Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1905 · PDF PAGE 64

Orpheus

The laughing companies of corn awaken, Their wind-swept waves by Dzdal music taken Into a golden heaven of festal song. We shake and glisten in the sun, we see The very soul and majesty of thee Thrill in the lyre and leave the lazy long Notes for crisp magic of sharp rustling sound, And thy life quickens and thy loves abound, Listening the answer of our dancing throng. Joy, sleep, peace, laughter, thought, remembrance, came Even at our prelude, a death-quickening flame, And earth rejoiced throughout to hear Demeter’s name. We come, in bass deep…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 52

Orpheus

What light of love Your depth endued ? Come forth! I invoke ye, O wells, ye dwellers of dim solitude! THE WELLS Deep and calm to heaven’s mirror Through the cedarn grove or ashen, Willow-woven, or cypress terror, To the sky’s less serene fashion Still we look: around our margin Holy priestess, longing lover, Poet musing, vagrant virgin, Nor their own mild looks discover, But the light and glow of that they are meditating over. ORPHEUS O curves unbeholden, Bright glory of bays! Deep gulfs grown golden With dawn and its ways! With sunset enfolden…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 117

Orpheus

… soul stand up and look upon the sun! Save only mine !|—that my voice may confound The universe, and spell the mighty sound To shake all heaven and earth, to mingle hell In chaos, in some limitless profound ; That it may tear Olympus from its place, Mix it with Hades, change the Ocean space, _ Level the tides of time that sink and swell, And curse my very father to his face! O father, father Apollo, did I wrong Thy chariot and thy horses in my song? Why clove thine arrow the unseated air, The heaven void of thee, why the thunder-thong Slipped f…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 36

Orpheus

Ruthless, fearless, Imperial, peerless, Creep I or climb. Nought withstands me, Bursts me or brands me; Nor Heaven commands me, Nor Space, nor Time. Above, the Supernal ! Below, the infernal! Of all am I master. On Earth, the diurnal! In all things eternal! Life, love, or disaster! Abiding unshaken, I sleep and I waken On wonderful wings ; In depth and in height, In darkness and light, In weakness and might, In blindness and sight, In mercy and spite, In day and in night, Averse or aright, For dule or delight, I am master of things. ORPHEUS O m…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 49

Orpheus

THE MOUNTAIN TORRENTS Falling fast or lingering love-wise, Gathered into mirror-lakes, Floating sprayed through heaven dovewise, Dreaming, dashing; sunlight shakes Into million-coloured petals All our limpid drops, and wraps Earth with green, as water settles On the rocks and in their gaps, Mossy rainbow-tinted maidens, flowers and fernshoots in their laps. ORPHEUS Low down in the hollows And vales of the earth, What eagle-sight follows Your length and green girth? Your light is Apollo’s, Diana’s your mirth! Come forth! I invoke ye, O rivers, I…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 90

Orpheus

O beaten and blind In the light of my face! Heaven thunders behind, Hell shakes for a space, As I fling the loud sound to the sky, and the vaults of the Earth give place. O mystical tune Of a magic litten Of music, the moon, The stars unsmitten, The sun, the unhewn Stones deeply bitten By runic fingers of time, where decrees of the Fates are written| Time listens, obeys me; All Nature replies ; Nought avoids me, nor stays me, Not checks, nor defies. Tribute she pays me From seas unto skies. But Death—shall he heed me or hear? shall he list to t…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 42

Orpheus

…! the hills are aglow. THE SNOW Bright breasts I uncover, Heart’s heart to thy gaze ; O lyre of my lover, I know thee, thy praise. Black heavens that hover, Blind air that obeys, I come to thee over The mountainous ways As a bride to the bridegroom: I blush, but I come And bow to thee dumb. ORPHEUS O blacker than hell, O bluer than heaven, O green as the dell Lit of sunlight at even! O strong as a spell! O bright as the levin ! Come forth! I invoke thee, O ice, by their anguish, the rocks thou hast riven! THE ICE My steep-lying masses, Mine inn…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 132

Orpheus

Gathering the tears that heaven had wept, The water glows and burns In sunlight, where no shadows crept Around the lazy turns. All on a sudden silence came Athwart some avenue Where through the trees arrowed the flame From the exultant blue ; And all the water-way became One heart of glittering dew. The waters narrowed for a space Between twin rocks confined, Carven like Gods for poise and grace, Like miracles for mind: Each fashioned like a kissing face, The eyes for joy being blind. The waters widened in a pool, Broad mirror of blue light. Th…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 14

Orpheus

EXORDIUM FRoM darkness of fugitive thought, From problems bewildering the brain, Deep lights beyond heaven unsought, Dead faces seen dimly in rain ; From the depths of Mind’s caverns, the fire Reclaims the old magical lyre; The ways of creation are nought, If only, O mother, O Muse, I may measure Thy melodies in me again ! How wayward, how feeble the child Three watched from the stars at his birth ; Erato the fierce and the mild ; Polymnia grave ; and the girth Broad-girdled of gold and desire, Melpomene’s terrible lyre, That lifts up her life …

