Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1901 · PDF PAGE 24

The Mother’s Tragedy

…did create a hearse, Black plumes and solemn mourners; and saw The triumph of some natural law Fit for a poet’s verse. I saw some common fate to lure, to tempt; (No mortal of the ages is exempt) Some notable disaster to the house Wherein such piety and love abide; I saw some hateful spouse Carry away the bride. That feeble prescience of events to come, That stultified imagining, hath lied; And I can see, though all the signs be dumb And auguries unfruitful—I can see, Now, some intolerable tragedy Fit for a god to picture, not a man! I see the b…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 72

The Mother’s Tragedy

…, and powers, Seen and unseen, to justice and to truth, Sought out by desolate ways of hateful deeds, And so set free myself from my own fate, Whom I will smite to end the coil of things Here, to begin—what life? For Life I know Stands like a living sentinel behind The rugged barrier of death, the gates Where the rude valley narrows, and man hears The steep and terrible cataract of time Break, and lose shape and substance in the foam , And spray of an eternity of air! My death, and not my life, may crown me king! So let me not be buried in that…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 61

The Mother’s Tragedy

THE FATAL FORCE Within the gateway of the golden East To rule my fate; but I have conquered Fate Thus far, that I am perfect in myself, The absolute unity and triple power Engrafted. For the foolish people see An old grey woman, wicked, not divine, Who shall this hour assume the royal self And the old godhead, and the lithe strong limbs And supple loins and splendid bosom bare Full of bright milk, the breast of all the world. This lesser mastery I have made mine own By strange devices, by unheard-of ways Of wisdom, by strong sins, and magical R…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 46

The Mother’s Tragedy

…done thee wrong, But be thou mighty to avenge! PACHAD. To-day I, Horus, am to grow Osiris. Yea, Strange secret dreams of some mysterious fate Godlike have come upon me, and the throne Totters for your disloyalty. AMENHATEP. Beware ! How died thy father ? PACHAD. That amazing god Incarnate in him chose a nobler form, And in my mother’s body sought his home, Whose double incarnation is divine Beyond th’ old stories. Yes, I am a god.

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1901 · PDF PAGE 53

The Mother’s Tragedy

…e warrior Lord of the Fire, There burns our desire! AMENHATEP. Cry now, bewail the broken house, bewail The ruin of the land; cry out on Fate! CHORUS. Slow wheels of unbegotten hate And changeless circles of desire, Formless creations uncreate, Swift fountains of ungathered fire, The misty counterpoise of time, Dim winds of ocean and sublime Pyramids of forgotten foam Whirling, vague cones of shapeless sleep And infinite dreams, and stars that roam,

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1901 · PDF PAGE 73

The Mother’s Tragedy

… sacrificial fire: If the altar set above In the palaces of love Glow with this, the perfect passion And sublime desire From the clay of Fate to fashion His own glory, to inspire Worlds impossible to thought With the beauties, subtly wrought, Of his own creative strength. Spirit of the Gods! O single,

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1901 · PDF PAGE 57

The Mother’s Tragedy

…se the incestuous sty of a whore’s desire, Scatter the dung to the sky, and burn her with fire! So the avenging master shall cleanse his fate of shame, Set his seal of disaster, a royal seal to his name. [Exeunt. PACHAD. I am not Horus, but I shall be king. Enter LEPER. THE LEPER. I am a leper, but I am the king. PACHAD. Monstrous illegible horror, let thy mouth Frame from its charnel-house some pregnant word Intelligible. THE LEPER. I am king; thy mother’s limbs Clung fast to mine when I begot thy father. PACHAD. He died in battle; thou art no…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 76

The Mother’s Tragedy

…ur ye demand In vain. But ye may purify yourselves. AMENHATEP. Knows then thy prophecy our final doom ? THE LEPER. , Inquire not of your fate! Myself do know, Mayhap. Ye shall know. I await the event.

