The Twins poem – Aleister Crowley poems | Poetry Monster

A poem by Alistar Crowley (1875-1947)

[Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare]

Have pity ! show no pity !

Those eyes that send such shivers

Into my brain and spine : oh let them

Flame like the ancient city

Swallowed up by the sulphurous rivers

When men let angels fret them !

Yea ! let the south wind blow,

And the Turkish banner advance,

And the word go out : No quarter !

But I shall hod thee -so !

While the boys and maidens dance

About the shambles of slaughter !

I know thee who thou art,

The inmost fiend that curlest

Thy vampire tounge about

Earth’s corybantic heart,

Hell’s warrior that whirlest

The darts of horror and doubt !

Thou knowest me who I am

The inmost soul and saviour

Of man ; what hieroglyph

Of the dragon and the lamb

Shall thou and I engrave here

On Time’s inscandescable cliff ?

Look ! in the plished granite,

Black as thy cartouche is with sins,

I read the searing sentence

That blasts the eyes that scan it :

“HOOR and SET be TWINS.”

A fico for repentance !

Ay ! O Son of my mother

That snarled and clawed in her womb

As now we rave in our rapture,

I know thee, I love thee, brother !

Incestuous males that consumes

The light and the life that we capture.

Starve thou the soul of the world,

Brother, as I the body !

Shall we not glut our lust

On these wretches whom Fate hath hurled

To a hell of jesus and shoddy,

Dung and ethics and dust ?

Thou as I art Fate.

Coe then, conquer and kiss me !

Come ! what hinders? Believe me :

This is the thought we await.

The mark is fair ; can you miss me ?

See, how subtly I writhe !

Strange runes and unknown sigils

I trace in the trance that thrills us.

Death ! how lithe, how blithe

Are these male incestuous vigils !

Ah ! this is the spasm that kills us !

Wherefore I solemnly affirm

This twofold Oneness at the term.

Asar on Asi did beget

Horus twin brother unto Set.

Now Set and Horus kiss, to call

The Soul of the Unnatural

Forth from the dusk ; then nature slain

Lets the Beyond be born again.

This weird is of the tongue of Khem,

The Conjuration used of them.

Whoso shall speak it, let him die,

His bowels rotting inwardly,

Save he uncover and caress

The God that lighteth his liesse.