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1905 · PDF PAGE 59

Orpheus

…easted To evening’s strife, Where skies were nested With mist for a wife! Leave echo, and speak for yourselves: let your song pierce the heaven asaknife! __ 60

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1905 · PDF PAGE 93

Orpheus

…hunder that mutter behind ? How strange is the dark And the silence around ! Hardly the spark Of my silvery sound Moves, or may mark The heaven’s dim bound. How strange! I have sought him in vain—perchance not in vain have I found! No! Life thrills in me; Vibrates on the lyre; The Fates still spin me Their thread of desire : Still, woo and win me Soft eyes, and the dire Low fervour of sensual phrase, song kin to the nether- most fire! 94

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1905 · PDF PAGE 57

Orpheus

…wind, Green leaves that have sounded My harp in your kind, Light boughs that are rounded, Grey tops that are shrined In the tears of the heaven as they fall in the blackening storm grown blind! 58

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1905 · PDF PAGE 133

Orpheus

…s. Now, at the last, the western end, Most miracle of all! The groves of rock dispart and rend Their sacred cincture-wall ; All tunes of heaven their rapture lend To make the waterfall. There, steaming from the haze and mist Where dew is dashed in spray, Rises a halo sunrise-kissed And kissed at close of day From ruby unto amethyst, Within the veil of grey. And there within the circled light I saw a dancing thing, Most like the tender-leavéd night Of moonrise seen in spring, A shadow luminous and white Like a ghost beckoning. And then dim visio…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 92

Orpheus

…In their mountain of light? Is thy fugitive way Lost in uttermost night? Shalt thou not obey, Or my lyre not affright, If I call thee by Heaven and Earth with a God’s tumultu- ous might? If I curse thee or chide — Shalt thou tremble not, Thou ? Not move thee and hide From the light of my brow? Shall my arrows divide Not the heart of thee now? Art thou cased in strong iron to mock the spells that all others avow ? Art thou muffled or hidden In adamant brass? Is my music forbidden In Orcus to pass? Have I cursed thee and chidden? My flesh being g…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 139

Orpheus

…than the Sphinx, The ineffable iynx Heralds thy splendour swooning into sense, When from the bluest bowers And greenest-hearted hours Of Heaven thou smilest toward earth, a miracle of flowers! Down to the loveless sea Where lay Persephone Violate, where the shade of earth is black, Crystalline out of space Flames the immortal face! The glory of the comet-tailéd track Blinds all black earth with tears. Silence awakes and hears The music of thy moving come over the starry spheres. Wrapped in rose, green and gold, Blues many and manifold, A cloud …

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1905 · PDF PAGE 53

Orpheus

…low hem Of earth’s mantle, or war on her crags, I am one, and my soul is in them. I am mother of earth and her daughter ; I am father of heaven and his son ; 54

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1905 · PDF PAGE 125

Orpheus

…tine, Twining and leaping without end or bound, Inevitable as the grasp of Fate :— Thou, reft of her by envy of thy mate Didst shake the heaven with bellowings undivine, And rooted stars from their primeval state. Not without law, sayest thou? Almighty Zeus, Am I not also mothered of a Muse? Let there be law! untimely to release This soul untinctured of the Stygian dews, Unsprinkled of Lethean lotus-drops! Life grows so steadily, so sudden stops— (Surely no part in Nature’s moving peace !) Thus, when the young, like tempest-stricken crops 126

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1905 · PDF PAGE 15

Orpheus

…igher Did Calliope string thee her lyre, Thy mother: and veiled her in night :-— For thyself to Herself art a veil till the veils of the Heaven be rended and ended. Now, single myself as thy soul, I pray to Apollo indeed! Fling forth to the starriest goal My spirit, invoking his rede ; Care nought for his mercy or ire ; Reach impious hands to his lyre. Determined to die or control _ Those strings the immortal at last, though the strings of this heart of me bleed. Come life, or come death ; come disdain Or honour from mutable men, I cry in this …

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1905 · PDF PAGE 99

Orpheus

…in glory, gathered of the foam. The sea’s flower folded, charioting me risen Where dawn’s rose stole from its pearl-glimmering home, And heaven laughed, and earth: and mine old prison, The seas that lay beneath the mighty dome, Shone with my splendour. Light did first bedizen Earth with its clusters of fiery dew and spray, When I looked forth and cried “It is the day!” _ The stars are dewdrops on my bosom’s space; The sun and moon are glances through my lashes, 100

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1905 · PDF PAGE 151

Orpheus

Of my own love across the lawn, As warm and tender as the dawn Tinting the snows of heaven-born hills, Enamelling the mountain rills With light’s chameleon-coloured dyes; So shone the love-light in grey eyes, Changing for laughter and for tears, Changeless for joy of myriad years. This, this endures; there is no lover, No loved one; all the ages cover These things from sight: but this abides Floating above the whelming tides Of time and space: abides for ever Whether the lovers join or sever. There is no change: the love exists Beyond the momen…

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