Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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Page 54 of 112
1903 · PDF PAGE 15

The God-Eater

…t the door? Back, back. It is ill luck, ill luck, I say. Where is old Andrew? The faithful fool—Oh, the last dreadful look of his glazed eyes! What am I saying? Maurya, girl, go! I must tend the temple. I must be alone. It is not fitting— Maurya. You are ill; come and be tended yourself, first. Criospa. No! I am well. You are a girl, not a God. Maurya. Oh! Oh! Have I done amiss? Am I not Criospa. Stop, don’t! [Aside.] I must be man—tut ! tut !— [Aloud.| Why, little sister, know Those whom we worship as our gods are gods. The power is mine: that…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 112

The Scented Garden

…Qahar will ever sing, Till he the world from milk of prayer to wine of me- ditation wean.7 Like peacocks in a garden spread our thousand eyes of jewel-sheen ; Though squawking with an eunuch’s voice, our paederastic plumes we preen.8 For voice is sound, and dies with air ; light is co- excellent with God9 ; As Hate’s a poison for delight, so love’s a physic for the spleen. And El Qahar is Truth, and nought but Allah stuffs his gaberdine,10 And Allah windeth he about with tarband gemmed11 of gold and green.12

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1910 · PDF PAGE 23

The Winged Beetle

…thy beauty and thy passion In his imperfect fashion, So that thy wisdom and thy strength are sold In every mart of earth ; So that thine eyes enfold The universe in one great look of love Bring this, bring this to birth ! And neither hate below, nor hate above, Nor chance, nor force, nor cunning shall deprive Man of thy gift, a love alive With more than men to-day can understand.

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1929 · PDF PAGE 67

Moonchild

and again she turned her eyes away; but they always returned to the gaze, and every gesture shot a pang of agony to her soul. She understood the ambiguities of her lover; his strange behaviour seemed like an open book to her; and the malice of Sister Cybele, her elfin laughter, her satanic sneer, sank into her bleeding heart like acid, burning, fuming. The revel did not diminish; instead, it took novel and more atrocious forms. All that she had ever conceived of sensuality of bestiality, was a thousandfold surpassed. It was an infinite refineme…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 10

Jephthah

… in a double death, Hangs imminent to crush the slender sides And battered bulwarks of our state. O thou Whose hoary locks and sightless eyes compel Our pity and our reverence, and whose mouth Foams with the presence of some nearer god Insatiate of thy body frail, give tongue, If tongue may so far master deity As give his fury speech, or shape thy words From the blind auguries of madness. PROPHET. Ha! The rose has washed its petals, and the blood Pours through its burning centre from my heart. The fire consumes the light; and rosy flame Leaps t…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 128

The Soul of Osiris

…ere it drink The soul’s own life-blood on the desperate brink ! So, from the languid fingers in my curls And dreamy worship of a woman’s eyes, I look beyond the miserable whirls Of foolish measures woven in the skies ; Beyond the thoughtless stars : beyond God’s sleep : Beyond the deep : beneath the deadly deep ! Infinite rings of luminous ether move At first amid the blackness that I seek : Infinite motion and amazing love Deaden the lustre of the night. I speak

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1907 · PDF PAGE 11

Rosa Inferni

…ur body is like ivory and silk ! Your lips are like the poppies in the garden ! Your face is like a wreath of flowers to crown me ! Your eyes are wells wherein I long to drown me ! Your hair is like a waterfall above me, A waterfall of sunset ! In your bosom I hear the racing of a heart to love me. Your blood is beating like a wind-blown blossom With rapture that you mingle it in mine ! Your breath is fresh as foam and keen as wine ! Intoxicating glories are your glances ! Your bodily beauty grips my soul and dances 6 T

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1914 · PDF PAGE 17

Chicago May

…CAGO MAY 1 Could I have forced you once to crystallize ‘The pure drop that I found—but oh! my fate! No sooner starts the portent to your eyes ‘Than in your lust it must evaporate. I made you think and speak pure thoughts—but deed Is smothered in your goatishness and greed! I dragged you to the country, made you walk ‘And work and wash; but you were too far gone, Cheese can't be made, I find, by churning chalk, Eunuchs may safely swill satyrion, Plaster your cancers while you can the knife Comes all too late to give a chance of life. m1 Oh, but …

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1928 · PDF PAGE 18

Little Poems in Prose

… power has in- stalled he on this throne of reverie and of pleasure? What does it matter?—There She is; I recognize Her. Look! See those eyes whose flame shoots across the twilight; those subtle and terrible Mirrors-of-Venus that I recognize by their terri- fying malice. They attract, they subjugate, they devour the glance of the rash man who contemplates them. I have studied them often, those black stars which compel curiosity and admiration. To what benevolent demon do I owe it that I am thus surrounded with mystery, with si- lence, with peac…

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1906 · PDF PAGE 78

Collected Works (Vol. II)

… that sways in the tide, A star that falls earthward to bend her sweet breast to my side :— No depth of the darkness may shield you From eyes that with love are aflame, No darkness, but light, as you yield you To love that is stronger than shame, No music but kisses, that pealed you their pean, proclaim : That the light of the heaven is shaded, The sound of the sea is made still, The climax shall come unupbraided Obedient alone to our will, And the flowers that were fallen and faded drink dew to their fll: Dew filling your eyes and their lashes…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 131

Oracles

…’s love grew up in him : he knew The spirit of that dew In his own soul ; and this indeed was love. The faint girl bent above With fixed eyes close upon him ; oh ! her face Burned in the rapturous grace Feeding on his ; and subtly, without touch,

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1905 · PDF PAGE 121

Orpheus

… ! . There is no laugh of all those laughs of hers, Those tender thrills of laughter I used to know. Nor in all nature weep the careless eyes, Nor any soul of life may sympathise, All I once was in this is torn and rended— Scorned and forsaken the lone lyre lies. Hath that not yet some sympathy with me? That lyre that was myself, my heart’s decree And ruler, subtle at the dawn, and splendid Noonwards, and soft at day’s declivity! I flung it in my anguish to the ground. I raise it, and its music hath not found One string or snapped or loosened, …

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1919 · PDF PAGE 277

The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

ECCLESIAE GNOSTICAE CATHOLICAE (THE END) THE Deacon. Unto them from whose eyes the veil of life hath fallen may there be granted the accomplishment of their true Wills; whether they will absorption in the Infinite, or to be united with their chosen and preferred, or to be in contemplation, or to be at peace, or to achieve the labour and heroism of incarnation on this planet or another, or in any Star, or aught else, unto them may there be granted the ac- complishment of their wills; yea, the accomplishment of their will. AUMN. AUMN. AUMN. THE P…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 87

Collected Works (Vol. I)

…ry lacks not reward. And now the sun is up: for Israel, march! JARED. Good luck be with your spears; and home- coming Gladden victorious eyes ere set of sun. [Axeunt JEPHTHAH azd Soldiers. Enter ELEAZAR, AHINOAM, Chorus of Elders. CHORUS. The sun is past meridian. No sound Of trampling hoofs assails the unquiet wind, Nor trembles in the pillared echo-places, And windy corridors of pathless snow. But let us wait, expecting victory. No fugitive returns, nor messenger: They have not shocked together, or perchance The grim fight rolls its sickening…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 100

Collected Works (Vol. I)

…d be to-morrow and not change for ever : No dawn shall sever The sleepy eyelids of the night, no eve Shall fall and cleave The blue deep eyes of day. queen ! My ship Your hand, my Look down and lean Your whole weight on me, then leap out, as light As swallow’s flight, And race across the shadosys of the moon, And keep the {tine With ringing hoofs across the fiery way. Your eyes betray Ilow eager is your heart, and yet--O dare To fashion fair A whole Jong life of love ! low! Leap high, laugh T dove Yotl=--so f— One kiss—and then to freedom! bay …

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1904 · PDF PAGE 21

The Argonauts

… crown, descend the steps to thee. Here is my breast. Look firmly in my face, And slay me. Is there fear writ large and deep In mine old eyes? Or shudderest thou with fear? JASON. More hate than fear. In sooth, I cannot strike. PELIAS. A king is not so slain—except a madman May fall upon him with averted head. Indeed, I conquer. [Aside.] Even so, beware! Victory ill-nurtured breeds the babe defeat. [4Zoud.] Listen, my brother’s son! Nay, stoop not so, Bending ashaméd brows upon the earth! I am well weary of the world of men. I grow both old and…

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1919 · PDF PAGE 132

The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

…d hath brought me into the House of Darkness; by stealth hath the Lord drawn me into Night. I beheld blackness that encompassed me; mine eyes were darkened in the house of darkness. There came into my nostrils the scent of a great river; even _ of a river that boileth secretly under the palm-trees. I lifted mine head, and behold, the Lord stood forth in the blackness. Asa pillar of fire shone the Lord; as a devil that whirleth in the wilderness of sand. The Lord hath veiled Himself in purple; the Lord hath ex- alted himself in manifestation. Th…

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1899 · PDF PAGE 28

Jephthah and Other Mysteries

… in a double death, Hangs imminent to crush the slender sides And battered bulwarks of our state. O thou Whose hoary locks and sightless eyes compel Our pity and our reverence, and whose mouth Foams with the presence of some nearer god Insatiate of thy body frail, give tongue, If tongue may so far master deity As give his fury speech, or shape thy words From the blind auguries of madness. PROPHET. Ha! The rose has washed its petals, and the blood Pours through its burning centre from my heart. The fire consumes the light; and rosy flame Leaps t…

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1905 · PDF PAGE 135

Oracles

… upon the crest, the silver-rolling comb ; Float like a warrior to his rest, majestically home. But oh ! my soul, what seest thou, whose eyes are open wide ? What thoughts inspire me idling now, lone on the lonely tide ? Here in the beauty of the place, hope laughs and says me nay ; In nature’s bosom, in God’s face, I read Decay, Decay. Here in the splendour of the Law that built the eternal sphere, Beauty and majesty and awe, I fail of any cheer. Here, in caprice, in will divine, I see no perfect peace ; Here, in the Law’s impassive shrine, no…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 10

Rosa Decidua

…pped, escaped ; its spires Here crushed, there rose the stronger for the pressure That gave it purchase ; keener flamed the fires In its eyes triumphant. Now its soul asserts Its master-pleasure ; The worm exerts Its adult might, and in one bout The spine snaps of that child of Love and Pity, And mangled he falls out Of the fight. Just so child Hercules Strangled two serpents in his pretty Red fists, achieved twelve labours, won to ease, And was done down to death and madness by The subtle poison that himself distilled. So all the God in life i…

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