Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1898 · PDF PAGE 113

Songs of the Spirit

The Spirit of Jehovah, like a dove On wings of love, Breathe the sweet kiss, a sacrament untold, And clothe the heart’s desire with flames of gold. No rash Icarian wing this passion plies, But sanctifies, As if a censer (that a cherub swings) Blossomed with wings And floated up, an incense-breathing bird, With songs half heard Before the throne of God. Even so this life Of sordid strife Is made most holy, beautiful, and pure, By this desire, if this desire endure. So to the altar of the Highest aspire Those souls whose fire Has on it cast one g…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 20

Songs of the Spirit

That is not seeing, but the light That secretly is kindled, Though oft time its most holy fire Lacks oil, whene’er my own Desire Before desire has dwindled. I see the thin web binding me With thirteen cords of unity Toward the calm centre of the sea. (O thou supernal mother !) The triple light my path divides To twain and fifty sudden sides Each perfect as each other. Now backwards, inwards still my mind Must track the intangible and blind, And seeking, shall securely find Hidden in secret places Fresh feasts for every soul that strives, New li…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 77

Songs of the Spirit

…sea Incessantly devours, A rock impregnable, where herb and tree Are not. A vision of it came to me In night’s most ghastly hours. I who desire, beyond all named desire, To pass the envious bounds of air and fire, And penetrate the bosom of the night, Saw in a vision such a neophyte Stand on the forehead of the rock ; I saw The armies of unalterable law Shudder within their spheres, as to him came His master’s spirit, like a tongue of flame, To touch his lips and ears and eyes and hands With that pale amber that divides the lands Of sense and s…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 34

Songs of the Spirit

Behold, I stand above His head With feet made white with whitest fire, Above His forehead, that is red As blood with His Desire. I knew that Voice was more than God, And echo trembled for its trust : Sleep’s feet, like Death’s, with fire are shod, And Love is likest Lust. So I returned and sought her breast, Our Lady of ten thousand Pains ; I drank her kisses, and possessed Her pale maternal veins. I said : Drain hard my sudden breath, Be cruel for the vampire thrust ! Let Sleep’s desire be sweet as Death, And Love be clean as Lust ! I died ami…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 18

Songs of the Spirit

… fastens on my heart ; Save only that it grips with icy fire These veins no fire of hell could satiate ; Save only that it quenches this desire. Let me pass out beyond the city gate. 8

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1898 · PDF PAGE 119

Songs of the Spirit

There steals through my coldness a fire, Between my slow words is a sword, One lit by the heart of desire, One sharp in the hand of the lord ; To these that sink, sleep, and expire, your welcome accord. With winds and white seas for your raiment Your stature immutably stands : My love, with no claim, as a claimant Came seeking out truth in the sands, Found truth, and must place in poor payment this book in your hands. 109

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1898 · PDF PAGE 101

Songs of the Spirit

…oth now And where the blood has dried, The blood whose purple tide doth flow From out the smitten side. The fragrance of his skin begets Desire of holy things ; 91

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1898 · PDF PAGE 112

Songs of the Spirit

… flame Whose root most secretly made fast in hell Is watered by the seraphim that fell. The heart wherein is lit the sacred fire Of high desire, Burnt clean from all untruth and sacrilege, Her wings may fledge, And fly a little in the broad sweet air, Till unaware 102

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1898 · PDF PAGE 76

Songs of the Spirit

…write : Communion with the night Is built, a bride of fiery truth across the subtle mind. God’s angels, and His fire, Consume the soul’s desire, And strike a lighter lyre. I seek ; the angels lead me on, all light and truth to find. 66

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1898 · PDF PAGE 94

Songs of the Spirit

These press upon my lips What lips of flame To burn me, unless slips Some cooler kiss, from shame Washed clean by God’s desire, To save me from their fire— Those kiss me and respire The perfume of the Name. Remorse and terror banished By pitying lovers, Who from my eyes have vanished, (The Lidless Eye discovers), Repenting souls that turn, Whose hearts with pity burn For me, who now discern Their love around me hovers. Their love wards from my head The furious hate Of those loves doubly dead That may not pass the gate : 84

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1898 · PDF PAGE 98

Songs of the Spirit

…e the night And calmed the sea. I scarce could see his features for the fire That dwelt about his brow, Yet, for the whiteness of my own desire, I see him now ; Because my footsteps follow his, and tread The awful bounds of heaven, and make 88

