Star In the West TNR.pdf - The Hermetic Library

Where larkspur and cornflower
Are blue with sunlight’s hour,*2.
Ring out your frosty peal, and smite
Loud fingers on the harp, and touch
Lutes, and clear psalteries musical,
And all stringed instruments, to indite*3.
*1. Songs of the Spirit, vol. i, p. 31.
*2. Mysteries: Lyrical and Dramatic, vol. i, p. 103.
*3. Jephthah, vol. i, p. 74.
The first two of the above are quoted from poems published in 1898, and the
last from those published a year later. I will not say that they are the only
imperfections to be found throughout these works, but I will say that there
are very few others. And considering that Aleister Crowley has written about
one hundred thousand lines in the space of ten years, or half the quantity
produced by Robert Browning in fifty-six, the fewness of imperfections in
his work is truly remarkable.
Let us now pass from what I may call the Poetic Iconomachy to the Poetic
Iconolatry of these poems; from Aleister Crowley’s war against poetic form,
to his adoration of poetic imagery; and then to the keynote of the whole of
his poetry, and, as we shall presently see, his philosophy as well, namely—
Ecstasy.
In “Gargoyles” we find several truly wonderful picture poems. Thus in “The
White Cat”:
*Gargoyles, vol. iii, p. 86.
Hail, sweet my sister! hail, adulterous spouse,
Gilded with passionate pomp, and gay with guilt:
Rioting, rioting in the dreary house
With blood and wine and roses splashed and spilt
About thy dabbling feet, and aching jaws
Whose tongue licks mine, twin asps like moons that curl,
Red moons of blood! Whose catlike body claws,
Like a white swan raping a jet-black girl,
Mine, with hysteric laughter…*