Aleister Crowley
Long Odds
How many million galaxies there are Who knows? and each has countless stars in it, And each rolls through eternities afar Beneath the threshold of the Infinite. How is it that will all that
The Four Winds
The South wind said to the palms: My lovers sing me psalms; But are they as warm as those That Laylah’s lover knows? The North wind said to the firs: I have my worshippers;
Boo to Buddha
So it is eighteen years, Helena, since we met! A season so endears, Nor you nor I forget The fresh young faces that once clove In that most fiery dawn of love. We wandered
The Five Adorations
I praise Thee, God, whose rays upstart beneath the Bright And Morning Star: Nowit asali fardh salat assobhi allahu akbar. I praise Thee, God, the fierce and swart; at noon Thou ridest Forth to
Elegy
Here rests beneath this hospitable spot A youth to flats and flatties not unknown. The Plymouth Brethren gave it to him hot; Trinity, Cambridge, claimed him for her own. At chess a minor master,
The Atheist
Nor thou, Habib, nor I are glad, When rosy limbs and sweat entwine; But rapture drowns the sense and self, The wine the drawer of the wine, And Him that planted first the grape-
At Sea
As night hath stars, more rare than ships In ocean, faint from pole to pole, So all the wonder of her lips Hints her innavigable soul. Such lights she gives as guide my bark;
The Hermit
AN ATTACK ON BARBERCRAFT [Dedicated to George Cecil Jones] At last an end of all I hoped and feared! Muttered the hermit through his elfin beard. Then what art thou? the evil whisper whirred.
The Interpreter
Mother of Light, and the Gods! Mother of Music, awake! Silence and speech are at odds; Heaven and Hell are at Stake. By the Rose and the Cross I conjure; I constrain by the
Independence
Come to my arms – is it eve? is it morn? Is Apollo awake? Is Diana reborn? Are the streams in full song? Do the woods whisper hush Is it the nightingale? Is it
At Bordj-an-Nus
El Arabi! El Arabi! Burn in thy brilliance, mine own! O Beautiful! O Barbarous! Seductive as a serpent is That poises head and hood, and makes his body tremble to the drone Of tom-tom
Lyric of Love to Leah
Come, my darling, let us dance To the moon that beckons us To dissolve our love in trance Heedless of the hideous Heat & hate of Sirius- Shun his baneful brilliance! Let us dance
Arhan
When the chill of earth black-breasted is uplifted at the Glance Of the red sun million-crested, and the forest blossoms Dance With the light that stirs and lustres of the dawn, and with The
The Tent
Only the stars endome the lonely camp, Only the desert leagues encompass it; Waterless wastes, a wilderness of wit, Embattled Cold, Imagination’s Cramp. Now were the Desolation fain to stamp The congealed Spirit of
The Titanic
Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel, Consummate crown of man’s device; Down crashed upon an immobile And brainless barrier of ice. Courage! The grey gods shoot a laughing lip: – Let not faith
The Pentagram
[Dedicated to George Raffalovich] In the Years of the Primal Course, in the dawn of terrestrial Birth, Man mastered the mammoth and horse, and Man was the Lord of the Earth. He made him
Hymn to Pan
Thrill with lissome lust of the light, O man! My man! Come careering out of the night Of Pan! Io Pan. Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea From Sicily and from Arcady!
