All Poems

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The Neophyte

© Aleister Crowley

To-night I tread the unsubstantial way
That looms before me, as the thundering night
Falls on the ocean: I must stop, and pray
One little prayer, and then - what bitter fight

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?

The Ladder

© Aleister Crowley

Dark, dark all dark! I cower, I cringe.
Only ablove me is a citron tinge
As if some echo of red, gold and lue
Chimed on the night and let its shadow through.
Yet I who am thus prisoned and exiled
Am the right heir of glory, the crowned child.

Photo, Brownie Troop, St. Louis, 1949 by Margaret Kaufman : American Life in Poetry #225 Ted Kooser

© Ted Kooser

There have been many poems written in which a photograph is described in detail, and this one by Margaret Kaufman, of the Bay Area in California, uses the snapshot to carry her further, into the details of memory.

Photo, Brownie Troop, St. Louis, 1949

The Interpreter

© Aleister Crowley

By the Wand and the Cup I conjure; by the Dagger and
Disk I constrain;
I am he that is sworn to endure; make thy music again!
I am Lord of the Star and the Seal; I am Lord of the Snake
and the Sword;
Reveal us the riddle, reveal! Bring us the word of the Lord!

Ages And Ages, Returning At Intervals

© Walt Whitman

AGES and ages, returning at intervals,

Undestroy'd, wandering immortal,

The Hermit

© Aleister Crowley

At last an end of all I hoped and feared!
Muttered the hermit through his elfin beard.

Metrical Feet

© Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Trochee trips from long to short;

From long to long in solemn sort

Rembrandts

© Madison Julius Cawein

I shall not soon forget her and her eyes,
The haunts of hate, where suffering seemed to write
Its own dark name, whose syllables are sighs,
In strange and starless night.

The Hawk and the Babe

© Aleister Crowley

I am that hawk of gold
Proud in adamantine poise
On the pillars of torqoise,
See,beyond the starry fold,
Where a darkling orb is rolled.

The Garden of Janus

© Aleister Crowley

IThe cloud my bed is tinged with blood and foam.
The vault yet blazes with the sun
Writhing above the West, brave hippodrome
Whose gladiators shock and shun

The Traveled Man

© Wilcox Ella Wheeler

Sometimes I wish the railroads all were torn out,
The ships all sunk among the coral strands.
I am so very weary, yea, so worn out,
With tales of those who visit foreign lands.

The Four Winds

© Aleister Crowley

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 Red Lily

© Paul Hamilton Hayne

I CALL her the Red Lily. Lo! she stands
From all her milder sister flowers apart;
A conscious grace in those fair-folded hands,
Pressed on the guileful throbbings of her heart!

The Five Adorations

I praise Thee, God, whose rays upstart beneath the Bright
and Morning Star:
Nowit asali fardh salat assobhi allahu akbar.

Song from Heine

© Emma Lazarus

MY heart, my heart is heavy,

Though merrily blooms the May;

The Disciples

Beneath the vine tree and the fig
Where mortal cares may not intrude,
On melon and on sucking pig
Although their brains are bright and big
Banquet the Great White Brotherhood.

Church-Musick

Sweetest of sweets, I thank you: when displeasure
Did through my bodie wound my minde,
You took me thence; and in your house of pleasure
A daintie lodging me assign'd.

The Buddhist

There never was a face as fair as yours,
A heart as true, a love as pure and keen.
These things endure, if anything endures.
But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures