A beautiful love poem, the eleventh from the collection Rosa Mundi, and other love-songs. Here ‘darkmans’ means ‘night’ and is an old English canting word (according to the editor).

XI.
MARY.
by Aleister Crowley

MARY, Mary, subtle and softly breathing,
Look once eager out of the eyes upon me,
Draw one sigh, resign and abide in maiden
Beauty for ever!

Love me, love me, love me as I desire it,
Strong sweet draughts not drawn of a well of passion,
Truth’s bright crystal, shimmering out of sunlight
Into the moon-dawn.

Closer cling, thou heart of amazed rapture,
Cords of starlight fashioned about thee netwise,
Tendrils woven of gossamer twist about us!
These be the binders!

Night winds whirl about the avenger city;
Darkness rides on desolate miles of moorland;
Thou and I, disparted a little, part not
Spirit from spirit.

Strange and sister songs in the middle ether
Grow, divide; they hover about, above us.
We, the song consummate of love, give music
Back to the mortal.

Here, my love, a garden of spice and myrtle;
Sunlight shakes the rivers of love with laughter;
Here, my love, abide, in the amber ages,
Lapped in the levin.

Linger, linger, light of the blessed moonrise!
Full-orbed sweep immaculate through the midnight!
Bend above, O sorrowful sister, kiss me
Once and for ever!

Let the lake of thought be as still as darkmans
Brooding over magian pools of madness!
Love, the sun, arise and abide above us,
Mary Mavourneen.

Source: Rosa Mundi, and other love-songs (1905), in The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, Volume III (1907). See the digitisation of the original on David Moews’s home page.

Previously published on Agapeta, 2018/06/13.