Collected Works (Vol. II)

THE HERMIT’S HYMN TO SOLITUDE 23 I follow to the eagle-batiling sight, Limitless oceans of abounding space ; Purposed to blind myself, but know thy face, Phoebus, in gazing. O hear me! hear me ! hear me! for my hands, Dews deathly bathe them ; sinks the stricken song; Eyes that were feeble have become the strong, See thee and glisten. Blindness is mine ; my spirit understands, Weighs out the offering, accepts the pain, Hearing the pzean of the unprofane ! Lycian, listen ! God of the fiery face, the eyes inviolate ! Lord of soundless thunders, lightnings light- less ! Hear me now, for joy that I see thee sightless, Fervent to follow. Grant one boon; destroy me, let me die elate, Blasted with light intolerant of a mortal, That the undying in me pass thy portal ! Hear me, Apollo. Hear me, or if about thy courts be girded Paler some purple softening the sunlight Merciful, mighty, O divide the one light Into a million Shattered gems, that I mingle in my worded Measures some woven filament of passion Caught, Phoebus, from thy star-girt crown, to fashion Poet’s pavilion. Let me build for thee an abiding palace Rainbow-hued to affirm thy light divided, Yet where starry words, by thy soul guided, . Sing as they glisten, Dew-drops diamonded from the abundant chalice ! Swoons the prayer to silence ; pale the altar Glows at thy presence as the last words falter— Lycian, listen ! THE HERMIT’S HYMN TO SOLITUDE. Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasam- buddhasa. Venerable Lord and Best of Friends, We, seeing the cycle in which Maha Brahma is perhaps more a drifting buoy than ourselves, knowing that it is called the walking in delusion, the puppet show of delusion, the writhing of delusion, the fetter of delusion, are aware that the way out of the desert is found by going into the desert. (Will you, in your lonely lamaserai, accept this hymn from me, who, in the centre of civilisation, am perhaps more isolated than you in your craggy fastness among the trackless steppes of your Untrodden Land? ALEISTER CROWLEY. PARIS, A.B. 2446. I MIGHTIEST Self! Supreme in Self-Con- tentment ! Sole Spirit gyring in its own ellipse ; Palpable, formless, infinite presentment | Of thine own light in thine own soul’s eclipse ! Let thy chaste lips Sweep through the empty aethers guarding thee . | : (As in a fortress girded by the sea The raging winds and wings of air Lift the wild waves and bear Innavigable foam to seaward), bend thee down, Touch, draw me with thy kiss Into thine own deep bliss, Into thy sleep, thy life, thy imperishable crown ! | Let that young godhead in thine eyes Pierce mine, fulfil me of their secrecies, Thy peace, thy purity, thy soul impenetrably wise. II. All things which are complete are solitary ; The circling moon, the inconscient drift of stars, The central systems. they, vary? Theirs is no motion beyond the eternal bars. Seasons and scars ) Burn they, change