THE ALTAR OF ARTEMIS

by: Aleister Crowley (1875-1947)

HERE, in the coppice, oak and pine

And mystic yew and elm are found,

Sweeping the skies, that grew divine

With the dark wind's despairing sound,

The wind that roars from the profound,

And smites the mountain-tops, and calls

Mute spirits to black festivals,

And feasts in valleys iron-bound,

Desolate crags, and barren ground;--

There in the strong storm-shaken grove

Swings the pale censer-fire for love.

 

The foursquare altar, roughly hewn,

And overlaid with beaten gold,

Stands in the gloom; the stealthy tune

Of singing maidens overbold

Desires mad mysteries untold,

With strange eyes kindling, as the fleet

Implacable untiring feet

Weave mystic figures manifold

That draw down angels to behold

The moving music, and the fire

Of their intolerable desire.

 

For, maddening to fiercer thought,

The fiery limbs requicken, wheel

In formless furies, subtly wrought

Of swifter melodies than steel

That flashes in the fight: the peal

Of amorous laughters choking sense,

And madness kissing violence,

Ring like dead horsemen; bodies reel

Drunken with motion; spirits feel

The strange constraint of gods that clip

From Heaven to mingle lip and lip.

 

The gods descend to dance; the noise

Of hungry kissings, as a swoon,

Faints for excess of its own joys,

And mystic beams assail the moon,

With flames of their infernal noon;

While the smooth incense, without breath,

Spreads like some scented flower of death,

Over the grove; the lover's boon

Of sleep shall steal upon them soon,

And lovers' lips, from lips withdrawn,

Seek dimmer bosoms till the dawn.

 

Yet on the central altar lies

The sacrament of kneaded bread,

With blood made one, the sacrifice

To those, the living, who are dead--

Strange gods and goddesses, that shed

Monstrous desires of secret things

Upon their worshippers, from wings

One lucent web of light, from head

One labyrinthine passion-fed

Palace of love, from breathing rife

With secrets of forbidden life.

 

But not the sunlight, nor the stars,

Nor any light but theirs alone,

Nor iron masteries of Mars,

Nor Saturn's misconceiving zone,

Nor any planet's may be shown,

Within the circle of the grove,

Where burn the sanctities of love:

Nor may the foot of man be known,

Nor evil eyes of mothers thrown

On maidens that desire the kiss

Only of maiden Artemis.

 

But horned and huntress from the skies,

She bends her lips upon the breeze,

And pure and perfect in her eyes,

Burn magical virginity's

Sweet intermittent sorceries.

When the slow wind from her sweet word

In all their conchéd ears is heard.

And like the slumber of the seas,

There murmur through the holy trees

The kisses of the goddess keen,

And sighs and laughters caught between.

 

For, swooning at the fervid lips

Of Artemis, the maiden kisses

Sobs and the languid body slips

Down to enamelled wildernesses.

Fallen and loose the shaken tresses;

Fallen the sandal and girdling gold,

Fallen the music manifold

Of moving limbs and strange caresses,

And deadly passion that possesses

The magic ecstasy of these

Mad maidens, tender as blue seas.

 

Night spreads her yearning pinions,

The baffled day sinks blind to sleep;

The evening breeze outswoons the sun's

Dead kisses to the swooning deep.

Upsoars the moon; the flashing steep

Of Heaven is fragrant for her feet;

The perfume of the grove is sweet

As slumbering women furtive creep

To bosoms where small kisses weep,

And find in fervent dreams the kiss

Most memoried of Artemis.

 

Impenetrable pleasure dies

Beneath the madness of new dreams;

The slow sweet breath is turned to sighs

More musical than many streams

Under the moving silver beams,

Fretted with stars, thrice woven across.

White limbs in amorous slumber toss,

Like sleeping foam, whose silver gleams

On motionless dark seas; it seems

As if some gentle spirit stirred,

Their lazy brows with some swift word.

 

So, in the secret of the shrine,

Night keeps them nestled, so the gloom

Laps them in waves as smooth as wine,

As glowing as the fiery womb

Of some young tigress, dark as doom,

And swift as sunrise. Love's content

Builds its own monument,

And carves above its vaulted tomb

The Phoenix on her fiery plume,

To their own souls to testify

Their kisses' immortality.

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