Collected Works (Vol. II)

THE STORM 25 Thy crying about the city In. the house where is no pity, But in the desolate halls and lonely vales of sand : Not in the laughter loud, Nor crying of the crowd, But in the farthest sea, the yet untravelled land. Where thou hast trodden, I have trod ; Thy folk have been my folk, and thine abode Mine, and thy life my life, and thou, who art thy God, my God. VII. Draw me with cords that are not; witch me chanted Spells never heard nor open to the ear, Woven of silence, moulded in the haunted Houses where dead men linger year by year. I have no fear To tread thy far irremeable way Beyond the paths and palaces of day, Beyond the night, beyond the skies, Beyond eternity’s Tremendous gate; beyond the immanent miracle.4 O secret self of things ! I have nor feet nor wings Except to follow far beyond Heaven and Earth and Hell, Until I mix my mood And being in thee, as in my hermit’s hood I grow the thing I contemplate—that selfless solitude ! THE STORM. Written on the North Atlantic Ocean. In the sorrow of the silence of the sunset, when the world’s heart sinks to sleep, And the waking wind arises from the wedding of the aether and the deep, There are perfumes through the saltness of the even ; there are hints of flowers afar; And the God goes down lamented by the lonely vesper star. 1 The universe. The monsters rise around us as we move in moving mist, Slow whales that swim as musing, and lo! or ever we wist, Looms northward in the grey, mysterious ice, cathedral high, Clad in transparent clouds of cold, as a ghost in drapery. The solemn dusk descending creeps around us from the East ; Clouded as with the ungainly head of a mysterious beast. Long wisps of darkness (even as fingers) reach and hold The sobbing West toward them, clasp the barred Hesperian gold. Still pale a rose reflection lingers, in pure soft blue ; Even above the tempest, where a lonely avenue Leads from the wan moon’s image, shadowy in the air, Waning, half hidden from the sun—and yet her soul is there. So stand I looking ever down to the rolling sea, Breast-heaves of a sleeping mother, spouse of Eternity : The dark deep ocean mother, that another? hath reviled, Calling her bitter and barren—and am I not her child ? O mother sea, O beautiful, more excellent than earth, How is thy travail understood, except thou give me birth ? O waves of death, O saltness, O sorrow manifold ! I see beneath thy darkness azure; deeper still, the heart of gold. 1 It is not known to whom Crowley refers.