Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1901 · PDF PAGE 25

The Mother’s Tragedy

…escape, No anchor for distress. The hour strikes mournfully upon the bell Of the most awful precipice That merges hell in hell. There is deep silence in that dread abyss; There is deep silence in the spheréd sun; There is deep silence where the planets run, Il

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1901 · PDF PAGE 16

The Mother’s Tragedy

… me show How these air-castles tumble into woe. CORA. Why did your eyelids quiver as I spoke ? A smile, a tear? that trembling, in their deep Violet passion, of the beautiful Eyes that they half discover? Speak to me. I have long thought a secret was your spouse, Shared your deep fancies and your lightest word, Partook your maiden bed, and gave you dreams Somewhat too troublous to be virginal. MADELINE. My dear kind Cora, do they lie to you, These fancies of my idle hours? Believe, I seem to tremble at my inward thought ; My heart is full of wo…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 120

The Mother’s Tragedy

… to keep; The fifth, for love; the sixth, in sweet despair; The seventh, to destroy us unaware ; The eighth, to dive within the infernal deep. The last, to kill her—and myself as well! Ah! joy of sweet annihilation, The blackness that invades the burning sun, My swart limbs and her limbs adorable! So nine times dead before the night is done, Even as Styx nine times embraces Hell.

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1901 · PDF PAGE 89

The Mother’s Tragedy

…and kisses dwells above to sadden us; Dawn brings reason back and the violet eyes grow sadder. O Madonna of the Golden Eyes! Swooned the deep sunlight above the summer stream ; Droned the sleepy dragon-fly by the water-spring ; Stood we in the noontide in a misty dream, Fearful of our voiees, of some sudden thing. O Madonna of the Golden Eyes! Dared we whisper? Dared we lift our eyes to see there In their desperate depth some mutual flame of treason ? Dared we move apart? So glad were we to be there, Nothing in the world might change the consta…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 14

The Mother’s Tragedy

…e Over this shadowy shrine, Where in my heart their hovering lendeth Light! Bend down the amazing Face Of sorrow and of grace, Share the deep vigil of thine eremite! So let the sighing breath Draw on the Hour of Death, Whence wakeneth The Spirit of the Dawn, begotten of the night.

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1901 · PDF PAGE 121

The Mother’s Tragedy

…ge fruits lure me of Persephone; I raise the last, the memorable pzean, Storm-throated, mouthed as the cave-rolling sea; I lift the cup: deep draughts of blue Lethean! My wine to me. O lamentable season of Apollo, When swoops his glory to the golden wave! As all his children, so their lord shall follow ; The flower he slew, the maiden he would save, As Itylus, light woven, tuned! Oh swallow, Bewail their grave! The gracious breast of Artemis may light me To men—yet loved I ever Artemis ? Surely the vine-song and the dance delight me, The sea-bl…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 11

The Mother’s Tragedy

…ath. Central, supreme, most formidable Night, Gathered its garments, drew itself apart, Gaunt limbs appear athwart the coprolite Veil of deep agony, display the heart; Even as a gloomy sea, Wherein dead fishes be, Poisonous things, nameless; the eightfold Fear, Misshapen crab and worm, The intolerable sperm, Lewd dragons slime-built stagnant, the foul mere Crawled, moved, gave tongue, The essential soul of dung That lived and stung; That spoke: no word that living head may hear. Even as a veil imaging Beauty’s eyes Behind, lifted, lets flash th…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 84

The Mother’s Tragedy

( 7O) THE BRIDEGROOM O passion stirs the cool white throat of her; No living glory fills the deep dead eyes ; No sleep that breaks her Southern indolence; Not all the breezes out of heaven, that stir The sleepy wells and woodlands, bid her rise ; Nor all a godhead’s amorous violence. She is at peace; we will go hence. Warm wealth of draperies, the broidered room, And delicate tissues of pale silk that shine About her bed: all kiss the dead girl’s face With shadowy reluctances that gloom Over and under, and the cold divine Presence of Death bede…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 12

The Mother’s Tragedy

…secret passes of thy Bower! ‘Thee we adore and praise “Whose breast is broad as day’s; ‘‘ Thee, thee, the mistress of the barren sea, “‘ Deep, deadly, poisonous; “‘ Accept the life of us, ‘‘ Dwell in our midst; yea, show thy cruelty! ‘‘ Suck out the life and breath ‘‘ From breast that quickeneth. “ Such pain is death, “ Such terror, such delight—all, all is unto thee!” I too, I also, I have known thy kiss. I also drank the milk that poisons man, Sought to assume the impenetrable bliss By spells profound and draughts Canidian. One lifted me: and…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 13