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1898 · PDF PAGE 36

Songs of the Spirit

… weakness are interred In the deep water where the pebbles gleam. I rouse the force persistent of my will To compel matter to the soul’s desire, To make Heaven aid the mind that would aspire To touch its borders, and to drink their fill At those far fountains whence one drop of dew Descends upon my head from yonder blue. 26

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1898 · PDF PAGE 14

Songs of the Spirit

… brazen chain, Far from the change that men call life fled higher Into the world immutable of sleep, We see our loved one, and vain eyes desire In vain to weep. Woeful our gaze, if on Ione Earth descendent, To view the absence of yon flame afar— Yet in the Heavens, anew, divine, resplendent, Behold a star ! One light the less, that steady flamed and even Amid the dusk of Earth’s uncertain shore ; One light the less, but in Jehovah’s Heaven One star the more ! 4

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1898 · PDF PAGE 68

Songs of the Spirit

…s, and made Him mirth In the poor dreams of us Who strive mysterious To pierce the bands of sense, and break the girth Of our own minds’ desire, Till He relume the fire Lost at our fall, not kindled fresh till that diviner birth. 58

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1898 · PDF PAGE 51

Songs of the Spirit

THE FAREWELL OF PARACELSUS TO APRILE. THOU Sun, whose swift desire to-day is dull, And all ye hosts of heaven, whose lips are mute, And trees and flowers and oceans beautiful Among whose murmurs I have struck this lute With joy supreme or agony acute, And love transcending everything alway, Pity me, pity, since the poisonous root Of parting strikes the beauty of the day ; We meet for the last time beside the ocean gray. Soul of my soul, we never can forget— But, is our parting burnt across the skies ? Is the last word said ? Must our lips be se…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 110

Songs of the Spirit

Of lust, the cruel torment of desire More than hell fire, And bid them fade, as if the bryony Let her flower die, And banished them through space, as if a star Dropped through the far Vault of the sky, and, as a lamp extinct With blood-red tinct, Went out. So lonely in mysterious night A wild, strange light Flickers around the sacred head of man, And bids him scan The scroll of heaven, and see if there be not, Black with no blot Of cloud, but golden lettered on the blue That mothers dew, This message of good hope, good trust, good fate And good…

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1898 · PDF PAGE 118

Songs of the Spirit

…s England thy clime be In years that sway slow as the wheat, Take thought, for an hour let my rhyme be not wholly unsweet. For truth and desire and devotion May lend through the verses a voice, They tremble with violent motion, They yearn to be fair for thy choice As billows and winds of the ocean that roar and rejoice. For winds that are shaken and riven I bound by my power unto me ; For these have I battled and striven With winds that are rapid and free ; With weapons of words I have driven the pulse of the sea. 108

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1898 · PDF PAGE 6

Songs of the Spirit

…ly fire that drew Its perfect passion from the dew, And all the flowers that blushed and blew On sunny slopes by little brooks. Mine the desire that brushed aside The thorns, and would not be denied, And sought, more eager than a bride, The cold grey secrets wan and wide of sacred books. Thine was the hand that guided me By moor and mountain, vale and lea, And led me to the sudden sea That lies superb, remote, and deep, vi

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1898 · PDF PAGE 27

Songs of the Spirit

…angible, eluding sense And poor conception, halting for a phrase Of weak mind-language, O Eternity, Hear thou the feeble world, the lame desire, The dubious crying of the pinioned dove, The wordless eloquent emotion That speaks within a man, despite his mind ! Hear, who can pray for naught, unknowing aught Whereof, for what to pray. But hear me, thou ! Hear me, thou God, who fettered the bleak winds Of North and East, and held in silken rein The golden steeds of West and South, who bade The tireless sea respect its narrow bounds, And fixed the …

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1898 · PDF PAGE 79

Songs of the Spirit

…l palaces of fire, And all the earth’s dwarf-ridden secrecy, They come, they gather, and they ride, to bear Destruction and disorder and desire ; They cling to him who braves the gale of night, And mock his might ; They rush upon him like a wave, and break In fiery foam against him, and they shake Life in its citadel, They open Hell To let the Furies and the Fates spring forth On their wild chargers of the icy North To quench the holy lamp. His spirit and his life within him quail, And all the armaments of sin assail With deadly tramp, And swor…

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