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.

3,920 matching pages

Page 37 of 196
1899 · PDF PAGE 196

Jephthah and Other Mysteries

…o Lesbos or to Rome. His life he sees unhidden, A sea of waves unchidden, Devouring things forbidden In sacramental foam. Here come “the loves that wither,” And here their heaviest wings Droop, and “dead years draw hither And all disastrous things.” Pure loves that flowered never, True loves that none might sever, The flame that burns for ever, Love's ruined water-springs. Oh, Death! draw nigh, deliver My passion from its band ; Draw nigh, until I shiver At thy most holy hand. For Earth’s desires have fled me, And Earth’s distrusts have fed me,…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1899 · PDF PAGE 211

Jephthah and Other Mysteries

…cliff and precipitous ghyll ; Fire and desire and light and youth and passion and freedom Race in my blood untamed, laugh in my face for love. Down by the cold gray lake the sun descends from his hunting, Shadow and silence steal over the frozen fells. Oh, to be there, my heart !_ And the vesper bells awaken, Colleges call their children, Lakeland fades from the sight. Only the sad slow Cam like a sire with age grown heavy Wearily moves to the sea, to quicken to life at last. Blithelier I depart, to a sea of sunnier kindness ; Hours of waiting …

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1903 · PDF PAGE 111

Alice: An Adultery

…m 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 score Of earthly bridals in an hour we squandered ; And tears like fire, and looks like burning coals, Without a word passed on for evermore. 91

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1907 · PDF PAGE 47

Rodin in Rime

As he loved her do I love you”? So much they shall know, surely; never The truth, how lofty and fresh as dew Our love began, abode for ever: They cannot know us through and through. We have exceeded all the past. The future shall not build another. This is the climax, first and last. We stand upon the summit. Mother Of ages, daughter of ages, cast The fatal die, and turn to death! Let evolution turn, involving As when the gray sun sickeneth— Ghostly September! so dissolving Into the pale eternal breath. When all is done, shall this be said. Whe…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1907 · PDF PAGE 58

The Star in the West

…ey has enshrined before him ; for varied as his powers are , entwined with satire , philosophy and mysticism , as a singer of lyrics and love -songs Aleister Crowley remains unsurpassed , unrivalled , among the host of present-day poets . His thoughts are as subtle , his imagination as gorgeous , his melodies as charming as those of Shelley himself ; soft as a summer breeze , fresh as the dawn in May, sunny as a June day , and then furious with burning passion and vitriolic lust . So closely interwoven in spirit are the true lyrics with the rem…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1906 · PDF PAGE 72

Collected Works (Vol. II)

… on brasswith the predestined pen. This is the doom. Upon the blind blue sky A little cloud, no larger than an hand ! Whether I live and love, or love and die, I care not: either way I understand. To me—to live is Christ ; to die is gain: For I, I also, I shall come again. THE FIFTH DAY. ‘Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.” Richard Il. ALL thought of work is almost cast aside. I followed like a dog the way she went, Speaking but seldom, very well content To day-dream, oft imagining a bride, A wife, a lover, even a sister, tied By some …

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1939 · PDF PAGE 6

Temperance: A Tract for the Times

… Astarte sea-born, how invoke her aright? I am free from the fire and the foam, I have conquered the dragons and doves; I have gotten me Love as the gold from the furnace that melted my loves. Love is not bound to the body, not sparse and adrift with the mind Not secret with soul, though the soul seem one and alone of its kind. The body is naught but a corpse, its growth but a name of decay, A delirious dream of sick gods—where the Shadow hath sway. Concocted of offal and mire, putrescent with cancer of breath, A knot that unravels to naught, a…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1929 · PDF PAGE 212

Confessions of Aleister Crowley

…l than the amateur. The desire for exclusive possession is one of the most idiotic and bestial pieces of vanity in human psychology. But love can exist between man and woman entirely independent of any sexual relations between them. The condition of this love is that both parties should have completely mastered their sexual natures; for otherwise their mutual relations are not free to love decently until they have analysed themselves completely and swept away ever\ trace of mystery from sex; and this means the acquisition of a profound philosop…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1901 · PDF PAGE 92

The Soul of Osiris

… am walking in the night. Then I turned mine eyes away to the Light that is above you : The answering splendid Dawn arose, and I did not love you. I saw the breaking light, and the clouds fled far away : It was the resurrection of the Golden Star of Day. And now I live in Him ; my heart may trace the years In drops of virginal blood and springs of virginal tears. I love you now again with an undivided song. Because I can never love you, I cannot do you wrong. I saw in your dying embraces the birth of a new embrace ; In the tears of your pitiful…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1910 · PDF PAGE 70

The Scented Garden

62 The Falsity of the Frank. XI. Aziz1 Of what have I sung, Habib ? Of thy love. Of what do I sing now ? Of thy faithlessness. Thy presence or absence makes no difference, therefore, to me. In the same way, whether Allah be or be not is little odds so long as His devotees enjoy the mystic rapture.2 Yet as the podex of Aziz is inferior to thy podex,3 both because it has two fistulae, and because it lacks thy heat, dryness, and tightness, so also is the god of the Christians inferior to Allah, both be- cause he has two cogods, and because he hath…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1903 · PDF PAGE 42

