Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1901 · PDF PAGE 53

The Mother’s Tragedy

… of the violate day, In the furious waves of the sea, wild world of tem- pestuous night, Our song is as light! In the tumult of manifold fire, Multitudinous mutable feet That dance to an infinite lyre On the heart of the world as they beat, In the flowers of the bride of the flame, in the warrior Lord of the Fire, There burns our desire! AMENHATEP. Cry now, bewail the broken house, bewail The ruin of the land; cry out on Fate! CHORUS. Slow wheels of unbegotten hate And changeless circles of desire, Formless creations uncreate, Swift fountains o…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 66

The Mother’s Tragedy

…gh fields of foam ungarnered sweeps The fury of the wind of dawn ; Through fiery desolation creeps The water of the wind withdrawn. With fire and water consecrate The foam and fire are recreate. With air uniting fire and water, The springtide’s unbegotten daughter Blossoms in oceans of blue air, Flowers of new spring 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 63

The Mother’s Tragedy

…owers of ill, Broken by the wanded will, Shriek about the holy place, vain and vague and terrible. Even as the lords of hell, Chained in fires before the spell, Strain upon the sightless steel, break not fetters nor compel. So be distant, O profane! Children of the hurricane ! Lest the sword of fire destroy, lest the ways of death be plain! So depart, and so be wise, Lest your perishable eyes Look upon the formless fire, see the maiden sacrifice ! So depart, and secret flame Burn upon the stone of shame, That the holy ones may hear music of the…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 45

The Mother’s Tragedy

THE FATAL FORCE 31 I see full knowledge, and some glittering fire Lurks in the rheumy corners; yea, some fire Malignant, terrible—nay, pitiable, Thou poor fool stricken with senility, How spurred to passion? Yet behold thy god, Horus, lest anger take benignancy From his left hand and smite thee with his strength. Thou hearest? Nay, thou pitiful old man, For I have loved thee. Yet my godhead must Get worship. Anger not the god, but stoop, My faithful priest, and worship at my feet. AMENHATEP. I am most miserable. But truth must leap In this trem…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 56

The Mother’s Tragedy

… lend A star of many summits to his head That rules his fate and compasses his end, And seeks the holy mountain of the dead To draw dead fire, and breathe, and give it life! But thou, be strong for strife, And, as a god, cry out, and let there be The mark of many footsteps on the sea Of angels hastening to fulfil Thy supreme, single will! Alone, intense, unmoved, not made for change, Let thy one godhead rise To move like morning, and like day to range, ~ A furnace for the skies, That all men cry: “The uncreated God! Formless, ineffable, just, w…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 55

The Mother’s Tragedy

…rise, 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 all gods, the fire Of our supreme desire. So out of grievous labyrinths of the mind The soul’s desire may find Some passionate thread, the clear note of a bird, To make the dark ways of the gods as light, _ And bring forth music from slow chants unheard…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 97

The Mother’s Tragedy

MORS JANUA AMORIS 8 3 On our foreheads, paler, whiter Than the snowiest violet. So I forge the chains of fire Round our single-souled desire. Heaven and Hell we reck not of, Being infinite in love. Come, my demon-spouse, to fashion The fluidic marriage-bed! Let the starry billows splash on Both our bodies, let them shed Dewfall, as the streams Thalassian On Selene’s fallen head ! Let us mingle magic passion, Interpenetrating, dead, Deathless, O my dead sweet maiden! Lifeless, in the secret Aidenn ! Let our bodies meet and mix On the spirit’s cr…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 93

The Mother’s Tragedy

…nstead of prayers inspire Some oracle of Death. From many lands Come many worshippers. Their fading brands Rekindle from the sacrificial fire. Before the altar of Plenty, Love, and Peace, Stand purer priests in bloodless sacrifice, And quiet hymns of happiness are heard. _ Here sound no hatreds and no ecstasies; Here no polluted sacrament of Vice Unveiled! I chose the first without a word!

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1901 · PDF PAGE 117

The Mother’s Tragedy

… the obstinate desire, And lovers sigh—but not for kisses’ sake— There comes this misery, as half awake I watch the embers of my passion-fire, And see love dwindled in my—call her friend.

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1901 · PDF PAGE 51

The Mother’s Tragedy

…ass with the song of the mouth Of the notable Lord of the Dawn. Unto Ra, the desire of the East, let the clamour of singing proclaim The fire of his name!