Ave Adonai
[Dedicated to G. M. Marston] Pale as the night that pales In the dawn’s pearl-pure pavillion, I wait for thee, with my dove’s breast Shuddering, a god its bitter guest- Have I not gilded
The Priestess of Panormita
Hear me, Lord of the Stars! For thee I have worshipped ever With stains and sorrows and scars, With joyful, joyful endeavour. Hear me, O lily-white goat! O crisp as a thicket of thorns,
Thanatos Basileos
The serpent dips his head beneath the sea His mother, source of all his energy Eternal, thence to draw the strength he needs On earth to do indomitable dees Once more; and they, who
The Hawk and the Babe
[Dedicated to Raymond Radclyffe] I am that hawk of gold Proud in adamantine poise On the pillars of torqoise, See, beyond the starry fold, Where a darkling orb is rolled. There, beneath a grove
Prologue to Rodin in Rime
To Kathleen- Nor I can give, nor you can take; endures The simple truth of me that is yours. Is not the music mingled with the form When all the heavens break in blind
Happy Dust
For Margot Snow that fallest from heaven, bear me aloft on thy wings To the domes of the star-girdled Seven, the abode of Ineffable things, Quintessence of joy and of strength, that, abolishing Future
Linoz Isidoz
Lo! I lament. Fallen is the sixfold Star: Slain is Asar. O twinned with me in the womb of Night! O son of my bowels to the Lord of Light! O man of mine
The Rose and the Cross
Out of the seething cauldron of my woes, Where sweets and salt and bitterness I flung; Where charmed music gathered from my tongue, And where I chained strange archipelagoes Of fallen stars; where fiery
The Ladder
[Dedicated to K. M. Ward] “I will arise and go unto my father” MALKUTH Dark, dark all dark! I cower, I cringe. Only ablove me is a citron tinge As if some echo of
The Quest
A part, immutable, unseen, Being, before itself had been, Became. Like dew a triple queen Shone as the void uncovered: The silence of deep height was drawn A veil across the silver dawn On
The Mantra-Yoga
I How should I seek to make a song for thee When all my music is to moan thy name? That long sad monotone – the same – the same – Matching the mute
Power
The mighty sound of forests murmuring In answer to the dread command; The stars that shudder when their king Extends his hand, His awful hand to bless, to curse; or moves Toward the dimmest
Adela
Jupiter Mars P Moon VENEZIA, “May” 19″th”, 1910. Jupiter’s foursquare blaze of gold and blue Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl, As if the dread god, charioted anew Came conquering, his
On – On – Poet
I to the open road, You to the hunchbacked street – Which of us two Shall the earlier rue That day we chanced to meet? I with a heart that’s sound, You with sick
Pan to Artemis
Uncharmable charmer Of Bacchus and Mars In the sounding rebounding Abyss of the stars! O virgin in armour, Thine arrows unsling In the brilliant resilient First rays of the spring! By the force of
The Disciples
“To Lionel Engers-Kennedy: to the memory of Hargrave Jennings: and To A. C. W. G. and H. E. H.” Beneath the vine tree and the fig Where mortal cares may not intrude, On melon
Dionysus
I bring ye wine from above, From the vats of the storied sun; For every one of yer love, And life for every one. Ye shall dance on hill and level; Ye shall sing
Athor and Asar
[Dedicated to Frank Harris, editor of Vanity Fair] On the black night, beneath the winter moon, I clothed me in the limbs of Codia, Swooning my soul out into her red throat, So that
La Gitana
Your hair was full of roses in the dewfall as we danced, The sorceress enchanting and the paladin entranced, In the starlight as we wove us in a web of silk and steel Immemorial
Hymn to Lucifer
Ware, nor of good nor ill, what aim hath act? Without its climax, death, what savour hath Life? an impeccable machine, exact He paces an inane and pointless path To glut brute appetites, his
An Oath
(An Oath wrtitten during the Dawn Meditation) Aiwaz! Confirm my troth with thee! my will inspire With secret sperm of subtle, free, creating Fire! Mould thou my very flesh as Thine, renew my birth
The Wizard Way
[Dedicated to General J. C. F. Fuller] Velvet soft the night-star glowed Over the untrodden road, Through the giant glades of yew Where its ray fell light as dew Lighting up the shimmering veil
The Buddhist
There never was a face as fair as yours, A heart as true, a love as pure and keen. These things endure, if anything endures. But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures Us
The Twins
[Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare] Have pity! show no pity! Those eyes that send such shivers Into my brain and spine : oh let them Flame like the ancient city Swallowed up by the
A Birthday
“Aug.” 10, 1911. Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres! A year of infinite love unwearying – No circling seasons, but perennial spring! A
Au Bal
[Dedicated to Horace Sheridan-Bickers] A vision of flushed faces, shining limbs, The madness of the music that entrances All life in its delirium of dances! The white world glitters in the void, and swims
Logos
Out of the night forth flamed a star – mine own! Now seventy light-years nearer as I urge Constant my heart through the abyss unknown, Its glory my sole guide while space surge About
The Neophyte
To-night I tread the unsubstantial way That looms before me, as the thundering night Falls on the ocean: I must stop, and pray One little prayer, and then – what bitter fight Flames at
The Garden of Janus
I The cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam. The vault yet blazes with the sun Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome Whose gladiators shock and shun As the blue night devours
Dumb
Gabriel whispered in mine ear His archangelic poesie. How can I write? I only hear The sobbing murmur of the sea. Raphael breathed and bade me pass His rapt evangel to mankind; I cannot
Colophon
TO LAYLAH EIGHT-AND-TWENTY Lamp of living loveliness, Maid miraculously male, Rapture of thine own excess Blushing through the velvet veil Where the olive cheeks aglow Shadow-soften into snow, Breasts like Bacchanals afloat Under the