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JEZEBEL; AND OTHER TRAGIC POEMS. By COUNT'VLALHMIR SVAREFFF Edited, with an Introduction and Epilogue, by ALEISTER CROWLEY. 1899. DEDICACE. JEZEBEL LONDRES, {πίῃ 1898. PART L PEINTRE, que ton amour inspire A LION’S mane, a leopard’s skin chansons Des toujours plus sublimes, Across dusty shoulders thrown; Malgré qu’aujourd’hui ma mauvaise lyre my Chante l’abime. A swart fierce face, with eyes where sin Lurks like a serpent by a stone. A man driven forth by lust to seek Nos espoirs, nos desirs nous rendent Rest from himself Carmel’s Des amis chers aux dieux ; on peak. Demain, ma voix, plus haute et plus profonde, Chante les cieux. A prophet 1 with wild hair behind, A(3ERALD} Streaming in fiery clusters ! Yea, Tangled with vehemence of the wind, And knotted with the tears that slay ; PERDITA. And all my face parched up and dried, And all my body crucified. LIKE leaves that fall before the sullen wind At summer’s parting kiss and autumn’s Ofttimes the Spirit of the Lord call, Descends and floods with his breath ; Lost from me thoughts fly half-forgotten my words fashioned mind, My are as a sword, Like leaves that fall. My voice is like the voice of death. The thunder of the Spirit’s wings terror to the hearts of They shall not come again ; the wintry pall Brings kings. Of consciousness clouds o’er them; they shall find Anon, and I am driven out ` No rest, no hope, no tear, no funeral. In desert places by desire ; My mouth is salt and dry; I doubt Into the night, despairing, bleeding, blind, If hell hath such another fire ; know their former God’s damnation devise They pass, nor place . If can at all, A lust to match these agonies. Lost to my soul, to God, to all mankind, Like leaves that fall. 1 Not Elijah, as the sequel shows. Foolish contemporary reviews, however, made this silly 1 Gerald Kelly, the eminent painter. blunder. * Under this name the poet lay perdu in the heart of London, prosecuting, under circum- stances of romantic and savage interest, his first occult studies. VOL. I. 129 I I30 ]EZEBEL; AND OTHER TRAGIG POEMS The desert Wind my body burns, Where Ahab sat :———but 10 ! I saw The voice of flesh consumes my soul; No king, no tyrant to be curst ; My body towards the city turns, But she, who filled me with blind awe, My spirit seeks its fierier goal ; She, for whose blood my thin veins In wells of heaven to quench my thirst, thirst; And take God’s hand among the first. The blossom of a painted mouth And bare breasts tinctured with the south. I conquered self; I grew at last A prophet chosen of the Lord ; ! I blew the trumpet’s iron blast For 10 ! the harlot Jezebel hands and her That called on Zimri Omri’s sword; Her dropped perfume, My voice inflamed the fiery steel tongue (A flame from the dark heart of hell, That was to smite upon Jezreel. The ivory-barred mouth, that stung With And now, I haste from yonder sands, unimaginable pangs) Shot out at and Hell fixed With fervour filled, to say God’s doom me, fangs. To Ahab of the bloody hands, of his The spoiler father’s tomb, Her purple robes, her royal crown, The slayer of the vineyard king. The jewelled girdle of her waist, God’s judgment, and his fate, I bring. Her feet with murder splashed, and brown With the sharp lips that fawn and taste, The city gleams afar; I see The crimson snakes that minister Samaria’s white walls on high ; To those unwearying lusts of her. The mountains echo back to me The vengeful murmur of the sky ; All heaven and earth on me attend And all her woman’s scent did drift To prophesy -the tyrant’s end. A steam Of poison through the air; The haze of sunshine seems to lift The gates are closed because of night And toil in tangles of black hair, Whose heavy breath infects the air; The hair that waves, and winds, and bites, The dog-star gleams, a devilish light : And glistens with unholy lights. I thought I saw behind me glare The eyes of fiends. I thought I heard For 10 ! she and beheld An evil laugh, a mocking word. saw me, My trembling lips curled back to curse, with whose music The swing at the Name, Laughed strong scorn, gates open knelled Without a warder roused from sleep; The empire of God’s universe. I pass, with face of burning flame, And on my haggard face upturned That is not quenched, although I weep. She spat ! Ah God ! how cheek (For even my tears are tears of fire, my burned ! For loathing, madness, and