Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1910 · PDF PAGE 124

The Winged Beetle

…seer ! And you the hare I started. Shall I escape a tear, And you go broken-hearted ? VII Kiss me ! no one sees. There—good-bye the last time ! Now, please ! Luck’s ease is threes. What a kiss ! what a squeeze ! Dot the i’s ! cross the t’s ! Half a day’s a vast time ! Tragedies, Comedies, Pantomime and pastime !

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1910 · PDF PAGE 15

The Winged Beetle

…ir. Inspire a closer strain Such as strange orchids give, and hyacinths, Among the broken pedestals and plinths] Where the gray Lords of Time, of Time forgotten, Lie in the herbage rotten Of the unpeopled forest. V O Song ! O amorous and seducing, I see thee as thou soarest, So that, the girders of the soul unloosing, That Child of you and me, O rose of roses, That Child whose life encloses Our lives, is therefore I, may wander ever

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1910 · PDF PAGE 145

The Winged Beetle

… there be a God, be Thou my Neighbour ; And if that God have pity, have Thou pity ! For never man was smitten as I am smitten ; Nor from Time’s yesterday to Time’s to-morrow Was there a sorrow like unto this sorrow ! How many hours was Christ upon the cross ? How many days in hell ? But I have hung From the day of infinite loss Watching her degradation into dung Three years. Three years ! And now who asks me to shed tears ?

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1910 · PDF PAGE 139

The Winged Beetle

UT 129 Dissolved His being to a nameless naught, Brake all the wings and waves of time and thought, So in the quivering flame that hurled Its founts of life to the remotest world Supreme stood Death, and sware Destruction to all things that were ! IV Child, father, warrior, I worshipped Thee before ; Friend, bridegroom, now I yield me to the rod. My God, and very God of very God As breath, as death, as all, as naught, unknown, Known, is there not an end, when one alone Stand I, and thou, and He Arisen above all things that be ?

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1910 · PDF PAGE 126

The Winged Beetle

… ! Beneath my seas thy creaking timbers tremble, Gallant old barque ! I shake thee, stem and stern, With furious kisses in blind rage at Time Who hath wrought on thee his cold and common crime. So now I rise, laughing with love, and burn ! Those dissolute embers of thy lust grown dun, The ashen horrors of thy face, resemble The dull red glare of a November sun.

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1910 · PDF PAGE 173

The Winged Beetle

… the dusk with the dead Galilean :— Fill me the cup of the poppy Circean ! II Hardly a glimmer to chasten the gloom ; Hardly a murmur of Time at his loom ; Nothing of sense but the poppy-perfume.

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1910 · PDF PAGE 109

The Winged Beetle

…hou knowest me who I am The inmost soul and saviour Of man ; what hieroglyph Of the dragon and the lamb Shall thou and I engrave here On Time’s inscandescable cliff ? V Look ! in the polished granite, Black as thy cartouche is with sins, I read the searing sentence That blasts the eyes that scan it : “ HOOR and SET be TWINS.” A fico for repentance ! VI Ay ! O Son of my mother That snarled and clawed in her womb As now we rave in our rapture, I know thee, I love thee, brother ! Incestuous males that consume The light and the life that we capture…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 186

The Winged Beetle

176 SCENE : The sitting-room in OSSORY’S house in Grosvenor Square. TIME : Midday. The persons are in correct morning dress, except the invalid GRANDFATHER, who is in a scarlet dressing-gown, with gold embroidery, and CARR, who affects a pseudo-Bohemian extravagance. He wears a low collar, a very big bow-tie of gorgeous colours, a pale yellow waistcoat, a rich violet lounge suit with braid, patent leather boots, pale blue socks. But the refinement and breeding of the man are never in question. His hair is reddish, curly, luxuriant. He is clean-…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 136

The Winged Beetle

… ! Well, if you insist ! Like an enamoured lutanist Graven on some bishop’s amethyst, So there is graven by fate’s steel And polished by time’s emery wheel This passion that consumeth me, Music that mars man’s dignity ! My love is like an unhealed scar That throbs and bleeds at the word war ! My love is like a masterless Hound, running wide on a false scent. I am the plaything of distress ; The marionette of the Event ! Yet this red lust that rots my sword Is the same flame that tempered it. Though my death be my birth’s reward, And folly be th…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 140

The Winged Beetle

…n-flower unexampled In gardens goodlier than Arcady. O Thou ! whose body was my lyre, whose soul Lay on my mouth like a live coal ! This time thou hearest not my song ; thine ears Are stopped with worse than death ; And all this wasted breath Of mine—those songs of six most memorable years Of ecstasy and agony—may not attain To charm thy being into love again. . . .

