Wheat and Wine

Clear, deep, and blue, the sky
    Is silvered by the morn,
And where the dewdrop's eye
Catches its brilliancy
    Strange lights and hues are born:
I have seen twelve colours hover on a single spray of thorn.

There is a great grey tower_a
    Cut clear against the deep;
In the sun's wakening hour
I think it has the power
    To touch the soul of sleep
With its tender thought, and bid me to awake for joy - and weep.

This night I am earlier.
    No drowsy thoughts drew nigh
At eve to make demur_b
That I be minister
    To Cynthia_c maidenly:
All night I have watched her sail through a black and silver sky.

Within my soul there fight
    Two full and urgent streams,
Work's woe and dream's delight:
Like snow and sun they smite,
    Days battle hard with dreams:
On a world of misty beauty the Aurora_a clearly beams.

So labour fought with pride,
    And love with idleness,
My soul was torn and tried
With the impassioned tide
    Of storm and deathly stress -
I had never dreamed a lily should arise amid the press.

Yet such a flower sprang here
    Within this soul of mine.
When foemen bade good cheer
To foemen, grew one clear
    Concept, ideal, divine,
Of a god of light and laughter, of a god of wheat and wine.

Work on, strong mind, devise
    The outer life aright!
Dream, subtle soul, and arise
To noblest litanies
    That pierce the mask of night -
In a man work lifts his eyelids, but his dreams lend eyes their light.

So dreams and days are wed,
    And soul and body lie
Ambrosial_b in Love's bed.
See, heaven with stars is spread -
    So glad of life am I
If an angel came to call me I am sure I would not die.

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     a St. John's Chapel, Cambridge, which Crowley's rooms in 16 St. John's Street overlooked. It was his habit to work from midnight to dawn, when he could no longer be disturbed by visits from friend. (Note by the Poet in Collected Works i p. 49.)

- The poem then dates from his very young days as a Cambridge student (1898 e.v.))

     b to make demur: to protest against.

     c Cynthia: one of the many names for the moon, Artemis, Diana &.c.

     a the Aurora: the Latin form of the Greek Eos. Goddess of the dawn.

     b Ambrosial: from ambrosia: the food of the gods. Ambrosial must then mean something like 'with divine deliciousness'.

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