AT SEA

               AS night hath stars, more rare than ships
                   In ocean, faint from pole to pole,
               So all the wonder of her lips
                   Hints her innavigable soul.

               Such lights she gives as guide my bark;
                   But I am swallowed in the swell
               Of her heart's ocean, sagely dark,
                   That holds my heaven and holds my hell.

               In her I live, a mote minute
                   Dancing a moment in the sun:
               In her I die, a sterile shoot
                   Of nightshade in oblivion.

               In her my elf dissolves, a grain
                   Of salt cast careless in the sea;
               My passion purifies my pain
                   To peace past personality.

               Love of my life, God grant the years
                   Confirm the chrism --- rose to rood!
               Anointing loves, asperging tears
                   In sanctifying solitude!     {79}

               Man is so infinitely small
                   In all these stars, determinate.
               Maker and moulder of them all,
                   Man is so infinitely great!
                                        ALEISTER CROWLEY.

{80}