A poem by Alistar Crowley (1875-1947)
[Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare]
Have pity ! show no pity !
Those eyes that send such shivers
Into my brain and spine : oh let them
Flame like the ancient city
Swallowed up by the sulphurous rivers
When men let angels fret them !
Yea ! let the south wind blow,
And the Turkish banner advance,
And the word go out : No quarter !
But I shall hod thee -so !
While the boys and maidens dance
About the shambles of slaughter !
I know thee who thou art,
The inmost fiend that curlest
Thy vampire tounge about
Earth’s corybantic heart,
Hell’s warrior that whirlest
The darts of horror and doubt !
Thou knowest me who I am
The inmost soul and saviour
Of man ; what hieroglyph
Of the dragon and the lamb
Shall thou and I engrave here
On Time’s inscandescable cliff ?
Look ! in the plished granite,
Black as thy cartouche is with sins,
I read the searing sentence
That blasts the eyes that scan it :
“HOOR and SET be TWINS.”
A fico for repentance !
Ay ! O Son of my mother
That snarled and clawed in her womb
As now we rave in our rapture,
I know thee, I love thee, brother !
Incestuous males that consumes
The light and the life that we capture.
Starve thou the soul of the world,
Brother, as I the body !
Shall we not glut our lust
On these wretches whom Fate hath hurled
To a hell of jesus and shoddy,
Dung and ethics and dust ?
Thou as I art Fate.
Coe then, conquer and kiss me !
Come ! what hinders? Believe me :
This is the thought we await.
The mark is fair ; can you miss me ?
See, how subtly I writhe !
Strange runes and unknown sigils
I trace in the trance that thrills us.
Death ! how lithe, how blithe
Are these male incestuous vigils !
Ah ! this is the spasm that kills us !
Wherefore I 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.
This weird is of the tongue of Khem,
The Conjuration used of them.
Whoso shall speak it, let him die,
His bowels rotting inwardly,
Save he uncover and caress
The God that lighteth his liesse.
A few random poems:
- What would I do without this world by Samuel Beckett
- The Innovator by Stephen Vincent Benet
- Robert Burns: Beware O’ Bonie Ann:
- Владимир Набоков – Барс
- Coal-Truck by T. Wignesan
- Sonnet 25: Let those who are in favour with their stars by William Shakespeare
- My Ink by Mike Yuan
- Владимир Маяковский – В авто
- Let me draw your face by St Antoine de la Vuadi
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Не надо
- Alone by Sara Teasdale
- Who Knows? by Vachel Lindsay
- Николай Гумилев – Кенгуру
- On the Countess of Burlington Cutting Paper poem – Alexander Pope
- Limbo by Seamus Heaney
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Time’s Defence poem – Alfred Austin
- Through Liberty To Light poem – Alfred Austin
- Three Sonnets Written In Mid-Channel poem – Alfred Austin
- Though All The World poem – Alfred Austin
- The Wind Speaks poem – Alfred Austin
- The White Pall Of Peace poem – Alfred Austin
- The Spring-Time, O The Spring–Time poem – Alfred Austin
- “`The smiling slopes with olive groves bedecked” poem – Alfred Austin
- The Silent Muse poem – Alfred Austin
- The Season poem – Alfred Austin
- The Reply Of Q. Horatius Flaccus To A Roman “Round-Robin” poem – Alfred Austin
- The Poet And The Muse poem – Alfred Austin
- The Passing Of The Primroses poem – Alfred Austin
- The Passing Of The Century poem – Alfred Austin
- The Passing Of Spring poem – Alfred Austin
- The Owl And The Lark poem – Alfred Austin
- The Old Land And The Young Land poem – Alfred Austin
- The Lover’s Song poem – Alfred Austin
- The Last Redoubt poem – Alfred Austin
- “The lark confinèd in his cage” poem – Alfred Austin
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works