THE ALTAR OF ARTEMIS
by: Aleister Crowley (1875-1947)
- HERE, in
the coppice, oak and pine
- And mystic yew and elm are found,
- Sweeping the skies, that grew divine
- With the dark wind's despairing sound,
- The wind that roars from the profound,
- And smites the mountain-tops, and calls
- Mute spirits to black festivals,
- And feasts in valleys iron-bound,
- Desolate crags, and barren ground;--
- There in the strong storm-shaken grove
- Swings the pale censer-fire for love.
-
- The foursquare altar, roughly hewn,
- And overlaid with beaten gold,
- Stands in the gloom; the stealthy tune
- Of singing maidens overbold
- Desires mad mysteries untold,
- With strange eyes kindling, as the fleet
- Implacable untiring feet
- Weave mystic figures manifold
- That draw down angels to behold
- The moving music, and the fire
- Of their intolerable desire.
-
- For, maddening to fiercer thought,
- The fiery limbs requicken, wheel
- In formless furies, subtly wrought
- Of swifter melodies than steel
- That flashes in the fight: the peal
- Of amorous laughters choking sense,
- And madness kissing violence,
- Ring like dead horsemen; bodies reel
- Drunken with motion; spirits feel
- The strange constraint of gods that clip
- From Heaven to mingle lip and lip.
-
- The gods descend to dance; the noise
- Of hungry kissings, as a swoon,
- Faints for excess of its own joys,
- And mystic beams assail the moon,
- With flames of their infernal noon;
- While the smooth incense, without breath,
- Spreads like some scented flower of death,
- Over the grove; the lover's boon
- Of sleep shall steal upon them soon,
- And lovers' lips, from lips withdrawn,
- Seek dimmer bosoms till the dawn.
-
- Yet on the central altar lies
- The sacrament of kneaded bread,
- With blood made one, the sacrifice
- To those, the living, who are dead--
- Strange gods and goddesses, that shed
- Monstrous desires of secret things
- Upon their worshippers, from wings
- One lucent web of light, from head
- One labyrinthine passion-fed
- Palace of love, from breathing rife
- With secrets of forbidden life.
-
- But not the sunlight, nor the stars,
- Nor any light but theirs alone,
- Nor iron masteries of Mars,
- Nor Saturn's misconceiving zone,
- Nor any planet's may be shown,
- Within the circle of the grove,
- Where burn the sanctities of love:
- Nor may the foot of man be known,
- Nor evil eyes of mothers thrown
- On maidens that desire the kiss
- Only of maiden Artemis.
-
- But horned and huntress from the skies,
- She bends her lips upon the breeze,
- And pure and perfect in her eyes,
- Burn magical virginity's
- Sweet intermittent sorceries.
- When the slow wind from her sweet word
- In all their conchéd ears is heard.
- And like the slumber of the seas,
- There murmur through the holy trees
- The kisses of the goddess keen,
- And sighs and laughters caught between.
-
- For, swooning at the fervid lips
- Of Artemis, the maiden kisses
- Sobs and the languid body slips
- Down to enamelled wildernesses.
- Fallen and loose the shaken tresses;
- Fallen the sandal and girdling gold,
- Fallen the music manifold
- Of moving limbs and strange caresses,
- And deadly passion that possesses
- The magic ecstasy of these
- Mad maidens, tender as blue seas.
-
- Night spreads her yearning pinions,
- The baffled day sinks blind to sleep;
- The evening breeze outswoons the sun's
- Dead kisses to the swooning deep.
- Upsoars the moon; the flashing steep
- Of Heaven is fragrant for her feet;
- The perfume of the grove is sweet
- As slumbering women furtive creep
- To bosoms where small kisses weep,
- And find in fervent dreams the kiss
- Most memoried of Artemis.
-
- Impenetrable pleasure dies
- Beneath the madness of new dreams;
- The slow sweet breath is turned to sighs
- More musical than many streams
- Under the moving silver beams,
- Fretted with stars, thrice woven across.
- White limbs in amorous slumber toss,
- Like sleeping foam, whose silver gleams
- On motionless dark seas; it seems
- As if some gentle spirit stirred,
- Their lazy brows with some swift word.
-
- So, in the secret of the shrine,
- Night keeps them nestled, so the gloom
- Laps them in waves as smooth as wine,
- As glowing as the fiery womb
- Of some young tigress, dark as doom,
- And swift as sunrise. Love's content
- Builds its own monument,
- And carves above its vaulted tomb
- The
Phoenix on her fiery plume,
- To their own souls to testify
- Their kisses' immortality.
"The Altar of Artemis"
is reprinted from The Soul of Osiris. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner and Co., 1911. |
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POEMS BY ALEISTER CROWLEY |
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