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1901 · PDF PAGE 35

The Mother’s Tragedy

…CORA, watching him. How wonderful! He will abide the shock. Death and mute horror fight within his face Against a will made masterful to Fate. ULRIC razses his eyes and lifts hts arm in act to strike. Then I detest you! Mother! Treacherous! Vile as the worm that battens on the dead! CORA. Ulric! He’s mad! Sweet heaven! what is this ? [CORA zs now hysterical, ULRIC does not notice. She shrieks at each new insult. ULRIC. Say rather, what are you? I loved you once Childlike; then came the power of reasoning, And | beheld you, the unselfish one, Be…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 25

The Mother’s Tragedy

…er. A creeping, living horror hems me in, A masterpiece of sin! Even my soul, inured to contemplate The dreadful, the perverse design of Fate, In many stories never meant to win Applause of mortals or of gods, but made To choke man’s spirit in its shade, And make him, in his pride and happiness, — In virtue’s mantle and love’s seemly dress, Immeasurably afraid. The hour is on them—let its weight express All blood, ali life, from the disastrous grape! In. God, in mercy, there is no escape, No anchor for distress. The hour strikes mournfully upon…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 21

The Mother’s Tragedy

…effects, are past.” Some one terror—subtle foe !— “‘T have laid that spectre low!” They know not, learn not, cannot calculate How subtly Fate Weaves its fine mesh, perceiving how to wait, Or how accumulate

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1901 · PDF PAGE 39

The Mother’s Tragedy

… a horrible feeling in the air. [She shudders. SPIRIT OF TRAGEDY. The keystone of this arch of misery Is set by the unfaltering hands Of Fate. How desperate the anarchy Wrought in one hour! The fickle sands Run through the glass, and all the light is gone. Abysses without name the mighty power Spans with spread fingers; on the horizon Blood stains the setting sun, The shattered sun; it shall not rise again ! No resurrection to the trampled flower, No hope to angels watching as in vain Love—lies—slain ! Madness and Terror and the deadly mood of …

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1901 · PDF PAGE 58

The Mother’s Tragedy

…hat the old bondage was as terrible As thine incestuous mother’s iron hand, Rending the entrails of her growing realm To seek her bloody fate, whose violence Even now makes the abyss of wrath divine Boil in the deep. Thou mayest be that great Osiris, bidding man’s high soul be free, Justified in its own higher self, made pure And perfect in its own eyes, being a god. Destroy this priestcraft. We are priests indeed,

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1901 · PDF PAGE 40

The Mother’s Tragedy

…f men’s hope, The slayer of them, cast no horoscope Divining what befell, And I am moved: Both love, and both are worthy to be loved. Ah Fate! if thou hadst cast the dies Whence no appeal, in any other wise! I am the soul of the grim face of things; Mine are the Sphinx’s wings; Mine own life lives with this event! Yet even I, its very self, lament The execrable tyranny, The rayless misery Of this wild whirlpool sea of circumstance. Mine old eyes look askance: It is my punishment to dwell In mine own self-created hell. [CORA vushes in. MADELINE.…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 71

The Mother’s Tragedy

… the rancour of my stricken soul In the abodes of night, that I have dared, With the first knowledge, to make good my spirit Against its fate, to steel my flinching heart

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1901 · PDF PAGE 56

The Mother’s Tragedy

…resh fountains of sweet water that endure Assume the crown of the wide world, and lend A star of many summits to his head That rules his fate and compasses his end, And seeks the holy mountain of the dead To draw dead fire, and breathe, and give it life! But thou, be strong for strife, And, as a god, cry out, and let there be The mark of many footsteps on the sea Of angels hastening to fulfil Thy supreme, single will! Alone, intense, unmoved, not made for change, Let thy one godhead rise To move like morning, and like day to range, ~ A furnace …

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1901 · PDF PAGE 55

The Mother’s Tragedy

…om slow chants unheard, And visions from the fathomless night. So is the spirit of the loftier man Made holy and most strong against his fate; So is the desolate visage of the wan Lord of Amenti covered, and the gate Of Ra made perfect. So the waters flow Over the earth, throughout the sea, Till all its deserts glow,

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1901 · PDF PAGE 102

The Mother’s Tragedy

…on broke Her history’s prison, from that hour to endure Mighty as tempest and as spring wind pure. After a year her changed life met its fate. There came a man and loved her, and her soul The first time knew true sympathy. Elate, That pure joy filled her body’s broken bow! With infinite fresh fire and purer wine; Her whole life grew one exquisite divine Flower of the sunlight; memory alone Held its stern sceptre on a cruel throne. She simply fled and would not see his face. A noble folly! In the countryside Where her harsh youth was nurtured, i…

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