Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1899 · PDF PAGE 12

Tale of Archais

4 THE TALE OF ARCHAIS Conquering and to conquer earth ; Surge, a sea of fiery waves, Through the continent of graves, Bringing all the dead to birth ; Rage, a warrior-band, to bring Right and truth to everything, Burning sorrow into mirth, Cradling, like a child, delight Born from the Cimmerian darkness of the hollow womb of Night, By the father of the gods, And the seasons’ periods To Eternity, the ocean flooded with the river, Light Ouranos ! Wave wide thy pinions Azure in the azure air, Over the serene dominions That our love has made so fai…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 53

Tale of Archais

THE TALE OF ARCHAIS 45 Thrust up by magic, in the direst pangs Of Earth, when Earth was yet a whirling cloud Of fire and adamant, a ceaseless crowd Of rushing atoms roaring into space, Driven by demons from before the Face. And these gleamed white, while Helios lit the heaven, Like tusks ; but at the coming of the even Were visions wonderful with indigo ; And in the glory of the afterglow Were rosy with its kiss ; and in the night Were crowned with that unutterable light That is a brilliance of solemn black, Glistening wide across the ocean tra…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 8

Tale of Archais

…he poet prayed, And look to Heaven, an hour to spend Before His throne who spake and bade The fountains of the deep descend And bade the earth uproot and rend To pitch like tents the mountains high, And gave him language who hath penned This pleasant tale of Thessaly. ENVOI Fair maiden, who hast rightly weighed The message of the morning sky, Think kindly of the man who made This pleasant tale of Thessaly.

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1899 · PDF PAGE 13

Tale of Archais

…lled with song, God, whom we mistrusted long, We perceive to be a friend : Man at last with flower and tree, Bird and butterfly and bee, Earth and fire and air and sea, Will his voice divinely blend In a song, whose holy incense up to Heaven shall ascend And the souls that stand and shiver On the borders of the River, Shall their arms extend Unto Death as to a lover, knowing Death is not the End.

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1899 · PDF PAGE 85

Tale of Archais

…Women Let the lute thrill divinely low, Let the harp strike a tender note of sad- ness ; Louder and louder, till the full song flow, One earth-dissolving stream of utter gladness.

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1899 · PDF PAGE 78

Tale of Archais

70 THE TALE OF ARCHAIS Than earthly stars and flowers That beam lasciviously through night’s empurpled hours ! O well of fire ! O fountain of delicious spurting flame Grown sad with shame, Whose imminent desire Drinks in the dew of earth, Gives its own limpid streams to quench man’s deathly dearth. O gardened rose ! The fern-fronds gird thy fragrant beauty round. Thy ways are bound With petals that unclose When the sun seeks his way Through night and sleep and love to all the dreams of day. Love, sleep, and death ! The three that melt together,…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 86

Tale of Archais

…g more noble, the divinest potion Of poet’s wonder and bard’s melody ! ARCHAIS Cold is the kiss of the stars to the sea, The kiss of the earth to the orient grey That heralds the day ; Warmer the kiss of a love that is free As the wind of the sea, Quick and resurgent and splendid.

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1899 · PDF PAGE 94

Tale of Archais

86 THE TALE OF ARCHAIS Seamed with wounds, like adamant, shod with iron, Torn by the earthquake. Still through all the stresses of doubtful weather Hold the firm old pinnacles, sky-defying, Still the icy feet of the wind relentless Walk in their meadows. Fields that flower not, blossom in no new spring- tide ; Fields where grass nor herb nor abounding darnel Flourish ; fields more barren, devoid, than ocean’s Pasture ungarnered. Deserts, stone as arid as sand, savannahs Black with wrecks, a wilderness evil, fruitless ; Still, to me, a land of t…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 38

Tale of Archais

…the sea flashed with blasphemy, and loath Black thunder broke from out the shuddering deep. He swore again, and from its century’s sleep Earthquake arose, and rocked and raved and roared. He swore the third time. But that Heaven’s Lord Curbed their black wrath, the stars of Heaven’s vault Had rushed to ’whelm the sun with vehement assault. The heavens stood still, but o’er the quaking earth, That groaned and shrank with the untimely birth Of fury and freedom, Charicles strode on With fervid foot, to Aphrodite’s throne In seagirt Paphos, to exac…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 72

Tale of Archais

…th acclaim Of tuneful thrushes shrill with mountain song, And noise of nightingales, and murmur long— A sigh half-sad, as if remembering earth And all the massy pillars of her girth ; Half-jubilant, as if foreseeing a world Fresher with starlight and with waters pearled,

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1899 · PDF PAGE 27

Tale of Archais

…And he remembered. Like a wild bird’s cry The song within him flamed, a melody Dreadful and beautiful. The sad sea heard And echoed over earth its bitter word. SONG Ere the grape of joy is golden With the summer and the sun, Ere the maidens unbeholden Gather one by one, To the vineyard comes the shower, No sweet rain to fresh the flower. But the thunder rain that cleaves, Rends and ruins tender leaves.

