The truth was, I didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know if I was as strong as Aunt Lillian. I found myself remembering one of those stories of hers, the one about folks crossing over, how they came back either poets or crazy, and I sure couldn’t rhyme more than the odd verse or two of doggerel.
Charles de Lint, Seven Wild Sisters: A Modern Fairy Tale [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
The Reaper in The Gate of the Sanctuary from The Temple of the Holy Ghost (Collected Works, Vol I) by Aleister Crowley.
“I tired not of the tigress limbs and lips—
Only, my soul was weary of itself,
Being so impotent, who only sips
The dewdrops from the flower-cup of an elf,
Not comprehending the mysterious sea
Of black swift waters that can drink it up,
Not trusting life to its own ecstasy,
Not mixing poison with the loving-cup.
I, maker of mad rhymes, the reaper she!
We lingered by a day upon the lawn.” [via]
The Reaper in The Gate of the Sanctuary from The Temple of the Holy Ghost (Collected Works, Vol I) by Aleister Crowley.
“I, the mere rhymer, she, the queen of rhyme,
As sweeps her sickle in the falling wheat,
Her body’s sleek intoxicating time,
The music of the motion of her feet!” [via]
“Sons Of The Staves Of Time” by Therion from Gothic Kabblah
“Tidesson…
Son of the Staves of Time
Tidesson…
Tell us the secret rhyme
Byrger Tidesson
You investigate
Runic alphabet
And you innovate
Every stave of runes, all the secret signs
Ascending Tidher
Sign of inventor Idher
Byrger Tidesson
Foremost magistrate
Armed from ancient time
With arrows of fate
I’m your follower until heaven’s gate
Ascending Tidher
Sign of inventor Idher
Byrger Tidesson
From the ancient time
Runic ancestor
The last of your line
Tidesson…
Son of the Staves of Time
Tidesson…
Tell us the secret rhyme
Magistrate Tidesson
Secret King Tidesson
Ascending Tidher
Inventor Idher
Byrger Tidesson
You’re descending from Odin, Thor and Frej
Tetragrammaton
From Tiundaland
Your Notarikon
Tidesson…
Son of the Staves of Time
Tidesson…
Tell us the secret rhyme”
William Blake and his Illustrations to The Divine Comedy in Ideas of Good and Evil by William Butler Yeats.
“This letter may have been the expression of a moment’s enthusiasm, but was more probably rooted in one of those intuitions of coming technical power which every creator feels, and learns to rely upon; for all his greatest work was done, and the principles of his art were formulated, after this date. Except a word here and there, his writings hitherto had not dealt with the principles of art except remotely and by implication; but now he wrote much upon them, and not in obscure symbolic verse, but in emphatic prose, and explicit if not very poetical rhyme.” [via]