Collected Works (Vol. III)

6 THE STAR AND THE GARTER There is the night : unseen I stand And look to seaward still : We would not look upon the land Again, had I my will. The ship is trim: to sea! to sea! Take life in either hand, Crush out its wine for you and me, And drink, and understand ! XI. I AM a pretty advocate ! My speech has served me ill. Perchance Silence had served : you now look straight On that clear evidence of France, The embroidered garter yonder, Wait! I had some confidence in fate Ere I spoke thus. For while I spoke The old smile, surely helpless, broke On your tired lips: the old light woke In your deep eyes: but silence falls Blank, blank: the species that appals, Not our old silence. I devise A motto for your miseries: ‘¢ There an embroidered garter lies, And here words—they lie too?”’ I see Your intuition of the truth Is still in its—most charming—youth. You need that physiology! XII. I LOVE you. That seems simple? No! Hear what the physiologist Says on the subject. Zo and fro ‘The motor axts of the brain 1 In view of the strange uproar which this harmless section created, one person supposing it to testify Crowley’s ignorance, another that it was a correct physiological description of the action of the erector penis muscle (! ! !), it should be explained that the speaker wishes to explain that consciousness is a function of the brain, and that, talking to an ignorant girl, he allows himself to talk what is in detail extravagant nonsense. Hits on the cerebellum hard, Makes the medulla itch: the bard Twitches hts spinal cord again, Excites Rolando’s fissure, and Impinges on the Pineal gland. Then Hippocampus mayor strikes The nerves, and we may say ‘* He likes,” But uf the umbilical cord Cut the cerebrum like a sword, And afferent ganglia, sensory bones, Shake in the caecum: then one groans ‘* He likes Miss What's your Name.” Andtf The appendix vermiformis biff The pericardium, pleura shoves The femur—we may say: ‘‘ He loves.” Here is the mechanism strange (But perfectly correct) to change My normal calm—seraphic dew ! Into an ardent love for you. XIII. Is there a soul behind the mask? What master drives these slaves to task Thus willing? Physiology Wipes the red scalpel, scorns reply. My argument to please you swerves, Becomes a mere defence of nerves. Why they are thus, why so they act, We know not, but accept the fact. How this for my peccation serves? Marry, how? Tropically! Pact I bind with blood to show you use For this impertinence—and add A proverb fit to make you mad About the gander and the goose,! Till you riposte with all your force A miserable pun on sauce. The battle when you will! This truce I take in vantage, hold my course. I see mechanic causes reach Back through eternity, inform The stellar drift, the solar storm, The protoplasmic shiver, each 1 What is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.