Poetica Erotica

THE ALTAR OF ARTEMIS (By Aleister Crowley. From The Soul of Osiris. 1901) WHERE, in the coppice, oak and pine And mystic yew and elm are found, Sweeping the skies, that grow divine With the dark wind’s despairing sound, The wind that roars from the profound, And smites the mountain-tops, and calls Mute spirits to black festivals, And feasts in valleys iron-bound, Desolate crags, and barren ground;— There in the strong storm-shaken grove Swings the pale censer-fire for love. The foursquare altar, rightly hewn, And overlaid with beaten gold, Stands in the gloom; the stealthy tune Of singing maidens overbold Desires mad mysteries untold, With strange eyes kindling, as the fleet Implacable untiring feet ‘Weave mystic figures manifold That draw down angels to behold The moving music, and the fire Of their intolerable desire. For, maddening to fiercer thought, The fiery limbs requicken, wheel ‘That flashes in the fight: the peal Of amorous laughters choking sense, And madness kissing violence, Ring like dead horsemen; bodies reel Drunken with motion; spirits feel The strange constraint of gods that clip From Heaven to mingle lip and lip. ‘The gods descend to dance; the noise Of hungry kissings, as a swoon, Faints for excess of its own joys, And mystic beams assail the moon, With flames of their infernal noon; While the smooth incense, without breath, [218]