The Conscript

I am a peaceful working man—
I am not wise or strong—
But I can follow Nature’s plan
In labour, rest, and song.

One day the men that rule us all
Decided we must die,
Else pride and freedom surely fall
In the dim bye and bye.

They told me I must write my name
Upon a scroll of death;
That some day I should rise to fame
By giving up my breath.

I do not know what I have done
That I should thus be bound
To wait for tortures one by one,
And then an unmark’d mound.

I hate no man, and yet they say
That I must fight and kill;
That I must suffer day by day
To please a master’s will.

I used to have a conscience free,
But now they bid it rest;
They’ve made a number out of me,
And I must ne’er protest.

They tell of trenches, long and deep,
Fill’d with the mangled slain;
They talk till I can scarcely sleep,
So reeling is my brain.

They tell of filth, and blood, and woe;
Of things beyond belief;
Of things that make me tremble so
With mingled fright and grief.

I do not know what I shall do—
Is not the law unjust?
I can’t do what they want me to,
And yet they say I must!

Each day my doom doth nearer bring;
Each day the State prepares;
Sometimes I feel a watching thing
That stares, and stares, and stares.

I never seem to sleep—my head
Whirls in the queerest way.
Why am I chosen to be dead
Upon some fateful day?

Yet hark—some fibre is o’erwrought—
A giddying wine I quaff—
Things seem so odd, I can do naught
But laugh, and laugh, and laugh!

H. P. Lovecraft

The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

From Songs of Experience
William Blake

The Four Winds

The South wind said to the palms:
My lovers sing me psalms;
But are they as warm as those
That Laylah's lover knows?

The North wind said to the firs:
I have my worshippers;
But are they as keen as hers?

The East wind said to the cedars:
My friends are no seceders;
But is their faith to me
As firm as his faith must be?

The West wind said to the yews:
My children are pure as dews;
But what of her lover's muse?

So to spite the summer weather
The four winds howled together.

But a great Voice from above
Cried: What do you know of love?

Do you think all nature worth
The littlest life upon earth?

I made the germ and the ant,
The tiger and elephant.

In the least of these there is more
Than your elemental war.

And the lovers whom ye slight
Are precious in my sight.

Peace to your mischief-brewing!
I love to watch their wooing.

Of all this Laylah heard
Never a word.

She lay beneath the trees
With her lover at her knees.

He sang of God above
And of love.

She lay at his side
Well satisfied,

And at set of sun
They were one.

Before they slept her pure smile curled;
"God bless all lovers in the World!"

And so say I the self-same word;
Nor doubt God heard.

Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947)

The Valley of Unrest

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless-
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye-
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:- from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep:- from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.

Edgar Allan Poe

Le Poison

Le vin sait revêtir le plus sordide bouge
D'un luxe miraculeux,
Et fait surgir plus d'un portique fabuleux
Dans l'or de sa vapeur rouge,
Comme un soleil couchant dans un ciel nébuleux.

L'opium agrandit ce qui n'a pas de bornes,
Allonge l'illimité,
Approfondit le temps, creuse la volupté,
Et de plaisirs noirs et mornes
Remplit l'âme au delà de sa capacité.

Tout cela ne vaut pas le poison qui découle
De tes yeux, de tes yeux verts,
Lacs où mon âme tremble et se voit à l'envers…
Mes songes viennent en foule
Pour se désaltérer à ces gouffres amers.

Tout cela ne vaut pas le terrible prodige
De ta salive qui mord,
Qui plonge dans l'oubli mon âme sans remord,
Et, charriant le vertige,
La roule défaillante aux rives de la mort!


Es kleidet der Wein in die herrlichste Pracht
Die billigsten Absteigen,
Und märchenhafte Säulen steigen
Im Rotgold seiner Dämpfe sacht,
Wie Sonnen sich im Abendnebel neigen.

Und alles Begrenzte das Opium sprengt,
Verlängert alle Weiten,
Es höhlt die Wollust aus, vertieft die Zeiten;
In düsterer, fast schwarzer Lust ertränkt
Es deine Seele immer mehr und weiter.

Das ist fast nichts, verglichen mit dem Gift
Aus deinen grünen Augen,
Den Seen, wo meine Seele sich verkehrt beschaute,
In Scharen kommen Träume angerückt,
Aus diesen bittren Tiefen Lust zu saugen.

Das ist fast nichts, verglichen mit den Schmerzen,
Wenn mich dein Speichel ätzt,
Der achtlos meine Seele ins Vergessen setzt,
Sie, bis zum Schwindel drehend,
Fast ohnmächtig zum Strand des Todes hetzt!

Charles Baudelaire

The Mantra-Yoga

I

How should I seek to make a song for thee
When all my music is to moan thy name?
That long sad monotone - the same - the same -
Matching the mute insatiable sea
That throbs with life's bewitching agony,
Too long to measure and too fierce to tame!
An hurtful joy, a fascinating shame
Is this great ache that grips the heart of me.

Even as a cancer, so this passion gnaws
Away my soul, and will not ease its jaws
Till I am dead. Then let me die! Who knows
But that this corpse committed to the earth
May be the occasion of some happier birth?
Spring's earliest snowdrop? Summer's latest rose?

II

Thou knowest what asp hath fixed its lethal tooth
In the white breast that trembled like a flower
At thy name whispered. thou hast marked how hour
By hour its poison hath dissolved my youth,
Half skilled to agonise, half skilled to soothe
This passion ineluctable, this power
Slave to its single end, to storm the tower
That holdeth thee, who art Authentic Truth.

O golden hawk! O lidless eye! Behold
How the grey creeps upon the shuddering gold!
Still I will strive! That thou mayst sweep
Swift on the dead from thine all-seeing steep -
And the unutterable word by spoken.

Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947)