Household Gods. Aleister Crowley

upon it, and strange fish

      Played in its oily depths. Some monstrous wish,

      The shadow of some unspeakable desire,

      Strikes my heart cold, and sets my brain on fire.

      ALICIA.

      Learn this, as we pass through the portico:

      Fear nothing; there is nothing you can know!

      And by these terraces and steps that gleam

      Wintry, although the summer night is hot,

      This – what we seek is never what we find!

      Life is a dream, like love; and from the dream

      If we may wake, we never find it what

      We would; for the wisdom of a mightier mind

      Leads us in its own ways

      To a perfected praise.

      CRASSUS.

      Why are these shadows thrown across the lawn

      From the elms and yews? They were not wont to reach

      Beyond the branches of that copper-beech.

      ALICIA.

      Attend the dawn

      Of an unknown comet, that shall come

      From the unfathomable wells of space

      Into its halidom.

      CRASSUS.

      I know it not. Last night I walked alone

      Here, and saw nothing.

      ALICIA.

      I was not with you!

      There is no God upon the eternal throne

      Of stars begemming the bewildering blue

      Unless one has the eyes to see him. Think

      How we two stand upon the brink

      Of nothing! Here's a globe, whereto we trust,

      No larger than the smallest speck of dust

      Or mote in the sunbeam is to that sun's self,

      And we are like dead leaves in autumn's whil

      Of wind upon it.

      CRASSUS.

      Mystify me, girl!

      It is the right of an elf.

      Surely your flickering fire

      Will draw me to some mire!

      ALICIA.

      Here the stream dips its mouth into the wood.

      So does youth's calm and chaste beatitude

      Touch the black mouth of Love, the ancient whore.

      CRASSUS.

      Girl! what a scorpion leaping from your lips!

      ALICIA.

      My mouth stings as no scorpion ever stang.