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THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GHOST
Slow steals the ambient light; white peace
resumes
In planet, element, and sign, her sway.
The twisted ether shapes itself: relumes
The benediction all the faded fumes
With holier incense: in the fervid way
All nature rests: .with holy calm I blend
Blessing and prayer at the appointed end.
THE ROSE AND THE CROSS.!
Our of the seething cauldron of my woes,
Where sweets and salt and bitterness I
flung;
Where charméd music gathered from my
tongue,
And where I chained strange archipelagoes
Of fallen stars ; where fiery passion flows
A curious bitumen ; where among
The glowing medley moved the tune
unsung
Of perfect love: thence grew the Mystic Rose.
Its myriad petals of divided light ;
Its leaves of the most radiant emerald ;
Its heart of fire like rubies. At the sight
I lifted up my heart to God and called :
How shall I pluck this dream of my desire?
And lo! there shaped itself the Cross of Fire!
HAPPINESS.
Ir is the seasonable sun of spring
That gilds the all-rejuvenescent air—
New buds, young birds, so‘happy in the rare
Fresh life of earth: myself am bound to sing,
Feeling the resurrection crown me king.
I am so happy as men never were.
Of sorrow much, of suffering a share,
Leave me unmoved, or leave me conquering.
1 The symbol of the ‘‘ Rose and Cross” now
replaces that of the ‘‘Golden Dawn.” We
may suppose from this that Crowley was about
this time received into the former fraternity.
O miserable ! that it should be so!
Lord Jesus, Sufferer for the sins of man,
Thou didst invite me to Thy shame and
loss.
And Iam happy! Pity me! Bestow
The right to work in the eternal Plan,
The right to hang on the eternal Cross!
THE LORD’S DAY.
THE foolish bells with their discordant clang
Summon the harlot-ridden Hell to pray :
The vicar’s snout is tuned, the curates bray
Long gabbled lessons, and their noisy twang
Kills the foul worshippers with hate ; the fang
Of boredom crushes out the holy day,
Where whore and jobber sit and gloom,
grown grey
For hating of each other ; the hours hang.
But where cliffs tremble, and the wind and sea
Clamour, night thunders from the roaring
West ;
I worship in the storm, and fires flee
From my gripped lightnings and my burn-
ing crest ;
And when my voice rolls, master of the
weather,
A thousand mighty angels cry together !
BRIGHTON, January 1899.
CERBERUS.
I stoop within Death’s gate,
And blew the horn of Hell:
Mad laughters echoing against Fate,
Harsh groans less terrible,
Ifowled from beneath the vault ; in night the
avenging thunders swell.
The guardian stood aloof,
A monster multiform.
His armour was of triple proof,
His voice out-shrilled the storm.
Behind him all the Furies whirl and all the
Harpies swarm.