Star In the West TNR.pdf - The Hermetic Library

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All, all to me!* *Why Jesus Wept, vol. iii, p. 39. And again: Love, love, these raptures are like springtide rain Nestling among green leaves.* *Why Jesus Wept, vol. iii, p. 40. One more example of the diversity of Crowley’s pen, before we deal with his place in the history of poetry. In the “God-Eater” we come across a most weird form of poetic imagination in the chants of Rupha – the hag of Eternity: Crafty! Crafty! That is the omen. Fear not the foemen! Mine is the spoil Of the grimly toil. Gloomy, gloomy! Ah! but I laugh. He is but a fool. He has lost! He is lost! Take the staff! Trace the rule Of the circle crossed!* [She rises up. *The God-Eater, vol. ii, p. 135. We have now seen, more or less, some of the chief influences which have exerted their sway over our poet’s mind; and I think we have shown him to be a worthy pupil of the great masters we have had occasion to name. Now that I have pointed out these certain influences, illustrating them by means of a few quotations, I intend to enter more into the history of his poetry and also the place it fills in the history of English poetry generally. This is not altogether an easy matter. Firstly, in selecting distinctive specimens it is difficult not to help being guided by individual taste; secondly, the labour of
sorting the finest out of the fine is a work which needs no small powers of application; and thirdly, how often may not the individual selector be wrong in his choice? But this latter difficulty is easily overcome by the reader, who has only to pick and choose for himself; the work of an appreciative essayist being merely that of producing a characteristic display of what he considers the most attractive wares. It is not intended here in any way to assume immaculacy for our author, far from it, for faults are to be found here as in every other work, great or small, false rime and metre, half a step left out here and there, sometimes a whole one: but taking these poems as a whole, these lapses are remarkably few, and it must also be borne in mind that in nearly every case they are intentional lapses from the orthodox rules of poetic cadence and metre. One command Crowley alone obeys, and that is: that all verse – rime, rhythm, and metre – to be considered as poetry, must be musical.* Without music there can be no poetry, at best but a kind of poetic prose as found in the Prophetic Books of Blake, and in the works of Walt Whitman. Yet in Blake, I think, we do find many consistent irregularities, which have been entirely misunderstood by many of his editors and critics. However, it was not till Swinburne loomed athwart the conscious regularity of the Tennysonian era, a poetic pre-Raphaelite, that, strictly speaking, a conscious and musical irregularity became admissible, wedging its way in, and splitting up the metrical structure of perfect scansion. *As a good example I will quote the following opening lines of a sonnet addressed to “the Secretary of State,” by Wilson Bonchord in Poems composed in Prison: When Crime’s sad victim has been tried and brought Within the circle of the difficult sphere Which England’s penal statutes appoint him here: To expiate by patient toil and thought. Neither the second nor the third line scans; nevertheless the second is good, as it is musical: the extra half-step in the word “difficult” carrying with it a difficulty, and thus emphasizing the meaning; whilst in the third, there is neither scansion nor music. In “Atalanta in Calydon” we find a further breaking away from the dramatic formalities inaugurated during the post-restoration era: Swinburne seeking a more perfect model in the old Tragedies of Greece. This had already been partially carried out by Keats, who definitely broke away from the Miltonic style of Wordsworth and Coleridge, and was more than half completed by his contemporary, Shelley. But it was not till Swinburne himself seized the finely-strung lyre of the unconsciously irregular author of “Prometheus,” and attuned it to the rustle of Blake’s angel-winged voice, that it can be said
Page 2 and 3: Star in the West A Critical Essay U
Page 4 and 5: “Evoe! Evoe Ho! Iacche! Iacche!
Page 6 and 7: PREFACE Non mihi subtilem calamum s
Page 8 and 9: I have attempted in the following s
Page 10 and 11: FOREWORD IN “Frazer’s Magazine
Page 12 and 13: the distant boom of a beetle is car
Page 14 and 15: I The Chapter known as The Looking-
Page 16 and 17: Poe, in that little masterpiece of
Page 18 and 19: Richard Burton, the greatest of Ori
Page 20 and 21: These superb lines, like those of S
Page 22 and 23: And lily garment that from sight Ha
Page 24 and 25: That I bade workers work, and lover
Page 26 and 27: *Jephthah, vol. i, p. 67. Ha! The r
Page 30 and 31: that a certain system of irregulari
Page 32 and 33: not till we get to “Rodin in Rime
Page 34 and 35: The extra half-step in “shudderin
Page 36 and 37: Where larkspur and cornflower Are b
Page 38 and 39: *Gargoyles, vol. iii, p. 100. And d
Page 40 and 41: *Orpheus, vol. iii, pp. 200. O boun
Page 42 and 43: II The Chapter known as The Virgin
Page 44 and 45: Fatal Force,” “The Mother’s T
Page 46 and 47: I think we should principally read
Page 48 and 49: To the vineyard comes the shower, N
Page 50 and 51: The handmaidens of Aphrodite gather
Page 52 and 53: His drowning body drowned her image
Page 54 and 55: Palaces star-gilt Whence a crystal
Page 56 and 57: and that the minority should consid
Page 58 and 59: Even love is sold, the solace of al
Page 60 and 61: One night I stepped up tremulous on
Page 62 and 63: *Star and Garter, vol. iii, p. 13.
