Star In the West TNR.pdf - The Hermetic Library

*Gargoyles, vol. iii, p. 100.
And death’s insufferable perfume
Beat the black air with golden fans
As Turkis rip a Nubian’s womb
With damascenéd yataghans.*
This one astonishing verse upsets the equilibrium of the whole poem, as it
would of any poem; for if the remaining thirteen had been penned in an
equivalent vividness of colouring, the effect would have been one of
complete overpowerment rather than of a sudden and dizzy joy.
As the aristocratic virtues of one century become the democratic vices of the
next, so do the noble renderings of one age of literature become the
hackneyed phraseology of the following, this being true whether we are
speaking of poetry or prose. Vet one attribute alone remains ever youthful as
the ages roll by into the aeons, and that is— Ecstasy; whether we find it in
the rapture of Love, the melody of Song, or the fire of Deity, it is what Poe
meant by “elevating excitement,” and as we have seen, it was because of its
absence that he attacked the Epic school of verse.
Ecstasy lies beyond our gnosis; as we shall hereafter see, it carries us out of
ourselves, beyond the mere shell of existence, into the very depths of the
profound. For the fraction of a second the whole ocean of our being is
whirled through a narrow gorge, then once again we are hurled forth into the
eddying cataracts of life, an essential spirit light gilding once again the
sepulchral abode of a corpse. For a moment we behold God, face to face, but
for a moment only, then all again is night. Keats attained, and so did Shelley
and Browning. Read the last verses of the “Prometheus Unbound” and “A
Grammarian’s Funeral,” and all will be plain; and it is this same ecstasy that
burns white in these two superb poems, which flames a bright star of beauty
guiding us on our long journey across the hundred thousand leagues of the
empire of Crowley’s pen. We find it shining brightly over almost every
page, a fact which renders the task of quoting nigh endless. Already we have
cited a dozen or more examples. Volume I flames like a subtly gemmed ring
with the ecstasy of many moments, and many of the following citations in
this essay will be both brilliant and flashing; and as are the sides of the
Heptagonal Vault, so also will be the contents of these seven chapters. But
here at least we shall alone content ourselves with quoting from one poem—