Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1910 · PDF PAGE 177

The World’s Tragedy

…arvation standing by ! Poet, painter, sculptor, sage Prostituted to their age ; Or starved or tortured, should they hold To the clear sunlight and the age of gold, — Scarce a tithe of all I see, Yet — thou dost not pity me ? ALEXANDER Thou art near death : thy corpse light dawns on us. See ! the tenebrous glare and venomous And all it shews. Enough ! I leave thee, man, To hide me in the secret place of Pan Beneath the fallen groves Arcadian. He fades away, as if the new light, making the filth visible, made him invisible. ISSA I am nailed here …

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1910 · PDF PAGE 14

The World’s Tragedy

… IX the air refuse to fly over it ! May it stand as a curse, as a fear, as an hate, among men ! May the wicked dwell the- rein ! May the light of the Sun be withheld therefrom, and the light of the Moon not lighten it ! May it become the home of the shells of the dead, and may the demons of the pit inhabit it ! May it be accursed, accursed, accursed — accursed for ever and ever ! And still, standing as I stand in the prime of early manhood, free from all the fetters of the body and the mind, do I curse the memory thereof unto the ages. It was a…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 70

The World’s Tragedy

…f the soul. CHRYSIPPUS Hear then ! By Abrasax ! the bar Of the unshifting star Is broken — Io ! Asar ! My spirit is wrapt in the wind of light ; It is whirled away on the wings of night, Sable-plumed are the wonderful wings, But the silver of moonlight subtly springs Into the feathers that flash with the pace Of our flight to the violate bounds of space. Time is dropt like a stone from the stars : Space is a chaos of broken bars : Being is merged in a furious flood That rages and hisses and foams in the blood. See ! I am dead ! I am passed, I a…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 71

The World’s Tragedy

…ter ! nay, bid me not ride To the heaven beyond heaven ; for I may not abide. I faint : I am frail : not a mortal may bear The invisible light, the abundance of air. I fail : I am sinking : O Thou, be my friend ! Bear me up ! Bear me up ! Bear me up to the end ! Now ! Now ! In the heart of the bliss beyond being The None is involved in the One that, unseeing, Dashes its infinite splendour to death Beyond light, beyond love, beyond thought, beyond breath. Ah ! but my master ! the death of the sun — Break, break, the last veil ! It is done — It i…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 124

The World’s Tragedy

…ilisk and cockatrice Upon the broad-woven scarlet marge. — God ! how this bosom boils with milk, Its veined radiance swelling — Ah ! the light grows — Back, from these splendid woes And joys obscure Into the squalid and impure House, and the filth indwelling ! She crawls within the hovel.

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1910 · PDF PAGE 180

The World’s Tragedy

THE GREY NIGHT. I27 AGRIPPA But fear persuades. — This deathly light, these foul grey shades ! PUBLIUS Portending little enough of good To Rome, that beats with our heart’s blood. See how dejected on their spears The guard lean ! AGRIPPA Rather a thousand years Of strife than this black peace. Accurst I know this night shall be. ISSA I thirst. AGRIPPA Give him to drink ! PUBLIUS How strange a fate ! Those noble eyes irradiate This leprous luster.

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1910 · PDF PAGE 57

The World’s Tragedy

…us divine ! Hail to the Lord of us ! Blithe is his reign. Be thou adored of us, Soul without stain ! Fair are the faces, and Limbs of us light, Tracing the paces, and Drunk with delight. Io ! let us tremble in Trance of the tune Here that assemble in Joyaunce of June ! ATTHIS Doris, our darling ! How subtle and sweet

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1910 · PDF PAGE 98

The World’s Tragedy

… small and laughing scarlet Mouths betrayed, as overmeasure Bubbled out the dancing harlot Music of them, snaky slim, Panther-smooth and light of limb Wreathed with wealth of mystic berry, As they leap, divinely drunken On the very blood that gat them, Insolent and lewd and merry — With the satyr-eyes deep-sunken Looking things prophetic at them !

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1910 · PDF PAGE 92

The World’s Tragedy

…mariner caught in the viewless iron And velvet vice of a singing siren ! I lift this blade to sheer In one deliberate sweep Of startling light All that man holdeth dear. From the sun’s high steep to the great deep Of unimaginable night To dive — I dive. Lord, now ! Pan ! Pan ! Accept the supreme vow ! The man Shall be no more a man — Stay ! who are these ?

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1910 · PDF PAGE 89

The World’s Tragedy

…mine hands, Murmurous and musical, I come from far-off lands To seek Thee who are All. Amid my warrior bands I rode in kingly wise : Thy light upon mine eyes !