Page 64 and 65: Truly the poet has here refined the
Page 66 and 67: “Alice, an Adultery.” As golden
Page 68 and 69: In every cosmic season-tide of spri
Page 70 and 71: . . . . . . . . . . . . . This nigh
Page 72 and 73: out smiles, and blushing cheeks dry
Page 74 and 75: circle of the fiery ring,” which,
Page 76 and 77: after time proved themselves better
Page 78 and 79:
Philotis. I’ faith, Syra, you can
Page 80 and 81:
Lust after death; love in decrepitu
Page 82 and 83:
On the Quest he goes, ever tormente
Page 84 and 85:
Thus does he fail at the very thres
Page 86 and 87:
*Tannhäuser, vol. i, p. 227. Then
Page 88 and 89:
of the celestial. Love changes as D
Page 90 and 91:
Act IV again brings our knight befo
Page 92 and 93:
Built of essential time. And lo! th
Page 94 and 95:
III The Chapter known as The Harlot
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probably prove as efficacious as a
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Imagination’s waistcoat buttons u
Page 100 and 101:
Cora Vavasour made a pretty just es
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uttering them over the ruins of the
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in all the knowledge of the cities
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The Mother OUT of the countless tho
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Fallen and loose the shaken tresses
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*Oracles, vol. ii, p. 14. The nymph
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Know Thyself, Be Thyself, Honour Th
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Thus in the intoxication of his des
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ower!* *Jezebel: and other Tragic P
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against adversity, may some day bec
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Further on in this same series of p
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Of the forest a ray Of sunlight sha
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The Old Bottle WHAT is religion? In
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On turning now to the works before
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…still death reigns, and God and
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Criosda, the self-intoxicated God-E
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Summon the harlot-ridden Hell to pr
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same satire - vide scene xiii. Fina
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conjuring trick, as is shown in “
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Bruises, that bruised us once; the
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Quite likely that I so shall act! H
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VI The Chapter known as The Cup In
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winged serpent of Good and Evil; an
Page 146 and 147:
The flower which springs from the d
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Aphrodite before she could overcome
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The vilest worms must crawl, the lo
Page 152 and 153:
This is the true conquest of life,
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the streets for gain, but who dare
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such dismal darkness. Is there a li
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O Dweller in the Land of Uz, thou a
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VII The Chapter known as The New Wi
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prejudice, and educational bias, fr
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seducing our sense to pluck the fru
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the extreme. Crowley is never tired
Page 168 and 169:
*Sword of Song, Pentecost, vol. ii,
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He shows us how utterly inadequate
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For any! Thus and only thus Will I
Page 174 and 175:
*Tannhäuser, vol. i, p. 256. I cam
Page 176 and 177:
*Vide Prolegomena. Bohn’s ed., p.
Page 178 and 179:
CROWLEYANITY AGNOSTICISM HYLO-IDEAL
Page 180 and 181:
“Could men but forbear to amuse t
Page 182 and 183:
anything present to it but the perc
Page 184 and 185:
*2. Ibid. p. 43. “We must, theref
Page 186 and 187:
“I conclude,” states Philonous,
Page 188 and 189:
“As to your first question: (how
Page 190 and 191:
This à priori (Crowleyanity affirm
Page 192 and 193:
priori, namely; pure mathematics an
Page 194 and 195:
The following are the four transcen
Page 196 and 197:
overwhelming materialization of pre
Page 198 and 199:
In Crowley’s essay bearing the na
Page 200 and 201:
This clinches the whole argument be
Page 202 and 203:
*Not only has Crowley succeeded in
Page 204 and 205:
say “hocus-pocus,” and the gull
Page 206 and 207:
the Unknown Darkness, so is Macropr
Page 208 and 209:
With one number, however, or rather
Page 210 and 211:
“Not only does the Qabbalah repud
Page 212 and 213:
predicates. By 0 (in mathematics) w
Page 214 and 215:
*Gargoyles, vol. iii, p. 85. Thy ve
Page 216 and 217:
craft never tarries or tires: “In
Page 218 and 219:
BUDDHISM As regards the beginning o
Page 220 and 221:
*Jephthah, vol. i, pp. 83, 84. The
Page 222 and 223:
. . . . . . . . . . . . Until the l
Page 224 and 225:
*4. It would be easy to argue with
Page 226 and 227:
What God is in Himself the Agnostic
Page 228 and 229:
*Gargoyles, vol. iii, p. 89. This N
Page 230 and 231:
Factum fatum quia fatum verbum est.
Page 232 and 233:
Say not ”There is a God,” befor
Page 234 and 235:
Not while reason is, as at present,
Page 236 and 237:
how can he love God whom he seeth n
Page 238 and 239:
I pledge myself, if you have a spar
Page 240 and 241:
times, and when manifest in the hea
Page 242 and 243:
In fact, throughout the whole of vo
Page 244 and 245:
*Vol. ii, pp. 173-174. I gain this
Page 246 and 247:
Yet in its peace no frost. Arise! O
Page 248 and 249:
persistent attention, under symbols
Page 250 and 251:
Time and Space. Passing to that sta
Page 252 and 253:
In the midst of my complicated hall
Page 254 and 255:
It is absolutely true of Hume, but
Page 256 and 257:
in my experience with the impressio
Page 258 and 259:
Act! Nor for faith nor folly turn!
Page 260 and 261:
supernatural in the world of phenom
Page 262 and 263:
Thee.” And the Door was not opene
Page 264 and 265:
Upon his light-sphere’s keen circ
Page 266 and 267:
upon kisses!” … “Let the spar
Page 268 and 269:
This not only carries out the philo
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