Aleister Crowley

Here you will find theLong PoemThe Priestess of Panormitaof poet Aleister Crowley

The Priestess of Panormita

听到我,星星的主!为你我已拜pped ever With stains and sorrows and scars, With joyful, joyful endeavour. Hear me, O lily-white goat! O crisp as a thicket of thorns, With a collar of gold for Thy throat, A scarlet bow for Thy horns! Here, in the dusty air, I build Thee a shrine of yew. All green is the garland I wear, But I feed it with blood for dew! After the orange bars That ribbed the green west dying Are dead, O Lord of the Stars, I come to Thee, come to Thee crying. The ambrosial moon that arose With breasts slow heaving in splendour Drops wine from her infinite snows. Ineffably, utterly, tender. O moon! ambrosial moon! Arise on my desert of sorrow That the Magical eyes of me swoon With lust of rain to-morrow! Ages and ages ago I stood on the bank of a river Holy and Holy and holy, I know, For ever and ever and ever! A priest in the mystical shrine I muttered a redeless rune, Till the waters were redder than wine In the blush of the harlot moon. I and my brother priests Worshipped a wonderful woman With a body lithe as a beast's Subtly, horribly human. Deep in the pit of her eyes I saw the image of death, And I drew the water of sighs From the well of her lullaby breath. She sitteth veiled for ever Brooding over the waste. She hath stirred or spoken never. She is fiercely, manly chaste! What madness made me awake From the silence of utmost eld The grey cold slime of the snake That her poisonous body held? By night I ravished a maid From her father's camp to the cave. I bared the beautiful blade; I dipped her thrice i' the wave; I slit her throat as a lamb's, That the fount of blood leapt high With my clamorous dithyrambs Like a stain on the shield of the sky. With blood and censer and song I rent the mysterious veil: My eyes gaze long and long On the deep of that blissful bale. My cold grey kisses awake From the silence of utmost eld The grey cold slime of the snake That her beautiful body held. But --- God! I was not content With the blasphemous secret of years; The veil is hardly rent While the eyes rain stones for tears. So I clung to the lips and laughed As the storms of death abated, The storms of the grevious graft By the swing of her soul unsated. Wherefore reborn as I am By a stream profane and foul In the reign of a Tortured Lamb, In the realm of a sexless Owl, I am set apart from the rest By meed of the mystic rune That reads in peril and pest The ambrosial moon --- the moon! For under the tawny star That shines in the Bull above I can rein the riotous car Of galloping, galloping Love; And straight to the steady ray Of the Lion-heart Lord I career, Pointing my flaming way With the spasm of night for a spear! O moon! O secret sweet! Chalcedony clouds of caresses About the flame of our feet, The night of our terrible tresses! Is it a wonder, then, If the people are mad with blindness, And nothing is stranger to men Than silence, and wisdom, and kindness? Nay! let him fashion an arrow Whose heart is sober and stout! Let him pierce his God to the marrow! Let the soul of his God flow out! Whether a snake or a sun In his horoscope Heaven hath cast, It is nothing; every one Shall win to the moon at last. The mage hath wrought by his art A billion shapes in the sun. Look through to the heart of his heart, And the many are shapes of one! An end to the art of the mage, And the cold grey blank of the prison! An end to the adamant age! The ambrosial moon is arisen. I have bought a lily-white goat For the price of a crown of thorns, A collar of gold for its throat, A scarlet bow for its horns. I have bought a lark in the lift For the price of a butt of sherry: With these, and God for a gift, It needs no wine to be merry! I have bought for a wafer of bread A garden of poppies and clover; For a water bitter and dead A foam of fire flowing over. From the Lamb and his prison fare And the owl's blind stupor, arise Be ye wise, and strong, and fair, And the nectar afloat in your eyes! Arise, O ambrosial moon By the strong immemorial spell, By the subtle veridical rune That is mighty in heaven and hell! Drip thy mystical dews On the tongues of the tender fauns In the shade of initiate yews Remote from the desert dawns! Satyrs and Fauns, I call. Bring your beauty to man! I am the mate for ye all' I am the passionate Pan. Come, O come to the dance Leaping with wonderful whips, Life on the stroke of a glance, Death in the stroke of the lips! I am hidden beyond, Shed in a secret sinew Smitt