Neptune
A Hymn to the 'Hymn of the Hermit' by Aliester Crowley
You travel the early and the outward edges
of the uttermost, the universe, the hatched earth
- meaning: there the soul wanders, watches, lurks
bulwarks bent abundant
with the tide it dries
with the ebb it sparks
like lightning flash and fast
you
watch and wink in the deep
and the very depths
the ether's whisper, the dream of the shadow
the light-house of the eclipse
bliss in bitterness
lust for a draught
death and oblivion, mercy
for lies and illusion
for any form of Form
Should someone lean out
from the windows
on the further side
on the translucent sphere
between the formed and the unformed
it means: Neptune has leaned
Poseidon has peered out, apprehensive,
the White Whale has dived in the heights
used to depths, abysses
used to the swifttest route
to the centre, the inner circle of the Psyche
to the imagined, point, the morphem of the moment
one head to one side
the other to the other
the third, the sixth, the tenth
you, medusa, octopus, eight-eyed leech
back-up store-house
with capricious frequency
for restoration, remove
form from power
challenge it to a duelupset the public
the spectators
sort out the story behind the scenes
classically
lower the curtain
shake the stage
far from thence the supreme being drifts
high, high in the heights
while beneath him smoulders
a watery articulation
All.
Translated by
Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid
