Alice: An Adultery
… of Messaline. The heart’s blood in her boiling over She sucked from many a dying lover : The purple of her racing veins Leapt from some soul’s despairing pains ; She drinks up life as from a cup ; 10
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… of Messaline. The heart’s blood in her boiling over She sucked from many a dying lover : The purple of her racing veins Leapt from some soul’s despairing pains ; She drinks up life as from a cup ; 10
…air I half believed her an enchantress fair Cruel as hell and dowered with subtle skill To strain my life out with her love, and kill My soul with misery : suddenly a rare Swift smile set shimmering all the ambient air, And then I knew she was my true love still. She would not come ? Why, were Hell’s portals fast Shut, as to Orpheus on Eurydice, Their brass would break before love’s gold and steel, The sharpness inlaid with sweet tracery Of talismans of virtue : she is leal To come and live and be my love at last. 61
…r her lips should be caressed By love’s exulting stings, Whose starry shape shone in the west, Held of the glimmering wings. Her shadowy soul perceived the jest Of man and mortal things. And there I vowed a solemn oath To Aphrodite fair, Sealing that sacramental troth With a long curl of hair, And the strange prayer’s reiterant growth Sent shining through the air. (Invoking Aphrodtte) Daughter of Glory, child Of Earth’s Dione mild By the Father of all, the A‘gis-bearing King! Spouse, daughter, mother of God, Queen of the blest abode In Cyprus’ …
THE EQUINOX This is the Magic Mirror of the Soul; if you see God in everything, it is because you are God and have made the universe in your image; if you see Sex in everything, and think of Sex as something unclean, it is because you are a sexual maniac. True, it is, of course, that the soul must not unite herself to every symbol, but only to the God which every symbol veils. And Lake Harris is perfectly clear on the point. The “ counterpart ” is often impersonated, with the deadliest results. But if the Aspirant be wise and favoured, he will …
THE EQUINOX This is the Magic Mirror of the Soul; if you see God in everything, it is because you are God and have made the universe in your image; if you see Sex in everything, and think of Sex as something unclean, it is because you are a sexual maniac. True, it is, of course, that the soul must not unite herself to every symbol, but only to the God which every symbol veils. And Lake Harris is perfectly clear on the point. The “ counterpart ” is often impersonated, with the deadliest results. But if the Aspirant be wise and favoured, he will …
…he summer has died suddenly—without a warning, and the world is scream- ing in agony. It is only the echo of the wailing for my own lost soul. The angels never come to me now. Have I forfeited my position? I am conscious of nothing but this tearing, stabbing, gnawing pain, this restless raging trembling of the body, this malignant groping of a mad surgeon in the open wound of my soul. I am so bitter, bitter cold. Yet I can’t stand the room. Peter is lying helplessly on the couch. He follows me about with his eyes. He seems to be afraid that he …
30 THE SOUL OF OSIRIS. The sleep of bird and flower Proclaims that Heaven has power To guard its gentlest child. The lover knows the hour, And goes with dew for dower To wed in woodland wild. The silvern grasses shake, And through the startled brake Glides the awakened snake, Untamable and mild. The song of stars ; the wail Of women wild and pale, Forlorn and not forsaken ; The tremulous nightingale ; The waters wan that fail By frost-love overtaken, Make sacred all the valley ; And softly, musically, The breezes lull and rally, The pine stirs …
…ry Presence of the Three That Are beyond all Gods. And now I know What spiritual Light is drawing me Up to its stooping splendour. In my soul I feel the Spring, the all-devouring Dawn, Rush with my Rising. There, beyond the goal, The Veil is rent ! Yes : let the veil be drawn.
…life, his strength ; and live a little more. Life—shall I ever reach the splendid sword Of womanhood, and gird it, gain my will, A human soul, and from that altitude Renew the terrible war against the Gods ? I have called Chronos the devouring God My father—shall his desolating reign Never return } Ay me ! this heart of hate, Loathing the man, takes comfort in the beast, 67
… eyes burned into her mild ones : limbs Twined to each other while fine dew bedims Their quivering skins : lip fastened unto lip : Whole soul and body frenzied meet and clip ; And the breath staggers, and the life-blood swims ! Terrible gods chant black demoniac hymns As the frail cords of honour strain and slip. For in the midst of that tremendous tide The mighty vigour of a god was mine ! Drunk with desire, her lamentations died. The dove gave place a moment to the swine ! Rapturous draughts of madness ! Out she sighed Uttermost life’s love, …
…solemnly affirm This twofold Oneness at the term. Asar on Asi did beget Horus twin brother unto Set. Now Set and Horus kiss, to call The Soul of the Unnatural Forth from the dusk ; then nature slain Lets the Beyond be born again.
