Jephthah and Other Mysteries

ADVERTISEMENTS. SONGS OF THE SPIRIT.” By ALEISTER CROWLEY. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner &Co. Price 3s. 6a. “ Mr. Aleister Crowley (‘Songs of the Spirit’) has a remark- able mastery of form: ‘ Like snows on the mountain, unlifted By weather or wind as it blows, In hollows the heaps of it drifted, The splendour of fathomless snows; So measure and meaning are shifted To fashion a rose.’ It is the very sound of Mr. Swinburne; and the whole book is full of it. But Mr. Crowley seems to have it by nature; his style would have been as it is supposing Mr. Swinburne had never written; at any rate, that is suggested by the ease and fluency of the measure.”—Mr. John Davidson in The Speaker. ‘In the epilogue to his ‘Songs of the Spirit’ Mr. Crowley tells us that ‘The garland I madein my SOrrow Was woven of infinite peace,’ and he prays that ‘for an hour Let my rhyme be not wholly unsweet.’ Nor shall it be, seeing how rich and melodious are many of his poems, besides being full of powerful and original thought. Their tendency is that of the occult philosophy, of a wild and lurid colouring enough it may be, but in no instance devoid of the marks of a true poetic imagination.”—The Book- seller. * A volume of very unequal verse. ‘There are exquisite stanzas here and there, and as a whole, the bookis above the average, but there are many poor pieces and many faults.” —-7e Bookman. * “¢Songsof the Spirit’ proves that Mr. Aleister r Crowley has read his Swinburne. * Like snows on the mountain, unlifted By weather or wind as it blows, In hollows the heaps of it drifted, The splendour of fathomless snows; So measure and meaning are shifted to fashion a rose.’ I