Aleister Crowley - The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley

6 Art Thou not Pan?

7 I am He. Speak not, O my God! Let the work be accomplished in silence.

8 Let my cry of pain be crystallized into a little white fawn to run away into the forest!

9 Thou art a centaur, O my God, from the violet-blossoms that crown Thee to the hoofs of the horse.

10 Thou art harder than tempered steel; there is no diamond beside Thee.

11 Did I not yield this body and soul?

12 I woo thee with a dagger drawn across my throat.

13 Let the spout of blood quench Thy blood-thirst, O my God!

14 Thou art a little white rabbit in the burrow Night.

15 I am greater than the fox and the hole.

16 Give me Thy kisses, O Lord God!

17 The lightning came and licked up the little flock of sheep.

18 There is a tongue and a flame; I see that trident walking over the sea.

19 A phoenix hath it for its head; below are two prongs. They spear the wicked.

20 I will spear Thee, O Thou little grey god, unless Thou beware!

21 From the grey to the gold; from the gold to that which is beyond the gold of Ophir.

22 My God! but I love Thee!

23 Why hast Thou whispered so ambiguous things? Wast Thou afraid, O goat-hoofed One, O horned One, O pillar of lightning?

24 From the lightning fall pearls; from the pearls black specks of nothing.

25 I based all on one, one on naught.

26 Afloat in the aether, O my God, my God!

27 O Thou great hooded sun of glory, cut off these eyelids!

28 Nature shall die out; she hideth me, closing mine eyelids with fear, she hideth me from My destruction, O Thou open eye.

29 O ever-weeping One!

30 Not Isis my mother, nor Osiris my self; but the incestuous Horus given over to Typhon, so may I be!

31 There thought; and thought is evil.

32 Pan! Pan! Io Pan! it is enough.

33 Fall not into death, O my soul! Think that death is the bed into which you are falling!

34 O how I love Thee, O my God! Especially is there a vehement parallel light from infinity, vilely diffracted in the haze of this mind.

35 I love Thee. I love Thee. I love Thee.

36 Thou art a beautiful thing whiter than a woman in the column of this vibration.

37 I shoot up vertically like an arrow, and become that Above.

38 But it is death, and the flame of the pyre.

39 Ascend in the flame of the pyre, O my soul! Thy God is like the cold emptiness of the utmost heaven, into which thou radiatest thy little light.

40 When Thou shall know me, O empty God, my flame shall utterly expire in Thy great N. O. X.

41 What shalt Thou be, my God, when I have ceased to love Thee?

42 A worm, a nothing, a niddering knave!

43 But Oh! I love Thee.

44 I have thrown a million flowers from the basket of the Beyond at Thy feet, I have anointed Thee and Thy Staff with oil and blood and kisses.

45 I have kindled Thy marble into life - ay! into death.

46 I have been smitten with the reek of Thy mouth, that drinketh never wine but life.

47 How the dew of the Universe whitens the lips!

48 Ah! trickling flow of the stars of the mother Supernal, begone!

49 I Am She that should come, the Virgin of all men.

50 I am a boy before Thee, O Thou satyr God.

51 Thou wilt inflict the punishment of pleasure - Now! Now! Now!

52 Io Pan! Io Pan! I love Thee. I love Thee.

53 O my God, spare me!

54 Now! It is done! Death.

55 I cried aloud the word - and it was a mighty spell to bind the Invisible, an enchantment to unbind the bound; yea, to unbind the bound.

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1 O my God! use Thou me again, alway. For ever! For ever!

2 That which came fire from Thee cometh water from me; let therefore Thy Spirit lay hold on me, so that my right hand loose the lightning.

3 Travelling through space, I saw the onrush of two galaxies, butting each other and goring like bulls upon earth. I was afraid.

4 Thus they ceased fight, and turned upon me, and I was sorely crushed and torn.

5 I had rather have been trampled by the World-Elephant.

6 O my God! Thou art my little pet tortoise!

7 Yet Thou sustainest the World-Elephant.

8 I creep under Thy carapace, like a lover into the bed of his beautiful; I creep in, and sit in Thine heart, as cubby and cosy as may be.

9 Thou shelterest me, that I hear not the trumpeting of that World-Elephant.

10 Thou art not worth an obol in the agora; yet Thou art not to be bought at the ransom of the whole Universe.

11 Thou art like a beautiful Nubian slave leaning her naked purple against the green pillars of marble that are above the bath.

12 Wine jets from her black nipples.

13 I drank wine awhile agone in the house of Pertinax. The cup-boy favoured me, and gave me of the right sweet Chian.

14 There was a Doric boy, skilled in feats of strength, an athlete. The full moon fled away angrily down the wrack. Ah! but we laughed.

15 I was pernicious drunk, O my God! Yet Pertinax brought me to the bridal.

16 I had a crown of thorns for all my dower.

17 Thou art like a goat's horn from Astor, O Thou God of mine, gnarl'd and crook'd and devilish strong.

18 Colder than all the ice of all the glaciers of the Naked Mountain was the wine it poured for me.

19 A wild country and a waning moon Clouds scudding over the sky. A circuit of pines, and of tall yews beyond. Thou in the midst!

20 O all ye toads and cats, rejoice! Ye slimy things, come hither!

21 Dance, dance to the Lord our God!

22 He is he! He is he! He is he!

23 Why should I go on?

24 Why? Why? comes the sudden cackle of a million imps of hell.

25 And the laughter runs.

26 But sickens not the Universe; but shakes not the stars.

27 God! how I love Thee!

28 I am walking in an asylum; all the men and women about me are insane.

29 Oh madness! madness! madness! desirable art thou!

30 But I love Thee, O God!

31 These men and women rave and howl; they froth out folly.

32 I begin to be afraid. I have no check; I am alone. Alone. Alone.

33 Think, O God, how I am happy in Thy love.

34 O marble Pan! O false leering face! I love Thy dark kisses, bloody and stinking! O marble Pan! Thy kisses are like sunlight on the blue Aegean; their blood is the blood of the sunset over Athens; their stink is like a garden of Roses of Macedonia.

35 I dreamt of sunset and roses and vines; Thou wast there, O my God, Thou didst habit Thyself as an Athenian courtesan, and I loved Thee.

36 Thou art no dream, O Thou too beautiful alike for sleep and waking!

37 I disperse the insane folk of the earth; I walk alone with my little puppets in the garden.

38 I am Gargantuan great; yon galaxy is but the smoke-ring of mine incense.

39 Burn Thou strange herbs, O God!

40 Brew me a magic liquor, boys, with your glances!

41 The very soul is drunken.

42 Thou art drunken, O my God, upon my kisses.

43 The Universe reels; Thou hast looked upon it.

44 Twice, and all is done.

45 Come, O my God, and let us embrace!

46 Lazily, hungrily, ardently, patiently; so will I work.

47 There shall be an End.

48 O God! O God!

49 I am a fool to love Thee; Thou art cruel, Thou withholdest Thyself.

50 Come to me now! I love Thee! I love Thee!

51 O my darling, my darling - Kiss me! Kiss me! Ah! but again.

52 Sleep, take me! Death, take me! This life is too full; it pains, it slays, it suffices.

53 Let me go back into the world; yea, back into the world.

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1 I was the priest of Ammon-Ra in the temple of Ammon-Ra at Thebai.

2 But Bacchus came singing with his troops of vine-clad girls, of girls in dark mantles; and Bacchus in the midst like a fawn!