The Mother’s Tragedy

…, Leaps pure the Soul rearisen from the embrace of Sin. | Yet, in the terror of that Breast, abides So sweet and deadly a device, a lure Deep in the blood and poison of her sides, Swart, lean, and leprous, that her stings endure. Even the soul of grace Abideth not her face Without vague longing, infinite desire, Stronger because suppressed, Unto the wide black breast, The lips incarnate of blood, flesh, and fire, So to slip down between Thighs vast and epicene, Morose and lean, To that unnameable morass, the ultimate mire. Wherefore behoves the…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 66

The Mother’s Tragedy

…pring to bear. The sorrowful twin fishes glide Silent and sacred into sleep; The joyful Ram exalts his pride, Seeing the forehead of the deep

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1901 · PDF PAGE 26

The Mother’s Tragedy

12 THE MOTHER’S TRAGEDY Majestic fires! Before the throne of God Deep silence waits the lifting of the rod, The moving nod. Silence, reflected thence, still and intense, into the firmament; Such silence as befits the event. Re-enter CORA. CORA. This is the hour, O child whom I have loved With love more tender than a mother’s love, Being thy friend; this moment have I sought, Awaiting always the propitious time, To speak some purpose grown more definite Than is our wont. We spent the honey days In gentle intercourse: high souls have stood Watchi…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 59

The Mother’s Tragedy

…g the living man. [/xiz. PACHAD. I have been a god so long, my thoughts run halt From many contemplations. Like the flow Of a slow river deep and beautiful, My even life moved onward to full scope, The ocean of profounder deity, And—suddenly—the cataract! My soul, Centered eternally upon itself, Comprehends hardly all this violence Of wayward men intemperate. I am calm, And contemplate, without a muscle moved

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1901 · PDF PAGE 58

The Mother’s Tragedy

…, Rending the entrails of her growing realm To seek her bloody fate, whose violence Even now makes the abyss of wrath divine Boil in the deep. Thou mayest be that great Osiris, bidding man’s high soul be free, Justified in its own higher self, made pure And perfect in its own eyes, being a god. Destroy this priestcraft. We are priests indeed,

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1901 · PDF PAGE 54

The Mother’s Tragedy

40 THE FATAL FORCE And comets moving through the deep Unfathomable skies, Darker for moonlight, and the glowworm eyes Of dusky women that were stars, And paler curves of the immutable bars That line the universe with light, Great eagle-flights of mystic moons That dip, while the dull midnight swoons About the skirts of Night: These bowed and shaped themselves and said : “It shall be thus!” And the intolerable luminous Death that is god bent down his head And answered: “ Thus, immutably, Above all days and deeds, shall be!” And the great Light t…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 113

The Mother’s Tragedy

…g memory for sweet sound of youth ; The song, the day, the cup, the shot, the kiss! This night begets illusion—ay! the truth. I know the deep emotion of that birth, When chaos rolled in terror and in thunder; The abortion of the infancy of earth; The monsters moving in a world of wonder ; The Shapeless, racked with agony, that grew Into these phantom forms that change and shatter ; The falling of the first toad-spotted dew; The first lewd heaving ecstasy of matter. ‘I see all Nature claw and tear and bite, All hateful love and hideous: and the …

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1901 · PDF PAGE 55

The Mother’s Tragedy

…e That foamed like starlight round the desolate shore. So to the mine of that crystalline ore Golden, the electric spark of man is drawn Deep in the bosom of the world, to soar New-fledged, an eagle to the dazzling dawn With lidless eyes undazzled, to arise, Son of the morning, to the Southern skies; And fling its wild chant higher at the fall Of even, and of bright Hyperion; To mix its fire with dew, to call The spirit of the limitless air, made one In the amazing essence of all light Limitless, emanation of the might Of the great Light above …

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1901 · PDF PAGE 61

The Mother’s Tragedy

… I shall do to-day In this new infamy. For I must pass Desolate into the dusk of things again, Having risen so far to fall to the abyss, Deeper for exaltation; I must go Wailing and naked into the inane Cavernous shrineless place of misery, Forgetful, hateful, impotent, except The last initiation seize my soul, And fling me into Isis’ very self, The immortal, mortal. Let me know this night Whether my place is found among the stars That wander in the deep, or made secure As the high throne of her that dwells in heaven, Fruitful for life and deat…

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