83
JEPUTHAIL
Where the flashes white and wise
Find their mortal foe.
Let us thither, caring not
Anything, or any more,
Since the sorrow of our lot
Craves to pass the abysmal door.
Never more for us shall twine
Rosy fingers on the vine.
Never maiden lips shall cull
Myriad blossoms beautiful.
Never cheeks shall dimple over
st the perfume of the clover.
Never bosoms bright and round
Shall be garlanded and bound
With the chain of myrtle, wreathed
By the fingers of the maid
Kach has chosen for a mate,
When the west wind lately breathed
Murmurs in the wanton glade
Of the day that dawneth late
In a maiden’s horoscope,
Dawning faith and fire and hope
On the spring that only knew
Flowers and butterflies and dew,
Skies and seas and mountains blue,
On the spring that wot not of
Fruit and falling leaves and love.
Never dew-dashed foreheads fair
Shall salute the idle air.
Never shall we wander deep
Where the fronds of fern, asleep,
Kiss her rosy feet that pass
On the spangled summer grass,
ilalfawake, and drowse again.
Never more our feet shall stain
Purple with the Joyous grape,
Whence there rose a fairy shape
In the fume and must and juice,
Singing lest our eyes escape
All his tunic wried and louse
With the feet that softly trod
Tn the vat the fairy god.
Never more our eyes shall swim,
Lovking for the love of him
In the magic moon that bent
Over maidens moon-content,
When the summer woods were wet
With our dewy songs, that set
Quivering all seas and snows,
Stars and tender winds that fret
Lily, lily, laughing rose,
Sighing, sighing violet,
Dusky pansy, swaying rush,
And the stream that flows
Singing, ringing softly: Flush!
Listen to the bird that goes
Wooing to the brown mate’s bough ;
Listen to the breeze that blows
Over cape and valley now
At the silence of the noon,
Or the slumber-hour
Of the white delicious moon
Like a lotus-flower !
Let us sadly, slowly, go
To the silence of the snow !
ADULAH [embracing JEPHTHAN].
Whose crystal fastnesses shall echo back
The lamentations of these friends of mine,
But not my tears. For I will fit myself
By solitude and fasting and much prayer
For this most holy ceremony, to be
A perfect, pure, accepted sacrifice.
Only this sorrow—O father, father, speak!
JEPHTHAH.
Go!
ADULAH.
Most unblamable, we come again.
I would not weep with these; I dare not
Stay,
Lest I weep louder than them all. Fare
well,
My father, O my father! Iam passing
Into the night. Remember me as drawn
Into the night toward the golden dawn.!
(Axeunt ADULAH and Maidens.
1 The ‘‘Golden Dawn" meant at this time
to Crowley all that ‘‘Christ’’ means to an
Evangelical, and more. The symbol con-
stantly recurs in this and many other poems,
| and always in the sense of a rescuing force.