Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1903 · PDF PAGE 75

Alice: An Adultery

…atched us at midnight : there my lover lay Child-breasted, maiden as the rose of day Dawning on snowy mountains : through deep night Her body gleamed self-luminously white With the sweet soul that sundered the quick clay, And all her being was a sense of May ;— Scent conquering colour, soul out-running sight. Not with the Lysian, nor Iacchian dew Of frenzy covered, but with warmer flakes Of Aphrodite shed upon our life, We clung still closer, till the soul ran through Body to body, twined like sunny snakes, Sinlessly knowing we were man and wif…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 94

Alice: An Adultery

…Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.” Romeo and Juliet. Sweet are the swift hard struggles ere the kiss, When the frail body blushes into tears, And short breaths cancel the long sighs, and fears Constrain delight, until their import is Made foolish when the struggle’s synthesis Leads to hot armistice, as dewy spheres Glow, and increase the fury that reveres No God, no heaven but its own hell’s bliss. So after desperate shifts of modesty We could no more ; loosened and lax we lay Breathing and holding : then in amorous play She…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 32

Alice: An Adultery

…in the kisses that swoop low To catch my breath and kill me so, I feel the ghostliness of this Unreal shuttle-game—the kiss ! Her moving body sobs above, And calls its lechery true love. Out from the flame of heart she plucks One flower of fiery light, and sucks Its essence up within her lips, And flings it into mine, and dips And bends her body, writhes and swims To link the velvet of our limbs, My drouthy passion worn and keen, And lusty life of Messaline. The heart’s blood in her boiling over She sucked from many a dying lover : The purple o…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 67

Alice: An Adultery

No blade of grass awaiting takes The dew fresh-fallen above, Because my lover swoons, and slakes Her body’s thirst of love. This night no dewfall from the blue !— Unless my Alice be the dew. This night—O never dawn shall crest The world of wakening, Because my lover has my breast On hers for dawn and spring. This night shall never be withdrawn— Unless my Alice be the dawn. 47

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1903 · PDF PAGE 65

Alice: An Adultery

…nless my Alice be the flower. The stars are hidden in dark and mist, The moon and sun are dead, Because my love has caught and kissed My body in her bed. No light may shine this happy night— Unless my Alice be the light. 45

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1903 · PDF PAGE 80

Alice: An Adultery

…e was reborn. The child slept elsewhere that she might sleep well. Therefore, not fearing anything, I came ; Lit my love’s candle at her body’s flame, And fought not with the fevers now that swell Our burning lips and bosoms, until shame Nearly surrendered the sweet citadel. 60

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1903 · PDF PAGE 48

Alice: An Adultery

…oul horrors from a many hells— Though I had fathomed Fate ; though I had seen Chastity charm-proof arm the sea-gray eyes And sweet clean body of my spirit’s queen, Where nothing dwells that God did not devise. 28

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1903 · PDF PAGE 51

Alice: An Adultery

…ke a trial of her love ? ” 1 Henry VI. I was most weary of my work : the mind Shuddered at all the wonders it had written, And the whole body by the spirit smitten Groaned : so I went and left my love behind, Danced the gross “ hula,” hardly disinclined, By a new lust emphatically bitten ; And so in flames at harlot glances litten I sought that solace I shall never find. Fool ! not to tell her. Triple fool to fly The sunny glance, the moonlight meditation, For even the light of heaven. How much worse The dark antithesis, the coarser curse Of Ed…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 111

Alice: An Adultery

THE FORTY-NINTH DAY “ Let me twine Mine arms about that body.” Coriolanus. I stole her money, even then to prove She had no wings to fly with : but I knew What to her hateful duty there was due, And how the hateful system stank thereof : I let her go, both weeping, both enough Heart-broken : no farewell went ever through— Words came not : only ever : “ I love you ! ” With broken kisses and stained cheeks of love. So all day long and half the night we wandered Down deep lanes and in gardens, like lost souls. Strong kisses that had surfeited a sc…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 107

Alice: An Adultery

…most perish, with one thought Crowned and completed, consecrate and shrined : A perfect temple of fine amber wrought, Whose shrine’s the body and whose lamp the mind. The heart is priest and sacrifice in one ; And, where it sinned or sorrowed, shall atone. 87

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1903 · PDF PAGE 53

Alice: An Adultery

…n, Of my own mind, the Genii of the Seven, To come and live with me and be my dear, To love me in the spirit without fear ;— Leaving the body’s love to follow at even. Seemeth it not absurd ? to use the thought, The utterly divine impersonal Mind of a man, the pure, the spiritual, To such a purpose rather less than nought, A woman’s love—considering that all Wise men assure us that it may be bought ! 33

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1903 · PDF PAGE 33

Alice: An Adultery

She drains our health and builds it up Into her body ; takes our breath, And we—we dream not it is death ! Arm unto arm and eye to eye, Breast to great breast and thigh to thigh, We look, and strain, and laugh, and die. I see the head hovering above To swoop for cruelty or love ; I feel the swollen veins below The knotted throat ; the ebb and flow Of blood, not milk, in breasts of fire ; Of deaths, not fluctuants, of desire ; Of molten lava that abides Deep in the vast volcanic sides ; Deep scars where kisses once bit in Below young mountains t…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 88

Alice: An Adultery

…ned into her mild ones : limbs Twined to each other while fine dew bedims Their quivering skins : lip fastened unto lip : Whole soul and body frenzied meet and clip ; And the breath staggers, and the life-blood swims ! Terrible gods chant black demoniac hymns As the frail cords of honour strain and slip. For in the midst of that tremendous tide The mighty vigour of a god was mine ! Drunk with desire, her lamentations died. The dove gave place a moment to the swine ! Rapturous draughts of madness ! Out she sighed Uttermost life’s love, and becam…

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1903 · PDF PAGE 71

Alice: An Adultery

…nd their lashes With tender mirage of a tear ; Dew fallen on the mouth as it flashes, The kiss that is master of fear ; Dew covering the body that dashes and clings to me here. O fairest, O rose among roses ! O flower of the innermost fire ! O tune of my soul that encloses All life, the tempestuous lyre ! O dawn of my dawn that reposes and darts in desire ! And death and its portals are rifted, Life listens our kisses that weep ; Love hears, and his measure is shifted, Grows solemn and deadly and deep ; Love’s ship droops its sails and is drift…

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