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1901 · PDF PAGE 75

The Mother’s Tragedy

THE FATAL FORCE Give the token of thy fire Trident in the lambent air, Till our spirits unaware Worship and aspire! Hear, beyond all periods, Timeless, formless, multiform, Thou, supreme above the storm, Spirit of the Holy Ones, Spirit of the Gods! Enter Messenger. MESSENGER. The battle rages: even now the shock Of hostile spears makes the loud earth resound, The wide sky tremble. AMENHATEP. Here lies Horus dead, There Isis slain. We have no leader left. MESSENGER. The fight is doubtful. We may conquer still. AMENHATEP. By this shed blood and d…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 95

The Mother’s Tragedy

… Garlands of strange sorceries; New desires and mystic passion Infinite, of starry fashion; The mysterious desire Of the subtle formless fire. Vainly may the Tyanzean Throw his misconceiving eye SI

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1901 · PDF PAGE 73

The Mother’s Tragedy

…h the splendid essence of the highest hope of man; If the sombre stream that ran From the smitten breast be kindled with the sacrificial fire: If the altar set above In the palaces of love Glow with this, the perfect passion And sublime desire From the clay of Fate to fashion His own glory, to inspire Worlds impossible to thought With the beauties, subtly wrought, Of his own creative strength. Spirit of the Gods! O single,

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1901 · PDF PAGE 62

The Mother’s Tragedy

…h Goeth forth, he perisheth By the secret sibilant word that is spoken unto death. Even as the profane hand Reacheth to the sacred sand, Fire consumes him that his name be forgotten in the land. Even as the wicked eye Seeks the mysteries to spy, So the blindness of the gods takes his spirit: he shall die. Even as the evil priest, Poisoned by the sacred feast, Changes by its seven powers to the misbegotten beast.

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1901 · PDF PAGE 57

The Mother’s Tragedy

…a harlot’s will, burn the earth to ashes, Cleanse the incestuous sty of a whore’s desire, Scatter the dung to the sky, and burn her with fire! So the avenging master shall cleanse his fate of shame, Set his seal of disaster, a royal seal to his name. [Exeunt. PACHAD. I am not Horus, but I shall be king. Enter LEPER. THE LEPER. I am a leper, but I am the king. PACHAD. Monstrous illegible horror, let thy mouth Frame from its charnel-house some pregnant word Intelligible. THE LEPER. I am king; thy mother’s limbs Clung fast to mine when I begot thy…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 13

The Mother’s Tragedy

…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 Soul that leaps divine, Even beholding, darkly in a mirror, The face of God, to sink before His Shrine. Weeping: O Beauty, Majesty, and Terror, Wisdom and Mind and Soul, Crown simplex, Mighty Whole,

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1901 · PDF PAGE 106

The Mother’s Tragedy

…triven On pale pure limbs to pasture your desire, Who should have fixed your souls on highest Heaven, And satiated your longings in that fire, And struck that mightier lyre ! Let the ripe kisses of your thirsty throats And beating blossoms of your breath, and flowers Of swart illimitable hair that floats Vague and caressing, and the amorous powers Of your unceasing hours, The rich hot fragrance of your dewy skins, The eyes that -yearn, the breasts that bleed, the thighs That cling and cluster to these infinite sins, Forget the earthlier pleasur…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 65

The Mother’s Tragedy

…hall quicken in him, and the dead man rise Osiris; and all power be manifest In our supreme reunion ; let the priest Cast incense on the fire, upon the ground Let water of the fertilising Nile Be spilt, because these dark maternal breasts That gave their milk to that divinest child Are not yet full of the transcending stream That knows its fountain in my deity. 51

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1901 · PDF PAGE 122

The Mother’s Tragedy

…er. No more at all. Oh, mother, Oh, Demeter, in my burthen Let me assume thy sorrow singular; A branching temple and an altar earthen, A fire of herbs, a clayen water-jar; An olive grove to bind the sacred girth in Lone woods afar. Let life burn gently thence, as when the ember In one faint incense-puff to shrineward dies. No care, no pain, no craving to remember, One leap toward the knees and destinies, Where shine Her lips like flames, Her breasts like amber, Like moons Her eyes. For my heart turns—ah still!—in Sorrow’s traces, Where sad chil…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 31

The Mother’s Tragedy

…ept the secret long. Your breath, that burns upon me, wraps me round With whirling passion, pierces through my veins With its unhallowed fire, constrains, compels, Drags out the corpse of twenty years ago From the untrusty coffin of my mind, To poison, to corrupt, to strike you there Blind with its horror. ULRIC. Leave these bitter words! They torture me with terrible suspense, And you with fear. I see by these dread looks, Tedious prologues, that there is a truth You are afraid to speak. CORA, aside. What subterfuge ? B

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