desire.) Ah God ! the traps for fervent feet ! Then, as a man betrayed, and doomed The morrow beaconed, and I came Already, I arose and went, By where the golden groves of wheat And wrestled with myself, consumed In summer glories fiercely flame ; With passion for that sacrament To those white courts, by princes trod, Of shame. From that day unto this Where Ahab sat, and mocked at God. My cheek desires that hideous kiss. JEZEBEL I31 Her hate, her scorn, her cruel blows, I waited many days. At last Fill my whole life, consume my breath ; The rushing of a chariot grew Her red-fanged hatred in me glows, Frightful through all the city vast : I lust for her, and hell, and death. Men were afraid. But I-—I knew I see that ghastly look, and yearn ]ehu was here, whose sword should dip Toward the brands of her that burn. Deep in my love’s adulterous lip. The spirit filled me. Ami be/zola’ ! Sleep shuns me; dreams divide the night, [ saw lzer dead stare !0 lite skies. throat for her veins) 2‘0 !167” ,size was not cold ?,־ My parched thirsty ] came) That she and I with deep delight But öurm'ng' wil/z old infamz'es. Suck from death’s womb infernal pains, " On lzer incestuous mow}; ]fell, Whose fire consumes, destroys, devours A nd Zosz‘ my soulforfezebel. Through night’s insatiable hours. _ I followed him afoot, afire; Beneath her window he drew rein ; And filled with altogether love, She looked forth, clad in glad attire, And altogether filled with sin, Haggard and hateful, once again ; The little sparks and noises move And taunted him. His bastard blood About the softness of her skin. Quailed, but his violent soul withstood. Her pleasures and her passions purr have of For the delight I her. He blenched, and then with eyes of flame, “Who is on my side? Who?” he said. Three eunuchs, passionless, grown tame, Aching with all the pangs of night Grinned from behind her laughing head. shuddering body My swoons; my eyes “ Throw down that I” And Absorb her eyelids’ lazy light, woman my breath And read her bosom to devise her death.. Fresh blossoms of the heart of hell Caught as they flung out to And of secret joys Jezebel. I think I died that moment. He, Foaming for vengeance and blood-lust, his of hideous Her lips are fastened to my breast Laughed coarse laugh glee. To suck out blood in feverish tides ; Her sweet bad body in the dust The token of her I possessed, He trampled. Royal from the womb A murderess lacks tomb ! Still on my withered cheek abides. martyred a Thus slowly the desire grows A clad with To kill and have her yet—who kn’ows? tigress woman, sin, And shod with infamy, who pressed The bloody winepress of my skin, And plucked the purple of my breast—— PART II. Her lovers in their hearts shall keep Her memory passionate and deep. I know. When Ramoth-Gilead’s field Grew bloody with hot ranks of dead, They cast her forth on Naboth’s field I smote amain with sword and shield ; 'Still living, in her harlot’s dress ; My brows with mingled blood were Her belly stript, her thighs concealed, red ; For shame’s sake and for love’s no less. And on my cheek the kiss of hell, Night falls; the gaping crowds abide The hatred of my Jezebel. No longer by her stiffening side. 132 JEZEBEL; AND OTHER TRAGIC POEMS I crept like sleep toward the place Now let me die, at last desired, That held for me her evil head; At last beloved of thee my queen; I bent like sin above her face Now let me die, with blood attired, That dying she might kiss me dead. Thy servant naked and obscene ;` I whispered “Jezebel !” She turned, To thy white skull, thy palms, thy feet, And her deep eyes with hatred burned. Clinging, dead, infamous, complete. “ Ah ! prophet, come to mock at me Now let me die, to mix my soul And gloat on mine exceeding pain?” With thy red soul, to join our hands, “Nay, but to give my soul to thee, To weld us in one perfect whole, And have thee spit at me again !” To link us with desirous bands. She smiled I know she “smiled—she sighed, Now ‘let me die, to mate in hell Bit my lips through, and drank, and died ! With thee, O harlot Jezebel. Her murders and her blasphemies, Her whoredoms, God has paid at last; CONCERNING CERTAIN SINS. Upon my bosom close she lies; Her carnal spirit holds me fast. SOME sins assume a garb so fine and white My blood, my infamy, my pain, That the blue veil of Heaven seems to Seal my subjection and her reign.
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