Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION

Search the corpus.

Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.

3 matching pages

Page 1 of 1
1910 · PDF PAGE 3

Rosa Decidua

ROSA DECIDUA “ O Rose, thou art sick ! The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.”—BLAKE. ROSE of the World ! If so, then what a world ! What worm at its red heart lay curled From the beginning ? Plucked and torn and trampled And utterly corrupt is she That was the queen-flower unexampled In gardens goodlier than Arcady. O Thou ! whose body was my lyre, whose soul Lay on my mouth like a live coal ! This time thou hearest not my song ; thin…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1910 · PDF PAGE 10

Rosa Decidua

… masterful love And all-embracing pity strove Like athletes in an amorous bout to make Some child to tread upon that snake. But ever the worm slipped, escaped ; its spires Here crushed, there rose the stronger for the pressure That gave it purchase ; keener flamed the fires In its eyes triumphant. Now its soul asserts Its master-pleasure ; The worm exerts Its adult might, and in one bout The spine snaps of that child of Love and Pity, And mangled he falls out Of the fight. Just so child Hercules Strangled two serpents in his pretty Red fists, a…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1910 · PDF PAGE 5

Rosa Decidua

…am not old : I am quite beautiful ; How have I lost your love ? ” Pitiful ! Pitiful ! Pitiful ! This is no tragedy of little tears. This worm was in her blood Lurking for thrice five years, And now I see him—that old slime that leers Where Bacchus smiles, that evil and averse God that is wholly curse,

original embedded textRead original & transcription →