Alice: An Adultery

THE FIRST DAY “ Who ever loved that loved not at first sight ? ” As You Like It. The waving surf shone from the Peaceful Sea. Young palms embowered the house where Beauty sate Still but exultant, silent but elate In its own happiness and majesty Of a mild soul unstirred by rivalry Of any life beyond its own sweet state. I looked around me, wondered whether Fate Had found at last a woman’s love for me. I had no hope : she was so grave and calm, So shining with the dew-light of her soul, So beautiful beyond a woman’s share. Yet—here ! Soft airs, …

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1903 · PDF PAGE 49

Alice: An Adultery

THE SEVENTH DAY “ This word ‘ love,’ which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another And not in me : I am myself alone.” 3 Henry VI. Therefore I burnt the wicked pantacle, And cast my love behind me once again. I mused upon the mystery of pain, Where the Gods taught me by another spell Not chosen from the armoury of Hell, But given of Mercury to cleanse the stain Of the old planet : thus I wrote me plain Secrets divine—tremendous, terrible ! Thus I forgot my soul and dwelt alone In the strong fortress of the active mind Whose …

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1903 · PDF PAGE 99

Alice: An Adultery

THE THIRTY-EIGHTH DAY “ The carcass of a beauty spent and done.” Lover’s Complaint. One day from landing. Kamakura sees Pass to the might shrine and shape of bronze Me, pilgrim, murmuring pious orisons, Taking my refuge in that House of Peace, And after, sees my love, and doth not please. She was too young to know that shrine the Son’s, Or see the Virgin’s House in Kwan-se-on’s ; And when I told her, flushed, and bade me cease. I ceased indeed ! All hope of mental flower She shattered in five minutes : following lust, All intellectual communing…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1903 · PDF PAGE 109

Alice: An Adultery

…rthward to the capital, Desolate huts and ways funereal, An hateful town ; earthquake and heat and rain Made the place wretched, did not love enchain There even as here : what mattered aught at all While love was hovering and our lips were fain ? 89

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1903 · PDF PAGE 11

The Star and the Garter

…d I too. Caressed The secret flames that curled around Our subtle intercourse. Profound, Unmoved, delighting utterly, So sat, so sit, my love and I. But not to-day. Your silence stirs No answering rapture : you are proud, And love itself checks and deters The thought to say itself aloud. B 9

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1905 · PDF PAGE 40

Orpheus

The voice of my pilot Steals soft to insist. O azure of sky, let Me pass to the tryst! I hear the low voice of my love; and I rest A maid on his breast. ORPHEUS Thou child of soft wind And the luminous air, Thou, stealing behind As a ghost, as a rare Soft dew, as a blind Fierce lion from his lair, Come forth! I invoke thee, O rain, look forth with thy countenance fair! THE RAIN From highland far drifted, From river-fed lawn, From clouds thunder-rifted, I leap as a fawn. The voice is uplifted, The lord of my dawn; My spirit is shifted, My love i…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1905 · PDF PAGE 58

Orpheus

Ye fields that are flowered In purple and white, Embossed and embowered By the love of the light, Gold-sandalled and showered, Dew-kissed of the night, Your song is too faint and too joyous for mortals to hear it aright. Blue pansies, and roses, And poppies of red, Pale violets in posies Where Hyacinth bled, The flower that closes Its dolorous head ;— What song may be sung, or what tune may be told, or what word may be said? All tropical scent, Blossom-kindled perfume, Love-colours new-lent By the infinite womb, Gold subtlety blent With the sca…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1909 · PDF PAGE 200

The Equinox (Volume I, Number I)

…eing; her dreadful shriek—the cry of a soul at Heaven’s gate smitten by the lightning into the abyss—changed to a marvellous laughter of love as she touched the summit of felicity. * * * * * So much I saw; yet the cloud withdrew itself; the lights redeemed their lustre. There in the midst my love awaited me—me—and I stood, as a diver that hesitates, so that he may enjoy to the full the foretaste of the plunge. I stood there, very God of very God, in the glittering green of her eyes, that darted flames of exquisite ardour upon me—ay, upon me. Ha…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1909 · PDF PAGE 200

The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

…eing; her dreadful shriek—the cry of a soul at Heaven’s gate smitten by the lightning into the abyss—changed to a marvellous laughter of love as she touched the summit of felicity. * * * * * So much I saw; yet the cloud withdrew itself; the lights redeemed their lustre. There in the midst my love awaited me—me—and I stood, as a diver that hesitates, so that he may enjoy to the full the foretaste of the plunge. I stood there, very God of very God, in the glittering green of her eyes, that darted flames of exquisite ardour upon me—ay, upon me. Ha…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →
1922 · PDF PAGE 4

Poetica Erotica

Lot (By Aleister Crowley. From The Soul of Osiris. 'URN back from safety, in my love abide, ‘Whose lips are warm as when, a virgin bride I clung to thee ashamed and very glad, Whose breasts are lordlier for the pain they had, ‘Whose arms cleave closer than thy spouse’s own! Thy spouse—O lover, kiss me, and atone! All my veins burst for love, my ripe breasts beat And lay their bleeding blossoms at thy feet! Spurn me no more! O bid these strangers go; Turn to my lips till their cup overflow; * * * * * * make delight the minister of pain, pain the…

original embedded textRead original & transcription →