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1899 · PDF PAGE 31

Tale of Archais

…I WHEN God bethought Him, and the world began, He made moist clay, and breathed on it, that man Might be most frail and feeble, and like earth Shrink at Death’s finger from the hour of birth ; And like the sea by limits of pale sand Be utterly confined ; but so He planned To vivify the body with the soul, That fire and air were wedded to control The heavy bulk beneath them, so His breath Touched the warm clay and violated death, Gave to the spirit wings and bade it rise To seek its Maker with aspiring eyes, Gave to the body strength to hold awh…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 54

Tale of Archais

…Aphrodite, who from her far shrine Heard and flew fast to aid over the night-clad brine. PRAYER OF ARCHAIS O Mother of Love, By whom the earth and all its fountains move In harmony, Hear thou the bitter overwhelming cry Of me, who love, who am about to die Because of love. O Queenliest Shrine, Keeper of keys of heaven, most divine Yet Queen of Pain,

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1899 · PDF PAGE 24

Tale of Archais

… is barren of love or trust, His heart is hopeless, seeing he must Perish, and leave no trace ; With impious rage he mocks the bounds Of earth, albeit so wholly base ; His ears are dead to subtle sounds, His eyes are blind, for Zeus confounds His vain irreverence, and astounds High Heaven with wrathful face.

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1899 · PDF PAGE 77

Tale of Archais

…fair Ida, thou hast sealed my bliss ! ” Then with one long intense unpitying kiss Pressed on her bosom, he arose and swore By heaven and earth and all the seas that roar And stars that sing, by rivers and fresh flood, By his own essence, by his body and blood, To lay his godhead down, till night drew nigh, To be a mortal till the vesper cry Of dying breezes. So the morning past And found them linked inexorably fast Each in the other’s arms. Their lips are wed To drink the breezes from the fountain-head Of lovers’ breath. Now Zeus half rises up,…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 80

Tale of Archais

… TALE OF ARCHAIS Through the noon’s haze the world was vast and dim ; The streams and trees and air were shimmering With summer heat and earth’s cool vapouring, When, round his limbs entwined, a fiery snake Hissed in his frightened ear the call “ Awake.” And Zeus arisen strives vainly to release His valiant body from the coils, nor cease His angry struggles in their cruel hold. But all implacable, unyielding, cold, Their sinuous pressure on his breast and thighs, The white teeth sharp and ready otherwise In one fierce snap to slay. There hissed…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 35

Tale of Archais

…es, Or chills their blood with poisonous vials of death, Or dooms them to the tooth and venomous breath Of foul black worms ; and on the earth to dwell For a long space, and there (most terrible !) To change her shape at times, and on her take The fierce presentment of a loathly snake

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1899 · PDF PAGE 67

Tale of Archais

…die ; I have vowed to live With one aim only ; never to forgive The wrong the gods do me, and in my form Love his high self, by whom the earth is warm To-day, by whose defiance the universe Would crash in one inextricable curse To primal chaos. Hear me, I have sworn.” Then, suddenly, more glorious than the morn Tipping the golden tops of autumn hills With light, more countless than the myriad rills Of bright dew running off the bracken leaves, With gold more saturated than the sheaves In the red glow that promises the day Shall glory when the n…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 60

Tale of Archais

…ed with satellite and asteroid, Where our desire is welcome. Yea, the night Holds in her bosom such a world of light As in this sick sad Earth would consume man With its quick blaze of truth. Thy bitter ban, Zeus, shall most utterly be made to cease. We must fight Fate and conquer it. Our peace, Our passion, is the silent answer given To the importunate questioning of heaven. Thou art supreme, my king, and I in thee ; We have life hard by its chill throat, to choke Its petty gasping pleasures, and to see The ancient altars with new incense smok…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 32

Tale of Archais

… and by the spell Of their own wickedness discover sin Unguessed at, but slow treason creeping in, To spread corruption, and destroy the earth. But in the holy hour and happy birth That swam through stars propitious, meadows white, And fresh with newer flowers of the night In the pale fields supernal, when his sire Took from the nurse the child of his desire, A man, the prayers of many maidens sent So sweet a savour through the firmament That no false spirit might draw nigh. And still His angel ministers defend from ill The head they nurtured. …

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