Analysis of Happy Dust

Aleister Crowley 1875 (Leamington Spa) – 1947 (Hastings)



Snow that fallest from heaven, bear me aloft on thy wings
To the domes of the star-girdled Seven, the abode of
ineffable things,
Quintessence of joy and of strength, that, abolishing
future and past,
Mak'st the Present an infinite length, my soul all-One
with the Vast,
The Lone, the Unnameable God, that is ice of His
measureless cold,
Without being or form or abode, without motion or
matter, the fold
Where the shepherded Universe sleeps, with nor sense
nor delusion nor dream,
No spirit that wantons or weeps, no thought in its silence
supreme.
I sit, and am utterly still; in mine eyes is my fathomless
lust
Ablaze to annihilate Will, to crumble my being to dust,
To calcine the dust to an ash, to burn up the ash to an air,
To abolish the air with a flash of the final, the fulminant
flare.
All this I have done, and dissolved the primordial germ
of my thought;
I have rolled myself up, and revolved the wheel of my
being to Naught.
Is there even the memory left? That I was, that I am?
It is lost.
As I utter the Word, I am cleft by the last swift spear of
the frost.
Snow! I am nothing at last; I sit, and am utterly still;
They are perished, the phantoms, and past; they were
born of my weariness-will
When I craved, craved being and form, when the con-
sciousness-cloud was a mist
Precurser of stupor and storm, when I and my shadow
had kissed,
And brought into life all the shapes that confused the
clear space with their marks,
Vain spectres whose vapour escapes, a whirlwind of
ruinous sparks,
No substance have any of these; I have dreamed them in
sickness of lust,
Delirium born of disease-ah, whence was the master,
the "must"
Imposed on the All? is it true, then, that
something in me
Is subject to fate? Are there two, after all,
that can be?
I have brought all that is to an end; for myself am suffic-
ient and sole.
Do I trick myself now? Shall I rend once again this
homologous Whole?
I have stripped every garment from space; I have
strangled the secre of Time,
All being is fled from my face, with Motion's inhibited
rime.
Stiller and stiller I sit, till even Infinity fades;
'Tis an idol-'tis weakness of wit that breeds, in inanity,
shades!
Yet the fullness of Naught I become, the deepest and
steadiest Naught,
Contains in its nature the sum of the functions of being
and thought.
Still as I sit, and destroy all possible trace of the past,
All germ of the future, nor joy nor knowledge alive at the
last,
It is vain, for the Silence is dowered with a nature, the
seed of a name:
Necessity, fearfully flowered with the blossom of possible
Aim.
I am Necessity? Scry Necessity mother of Fate!
And Fate determines me "I"; and I have the Will to create.
Vast is the sphere, but it turns on itself like the pettiest
star.
And I am the looby that learns that all things equally are.
Inscrutable Nothing, the Gods, the cosmos of Fire and
of Mist.
Suns,atoms, the clouds and the clouds ineluctably dare
to exist-
I have made the Voyage of Thought, the Voyage of Vision,
I swam
To the heart of the Ocean of Naught from the source of
the Spring of I am:
I know myself wholly the brother alike of the All and the
One;
I know that all things are each other, that their sum and
their substance is None;
But the knowledge itself can excel, its fulness hath broken
its bond;
All's Truth, and all's falsehood as well, and-what of the
region beyond?
So, still though I sit, as for ever, I stab to the heart of my
spine;
I destroy the last seed of endeavour to seal up my soul
in the shrine
Of Silence, Eternity, Peace; I abandon the Here and the
Now;
I cease from the effort to cease; I absolve the dead I from
its Vow,
I am wholly content to be dust, whether that be a mote
or a star,
To live and to love and to lust, acknowledge what seem
for what are,
Not to care what I am, if I be, whence I came, whither go,
how I thrive,
If my spirit be bound or be free, save as Nature contrive.
What I am, that I am, 'tis enough. I am part of a glorious
game.
Am I cast for madness or love? I am cast to esteem them
the same.
Am I only a dream in the sleep of some butterfly?
Phantom of fright
Conceived, who knows how, or how deep, in the measure-
less womb of the night?
I imagine impossible thought, metaphysical voids that
beget
Ideas intagible wrought to things less conceivable yet.
It may be. Little I reck -but, assume the existence of
earth.
Am I


Scheme Text too long
Poetic Form
Metre 1111101101111 1011011100011 01001 0101101110100 1001 11010110011111 101 0101111111 11 01101110101101 1001 10100101111 101011 1101111110110 01 11011001011111 1 011010111011011 110111111101111 101001101101001 1 11111001001001 111 111110010111 1011 111001001111111 111 111001111101111 01 111101111011001 11100100110 1111001 11111001101 11101 11100111011 11 010111011010 11111 111101011 1001 1101101111110 1011 01001101111010 01 0110111111 1001 10111111101 111 1111111111111 101 111111111011 01001 111100101111 100111 11011111110100 1 100101111001001 1110110111101 1 1010111010100 11 010110011010110 01 111100111001101 111010111100110 1 11110101110100 1101 010011010101100 1 110100101001011 010101101101101 1101111101101 1 011010111111001 010010010101100 11 10100111 101 11101011010110 11 1011010111011 01111 111100100110100 1 1111111101110 11011 10100110111110 11 11011110110 1001 1111111101110111 1 101011101011111 001 1100100110100100 1 111010111010111 11 111010111101101 101 1101101101011 111 111111111111101 111 111011111111001 11111110111110100 1 111110111111011 01 1110010011110 1011 011111110010 11101 101001001010011 01 0101111101001 111101110100101 1 11
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 4,248
Words 832
Sentences 36
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 120
Lines Amount 120
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 3,360
Words per stanza (avg) 829
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 23, 2023

4:11 min read
58

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, and mountaineer. more…

All Aleister Crowley poems | Aleister Crowley Books

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    Who wrote the poem ״Invictus״?
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