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Poem by Aleister Crowley
Adela
Jupiter Mars P Moon VENEZIA, "May" 19"th", 1910. Jupiter's foursquare blaze of gold and blue Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl, As if the dread god, charioted anew Came conquering, his amazing disk awhirl To war down all the stars. I see him through The hair of this mine own Italian girl, Adela That bends her face on mine in the gondola! There is scarce a breath of wind on the lagoon. Life is absorbed in its beatitude, A meditative mage beneath the moon Ah! should we come, a delicate interlude, To Campo Santo that, this night of June, Heals for awhile the immitigable feud? Adela! Your breath ruffles my soul in the gondola! Through maze on maze of silent waterways, Guarded by lightless sentinel palaces, We glide; the soft plash of the oar, that sways Our life, like love does, laps --- no softer seas Swoon in the bosom of Pacific bays! We are in tune with the infinite ecstasies, Adela! Sway with me, sway with me in the gondola! They hold us in, these tangled sepulchres That guard such ghostly life. They tower above Our passage like the cliffs of death. There stirs No angel from the pinnacles thereof. All broods, all breeds. But immanent as Hers That reigns is this most silent crown of love Adela That broods on me, and is I, in the gondola. They twist, they twine, these white and black canals, Now stark with lamplight, now a reach of Styx. Even as out love - raging wild animals Suddenly hoisted on the crucifix To radiate seraphic coronals, Flowers, flowers - O let our light and darkness mix, Adela, Goddess and beast with me in the gondola! Come! though your hair be a cascade of fire, Your lips twin snakes, your tongue the lightning flash, Your teeth God's grip on life, your face His lyre, Your eyes His stars - come, let our Venus lash Our bodies with the whips of Her desire. Your bed's the world, your body the world-ash, Adela! Shall I give the word to the man of the gondola?
Aleister Crowley
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