Collected Works (Vol. I)

178 THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GHOST SIDONIA THE SORCERESS.! SIDONIA the Sorceress ! I revel in her amber skin, Dream in her eyes and die in her caress. She is for me the avatar of sin, Sidonia the Sorceress. The one unpardonable wickedness, Strange serpent-blasphemies, are curled within The heart of her Hell gives me to possess. Her hair is fastened with a dagger thin ; A dead man’s heart is woven with each tress. I murdered Christ before my lips could win Sidonia the Sorceress. THE GROWTH OF GOD. (AS DEVELOPED ON A MOONLESS NIGHT IN THE TROPICS.)? EVEN as beasts, where the sepulchral ocean Sobs, and their fins and feet keep Runic pace, Treading in water mysteries of motion, Witch-dances : where the ghastly carapace Of the blind sky hangs on the monstrous verge: Even as serpents, wallowing in the slime ; So my thoughts raise misshapen heads, and urge Horrible visions of decaying Time. For in the fiery dusk arise distorted Grey shapes in moonless phosphorus glow of death ; The keen light of the eyes thrust back and thwarted, The quick scent stabbed by the miasma breath. 1 For her history see Wilhelm Meinhold., 2 When Crowley was benighted on the way from Iguala to Mexico City, whither he was riding unattended. The day is over, when the lizard darted, A flash of green, the emerald outclassed ; Night is collapsed upon the vale: departed All but the Close, suggestive of the Vast. The heavy tropic scent-inspiring gloom Clothes the wide air, the circumambient cether. The earth grins open, as it were a tomb, _ And struggling earthquakes gnash their teeth beneath her. The night is monstrous: in the flickering fire Strange faces gibber as the brands burn low ; Old shapes of hate, young phantoms of desire More hateful yet, shatter and change and grow. There is a sense of terror in the air, And dreadful stories catch my breath and bind me, Soft noises as of breathing: unaware What devils or what ghosts may lurk behind me! Even my horse is troubled : vain it is Invoking memory for sweet sound of youth ; The song, the day, the cup, the shot, the kiss ! This night begets illusion—ay ! the truth. I know the deep emotion of that birth, When chaos rolled in terror and in thunder; The abortion of the infancy of earth; The monsters moving in a_ world of wonder3; The Shapeless, racked with agony, that grew Into these phantom forms that change and shatter3 The falling of the first toad-spotted dew ; The first lewd heaving ecstasy of matter. I see all Nature claw and tear and bite, All hateful love and hideous: and the brood Misshapen, mishegotten out of spite ; Lust after death ; love in deerepitude.