The Star in the West

THE NEW WINE 281 The metaphysics of these verses Is perfectly absurd. My curse No sooner in an iron word I formulate my thought than I Perceive the same to be absurd . ' ... " And this fleeting changeful “ experience,” Huxley says , is necessarily “ based on incomplete know ledge," and is “ to be held only as grounds of more or less justified expectation " ... “ On the other hand , no conceivable event however extraordinary is impossible ." 2 Thus all changeability is uncertainty , from the Gods and the Suns which we worship , to the kisses we shower on our loved ones ' lips ; as Crowley sings : Why must despair to madness drive The myriad fools that fear to die ? God's but a fervid phantom drawn Out of the hasty - ordered hive Of thoughts that battle agony In the melancholy hours of dawn . When vital force at lowest ebbs Anæmic nerves weave frailest webs.3 And the five senses stand naked and shivering in the freezing night of doubt , the fire is dead , and on the hearth crouch the spectral ashes no longer to flame in the starlight . Foolish prostitute ! You slacked your kiss upon the sodden youth In some excess of confidence , decay Of care to hold him - can I tell you which ? Down goes the moon - one sees the howling bitch !" 4 1 The Sword of Song , Pentecost , vol . ii, p . 170 . Huxley's Hume , p . 157 . Gargoyles , vol . iii, p . 85 . 4 Ibid . vol . iii, p . 91 . 3