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1910 · PDF PAGE 170

The World’s Tragedy

…ed with twin glittering snakes, the royal Uraeus serpents of ancient Khem ; at its point gleams faint and blue A star of six rays, whose light now illumines the pale and tortured features of a man, with outstret- ched arms, who is hanging (apparently) in space. It is Issa, but the weariness is gone ; and noble-strong is the scarred brow of his agony. ALEXANDER. In the puissance of my will, Issa, I uphold thee still. ISSA. Thou art ? ALEXANDER Keeper of the Way.

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1910 · PDF PAGE 171

The World’s Tragedy

…s has spanned. I hold the star-streams in mine hand. I am the master of life and death And of every spirit that quickeneth. Yea ! in the light of knowledge, Pan

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1910 · PDF PAGE 104

The World’s Tragedy

…eir flame to that decayed Glow of wet rot in the wintry wood. Ay ! from this star disaster-rayed A very wormwood draught is brewed : The light of life shall shrink dismayed At the dawn of prostitute and prude ; And the pagan glory fade From the brows of womanhood. IST SATYR But the boy shall thrust the maid From the sunlight to the shade. He shall make her passion good. 2ND SATYR Nay ! for all the world-decay Rots from sapphirine to grey. All the leprous lichen clings Round the comeliness of things. Brothers ! sisters ! fauns and elves ! Dryads…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 69

The World’s Tragedy

…ne, the languor rare ! For oh ! my lover, I never did see So goodly a company. HERACLITUS Wait but a moment — stand apart, Revolving the light in thine innermost heart ! Content not the soul with the skin of the grape ! — But the truer sense than the eye and the ear Make to appear ! CHRYSIPPUS Verily, master, I obey. I travel the exalted way. I pierce the sense ; I gain the goal, Distill the essence of the soul — HERACLEITUS I shroud thee in the web of wool. I lift the burden of the bull. Lion and eagle ! dart ye forth Into the cold clime of th…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 108

The World’s Tragedy

…t-borne shades Darken the grove ! There is no moon to-night The foul red star blots out the stars. So, Pan, thy love That brooks not any light Shall brand its shameful scars Even on this flesh — this royal flesh shall serve For the brute lust whose nerve Shall eat up blindness in me, and discover The mind of Pan, maker of all, In all — his lover.

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1910 · PDF PAGE 93

The World’s Tragedy

… That thou partake Of — this ! So do the goat and snake Dance on the pavement of sapphire To the sound of the wind-haunted lyre. And the light of a lewd understanding Shines in them, and they lick their lips, and spill Slaver of the stars ! Hail, king ! With Him fulfil The sacrament of earth Imperiously commanding That leaps again to birth At the divided flood

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1910 · PDF PAGE 109

The World’s Tragedy

…And the faint fires that danced Before the sunset like a vivid crown Of blood upon thine head, (O thou severe And strong, my lover, my delight !) Have all died down ; And in the darkness, clear As the dawn’s transient light Are thy lips, live at last ; Thine eyes, aflame at the red holocaust Of me thou gloatest over. See, I draw close, (O vital, murder-loving lover !) And all my being flows In a flood to my lips, and I kiss kiss kiss Madly, madly kiss, Out of rhythm, out of rime, Out of space, sense, time, Thy mouth — and I am thine : Sealed, s…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 48

The World’s Tragedy

…hipper, The brave gay cleanly maiden whose embrace Flushes with shameless fervour the fair face, Fills the whole leaping heaven with the light Till all the world is drunken with delight. You with your own authentic filth defiled Robbed Keats of life, and Shelley of his child, Corrupted Swinburne to your foul disease, Denied Blake bread — are you fed full on these ? You hate the wise, true, beautiful, and holy : — Dogs ! is there nothing you can do to Crowley ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Therefore I see and speak, who would be dumb And blin…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 18

The World’s Tragedy

…n from Cambridge, members of the unspeakable C. I. C. C. U. I remember in my first term at Cambridge how I was in the rooms of a leading light of the C. I. C. C. U., the Revd. Something Doddridge, my Uncle Tom’s trusted henchman. I remember how eloquently he held forth on the cou- rage to stop any “ impure conversation.” I remember how impressed we were ; how a gentleman with an “ honou-

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1910 · PDF PAGE 42

The World’s Tragedy

PREFACE. XXXVII Crowley — the Saviour of the Earth. So that the reader need only turn back to the title-page to see that the Light hath indeed arisen in the darkness. THE ENGLISH SPIRIT It was in my mind to discourse freely upon this enga- ging topic ; but to say truth I am somewhat weary, having now written for some six hours, and being well assured that if I once laid down the pen nothing would persuade me to resume the distasteful task. For there is no ecstasy in argument and exposition as there is in Poetry. That is why journalists are such…

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