How enigmatic is the face
That looks down from its portraits place
Atop the book case in my room,
Wherein your youth’s exotic bloom
Of poetry rests side by side
With all you wrote in manhood’s pride
Of Magick. The half laughing sage
That you became in your old age
He too is here. And that new law
“Do what thou Wilt” that shook with awe
And rage so many years ago,
The folk that found it written so,
O Therion, Beast self-proclaimed,
And all of men most ill flamed,
O poet of the golden tongue
Whose verses a wondrous tapestry
of bright bejewelled fantasy,
Were you indeed the demon Crowley,
Adept averse of all unholy,
Nefarious, black forbidden things,
Or did you bid us put on wings,
to soar beyond this mortal plane
at any cost of shame and pain?
And in yout too the high adept
Crying the dawn to sould that slept
and in you too the base man
that earned the name of charlatan.
Do we have right to shun you still
for pointing us to our true Will
You fláwed and tragic lilfe is done.
How shall we judge you, Therion?
Not ours the Hands that hold the seals
That weigh the fold of untold tales
Of mortal life. That must befall
In the vast shadowy judgement hall
Of great Osiris. We know not
The end for which we were begot
Still less of sister or of brother
Who are we then to judge another?
This much i Know, that you availed
to show the Magick Art unveiled,
Your first sworn motto proven sure:
Perdurabo- I Shall endure
Doreen Valiente
(1922-1999)