…knees No longer gripped the charger rude. Listless, he aches ; his purpose swims Exhausted in the oily seas Of laxity and lassitude. The soul subsides; its serious motion Still throbs ; by habit, not by will. And all his lust to win the quest Is but a passive-mild devotion. (Ay! soon the blood shall run right chill —And is not death the Lord of Rest ?) There as he basks upon the cliff He yearns toward the Beast ; his eyes Are moist with love; his lips are fain
…FE ), Newnham . “ Poems " A. C. Fifield , London HAROLD MONRO , Gonville and Caius . “ Poems " Constable , London “ The Evolution of the Soul ” Constable , London “ Judas ” Sampson Low , Marston & Co ., London 224
…shell! A husk Born of the dusk In the afterglow of passion, wild and fair I saw it. Yea! I had been stolen away, A changeling bodily; my soul was thrust To moulder with the dust : I was the love that dies, And I had slain the lover With song. Ah! Night! discover Her of the wanton eyes That fled before me So long, And scattered o'er me Alas! the star-dust that should blind mine eyes, And hide me from the skies. Is love so strong? So weak the lover? Yea, night shall yet discover My song, my veiléd song. 153
…shell! A husk Born of the dusk In the afterglow of passion, wild and fair I saw it. Yea! I had been stolen away, A changeling bodily; my soul was thrust To moulder with the dust : I was the love that dies, And I had slain the lover With song. Ah! Night! discover Her of the wanton eyes That fled before me So long, And scattered o'er me Alas! the star-dust that should blind mine eyes, And hide me from the skies. Is love so strong? So weak the lover? Yea, night shall yet discover My song, my veiléd song. 153
…r blubber lips, ‘Champagne and lust still oozing from the pores. Of her fat flanks; then, let my hate eclipse All other lamps of my pale soul, and flare— A curst star sparking in the strangled air! Her shapeless limbs are sticky with stale sweat; Yet, she would wake if I withdrew, belch hard The ferments of the fodder, turn, and fret This inch that is the ruins of a yard. Is there no sparrow, ram, ass, bull can stay The “ love"—dear Jesus |—of Chicago May? u Like salt pools in a marsh her skin is, soiled With labours and abortions, stained and …
…ards still my mind Mast track the intangible and blind, ‘And seeking, shall securely find Hidden in secret places Fresh feasts for every soul that strives, New life for many mystic lives, ‘And strange new forms and faces. ‘My mind still searches, and attains By many days and many pains To That which Is and Was and reigns ‘Shadowed in four and ten ;# ‘And loses self in sacred lands, And cries and quickens, and understands Beyond the first Amens
…of me concerning Death, and this is mine Opinion, of which I say not: This is the Truth. First: in the Temple called Man is the God, his Soul, or Star, indi vidual and eternal, but also inherent in the Body of Our Lady Nuit. Now this Soul, as an Officer in the High Mass of the Cosmos, taketh on the Vesture of his Office, that is, inhab- iteth a Tabernacle of Illusion, a Body and Mind. And this Tabernacle is subject to the Law of Change, for it is complex, and diffuse, reacting to every Stimulus or Impression. If then 1 [Lat., from Virgil, /Ene…
…le wrist. I adore the agony-lipped and the tilted head, And I pay black orisons to the breasts aspread In multiple mutable motion, whose soul is hid. © And the toils of confused emotion the Master bid Lurk in the turn of the torso for poets to see is hid from the lesser and dull—hidden from me. She squats, and is void and null; I know her not; ' As God is above, but more so, she sits, to blot Intelligence out of my brain, conceit from my ken; And I class myself, idle and vain, with the newspaper men. 21
…ath, of each slaves breath ! Yea, for that Thou didst give me her Indeed my Dorothy ! the sun That fires my life, the spell to stir My souls enchantments every one : For this I curse Thee ! she was fair As day and brighter than the moon And all the gold stung in her hair ; And all the dawn of Mayof June ! Kindled her cheeks ; her eyes were blue As all Thy skies, as all Thy seas. Her mouthOh God ! her mouth that slew Imaginations ecstasies !