. “ Hope, ” is thy whisper, “ hope, and trust in Night ; My realm is the eternal, and my power The absolute. My child, gird on thy strength ; Clothe limbs with lustiness, and mind with might, That, communing with me, though for an hour, Thou mayest conquer when day comes at length.”…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 37

Songs of the Spirit

…ces, A spectre-flame, through midnight’s infamy. My blood grows chill and stagnant with my shame. O Love, to speak thy name ! O Life ! O Heaven ! O dreams long dead ! Ye Spirits Rising unbidden from Hope’s cobwebbed door, Ye quick desires that every soul inherits, Leave me to weep, and torture me no more ! My face grows grey with sheer despair ; I shrink From dreams ; I dare not think. I had a poet’s dreams. My soul was yearning To grasp the firmament and hold it fast, 27

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1898 · PDF PAGE 36

Songs of the Spirit

…terred In the deep water where the pebbles gleam. I rouse the force persistent of my will To compel matter to the soul’s desire, To make Heaven aid the mind that would aspire To touch its borders, and to drink their fill At those far fountains whence one drop of dew Descends upon my head from yonder blue. 26

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1898 · PDF PAGE 111

Songs of the Spirit

…ood from swollen veins forced in bitter toil To win some spoil Of knowledge from the caverns of the deep. So shall the steep Pathways of heaven gleam with loftier fires Than earth’s desires. So shalt thou conquer Space, and lastly climb The walls of Time, And by the golden path the great have trod Reach up to God ! ” 101

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1898 · PDF PAGE 14

Songs of the Spirit

…e, and vain eyes desire In vain to weep. Woeful our gaze, if on Ione Earth descendent, To view the absence of yon flame afar— Yet in the Heavens, anew, divine, resplendent, Behold a star ! One light the less, that steady flamed and even Amid the dusk of Earth’s uncertain shore ; One light the less, but in Jehovah’s Heaven One star the more ! 4

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1898 · PDF PAGE 51

Songs of the Spirit

THE FAREWELL OF PARACELSUS TO APRILE. THOU Sun, whose swift desire to-day is dull, And all ye hosts of heaven, whose lips are mute, And trees and flowers and oceans beautiful Among whose murmurs I have struck this lute With joy supreme or agony acute, And love transcending everything alway, Pity me, pity, since the poisonous root Of parting strikes the beauty of the day ; We meet for the last time beside the ocean gray. Soul of my soul, we never can forget— But, is our parting burnt across the skies ? Is the last word said ? Must our lips be se…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 32

Songs of the Spirit

…n them, who stood like death, Our Lady of ten thousand Pains With heavy kissing breath. I said : Our Lady is as God, Her hell of pain as heaven above ; Death’s feet, like Sleep’s, with fire are shod, And Lust is likest Love. Our Lady crushed me in her bed, Between her breasts my life was wet ; My lips from that sweet death were fed ; I died, and would forget. 22

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1898 · PDF PAGE 6

Songs of the Spirit

… hold high commune with the wind That sings, in midnight black and blind, Strange chants, the murmurs of the mind, To grasp the hands of heaven and find the lords of light. Mine was the holy fire that drew Its perfect passion from the dew, And all the flowers that blushed and blew On sunny slopes by little brooks. Mine the desire that brushed aside The thorns, and would not be denied, And sought, more eager than a bride, The cold grey secrets wan and wide of sacred books. Thine was the hand that guided me By moor and mountain, vale and lea, And…

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