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1910 · PDF PAGE 161

The Winged Beetle

…ld die. Ashes to ashes ? Dust to dust ? So let it be ! In God we trust. Though ruin wash the world in blood, Though death devour, though time decay,

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1910 · PDF PAGE 93

The Winged Beetle

…! ” I would have loved you—so I love to love— Wrapped you in beauty ! Lucid gauze of rime Had made your limbs go glimmering down through time, A gracious ghost ; the soiled and draggled dove Of Venus should be spurned, and you, my swan, Superbly floated on the giant stream Of fame, its crown and culmination, dream Most inaccessible, meditated on In vain by the world’s greatest lovers. Yet Your lazy lewdness happens to forget

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1910 · PDF PAGE 120

The Winged Beetle

110 A SLIM GILT SOUL FEW men are given, ’twixt heaven and hell, To play one part supremely well. On all time’s tablets there are few Who make a first-rate show of two, While those who perfectly play three We knew not, until you were he. For what were lovelier on the lawn Than you, pearl-naked to the dawn, Wrapped in a scarlet dressing-gown Not thirty miles from London town, The “ observed of all observers ”—save That Scotland Yard, serene and suave, When trouble came, went tramping by ; Closed one, and winked the other eye. How pleasantly you m…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 90

The Winged Beetle

… orgiastic opulence of mirth, And left me ever in His arms close curled, Never, O never ! to shrink back again, But (through all ruinous time violently hurled) Never to lose the stigma of that pain, The martyr’s crown of shameful spines that weighs Even now upon these brows, that bear in vain Fantastic myrtles and deceitful bays And vine-leaves withering even ere they clung. For in His love, His love beyond all praise, I am still beautiful, still wise, still young. Nay, in the nuptial of that fruitful night Of fruitless joy unmeasured and unsun…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 19

The Winged Beetle

ROSA COELI 9 X Another time, through tides from chaos rolled I was upborne by this my scarabee With scales like plates of porphyry and gold And wings like flakes of the green light that pours Through the blue heart of the Hawaian sea. So to the hollow shores We came, and did behold a silver avenue That wound through cypress groves and woods of yew Unto the hills ; hideous hyaenas laughed, Mean jackals snarled and screamed, and wild dogs bayed : Bayed at the waning moon that lapsed above Out of all light (had I not been in love, And drunken on t…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 20

The Winged Beetle

…at great cost His journey thence ? O Rose of gramarye, My riddle you shall ree. My head was happy, laid betwixt your breasts. XI Another time I passed the holy well And plunged (as Phoebus in the western ocean) Into a forest of fine flame that crowned The holy hill ; all was enchanted ground, The flames like scented tendrils of a vine Or sensitive rays that spell Strange curves to match their master-god’s emotion, And ever nearer to the scarlet slash I clomb, where the strange perfumes struck me like a lash And the dread fires scorched up my li…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 16

The Winged Beetle

…A giant god, and strangle him anon With starry serpents like Laocoon, A stoic god that might enamour And draw him with its tendrils into time. VI My mouth was wet with the delicious crime Of kissing you, one night, when in a vision

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1910 · PDF PAGE 201

The Winged Beetle

…Nurse, Charley ! [CHARLEY runs off. Oh dear ! I wish I could find a good doctor. Nobody seems to do me any good. It’s pain, pain all the time. Nurse ! can’t you tell me of a good doctor ? For oh ! for oh ! [He looks about him fearfully ; his voice sinks to a thrilled whisper] I am so afraid—afraid to die ! Is there nobody—— [Enter TODD, and stands by his chair, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder. He looks up. I wish you were a doctor, Mr. Todd. You have such a soothing touch. Perhaps you are a doctor ? I can get nobody to do me any good.…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 189

The Winged Beetle

…nd over his shoulder to her.] There’s our scientific friend, eh ? DELHOMME. Oh, I’m not afraid of him. A “ farceur,” no more, though sometimes a pleasant one. OSSORY. Tu t’en f——, ça, mon vieux chameau ? Quoi ? DELHOMME. [very disgusted at OSSORY’S vulgarity, which mistakes argot for chic]. Well, sir, as soon as I can find a favourable opportunity—— OSSORY. Grief is a good mood to catch them in, my boy. I know ! I know ! I’ve been a bit of a dog in my time. [Shakes hands as they go out. DELHOMME. [returning]. One word in your ear, sir, if I may…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 196

The Winged Beetle

…im, in a tragic whisper.] Something has happened—something is going to happen. CARR. And something has not happened—I knew it was a long time since we missed a week. By the way, have you heard the terrible news about Queen Anne ? Dead, poor soul ! Never mind, silly, you told me most dramatically, and it shall be counted unto you for righteousness. EUPHEMIA. I think you’re the greatest brute in the world—and I love you. CARR. How reciprocal of you ! EUPHEMIA. Sweet ! CARR. On my honour, I haven’t a single chocolate on me. Have a cigar ? [Busines…

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