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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14040 ***
+
+Graphics and textual content produced by Lolaness.
+
+
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD GODS
+
+A Comedy By Aleister Crowley
+
+[Privately Printed in 1912]
+
+
+TO LEILA WADDELL
+
+
+
+
+
+SCENE
+
+THE HEARTH OF CRASSUS;
+AFTERWARDS THE LAWNS, THE WOODS, THE LAKE, THE ISLE.
+
+
+
+CHARACTERS
+
+CRASSUS, a barbarian from Britain.
+ADELA, his wife, a noble Roman lady.
+ALICIA, a servant in the house.
+A STATUE OF PAN.
+A FAUN.
+
+
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD GODS
+
+THE SCENE is at the hearth of CRASSUS, where is a little
+bronze altar dedicated to the Lares and Penates. A pale
+flame rises from the burning sandal-wood, on which CRASSUS
+throws benzoin and musk. He is standing in deep dejection.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Smoke without fire!
+  No thrill of tongues licks up
+  The offerings in the cup.
+Dead falls desire.
+
+Black smoke thou art,
+  O altar-flame, that dost dismember,
+  Devour the hearth, to leave no ember
+To warm this heart.
+
+I see her still -
+  Adela dancing here
+  Till dim gods did appear
+To work our will.
+
+The delicate girl!
+  Diaphanous gossamer
+  Subtly revealing her
+Brave breast of pearl!
+
+Now - she's withdrawn
+  At dusk to the wild woods,
+  Mystic beatitudes
+That dure till dawn.
+
+Let life exclaim
+  Against these things of spirit,
+  Mankind that disinherit
+Of love's pure flame!
+[He bends before the altar and begins to weep.]
+
+Ye household gods!
+  By these male tears I swear
+  That ye shall grant this prayer.
+All things at odds
+
+Shall be put straight -
+  Harmonized, reconciled
+  By some appointed child
+Of some far Fate!
+[A curtain has been drawn aside during this invocation, and
+ALICIA advances. She smiles subtly upon him; and, giving a
+strange gesture, makes one or two noiseless steps of dancing.]
+
+ALICIA.
+Master still sad?
+
+CRASSUS.
+These faint and fearful shores
+  Of time are beaten by the surge of sense,
+  Love worn away - by love? - to indifference.
+Who knows what god - or demon - she adores?
+  Or in what wood she shelters, or what grove
+  Sees her profane our sacrament of love?
+
+ALICIA.
+I saw her follow
+The stream in the hollow
+Where never Apollo
+  Abides.
+So thick are the trees
+That never the breeze
+Stirs them, or sees
+  What satyr inhabits the glen, what nymph in the
+    pools of it hides.
+
+Lighter of foot
+  Than a sylph or a fairy,
+  Sinuous, wary,
+  I passed from the airy
+Lawns, where the flute
+  Of the winds made tremulous music for man.
+
+I followed the ripple
+  Of the stream; I crept
+  Where the waters wept -
+    The floss in the foss
+    Gurgling across
+    The bosses of moss,
+Like a dryad's nipple
+  In the mouth of Pan!
+
+CRASSUS.
+O pearl of the house! you came to the end?
+
+ALICIA.
+The dusk of the slave, the dawn of a friend?
+
+CRASSUS.
+Freedom is thine for the skill and the will.
+
+ALICIA.
+The skill is mine - but the will lies still,
+Still as the earth that dare not stir
+Till the kiss of the sun awaken her!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Yet at these secrets and riddles? Behold!
+I can fill thy lap with a harvest of gold.
+
+ALICIA.
+Yet all the gold you could give to me
+Would fall at my feet when I rose to be free.
+
+CRASSUS.
+What will you then?
+
+ALICIA.
+No gift from men.
+Of my own free will I give you wit,
+(O man so sorely in need of it!)
+And happiness; and the flame that hath dwindled
+On this dull hearth shall be rekindled.
+But this you must swear:
+To will, and to dare,
+To seek the spirit and slay the sense;
+  And for this hour
+  To give me power
+To lead you in silent obedience,
+Though I bade you fall on your sword....
+
+CRASSUS.
+                        Enough!
+I give my life as I gave my love.
+
+ALICIA.
+O! love you have not understood.
+You have not guessed its secret food.
+You have not seen its single eye;
+But fear and doubt and jealousy
+Have risen, and now your love is trembling
+Like a mountebank dissembling
+When his trick's detected. Come!
+To find home we must leave home.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Starless and moonless, hidden in cloud,
+The night's one flame of pearl.
+
+ALICIA.
+The bat flaps; the owl hoots aloud.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Lead on; I trust you, girl.
+
+ALICIA.
+You are bold to trust me; or, have you divined
+My secret?
+
+CRASSUS.
+No; the crystal of your mind
+Shows only faint disturbing images,
+Things passing strange, as if enchanted seas
+Kept their great swell upon it, and strange fish
+Played in its oily depths. Some monstrous wish,
+The shadow of some unspeakable desire,
+Strikes my heart cold, and sets my brain on fire.
+
+ALICIA.
+Learn this, as we pass through the portico:
+Fear nothing; there is nothing you can know!
+And by these terraces and steps that gleam
+Wintry, although the summer night is hot,
+This - what we seek is never what we find!
+
+Life is a dream, like love; and from the dream
+If we may wake, we never find it what
+We would; for the wisdom of a mightier mind
+Leads us in its own ways
+To a perfected praise.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Why are these shadows thrown across the lawn
+From the elms and yews? They were not wont to reach
+Beyond the branches of that copper-beech.
+
+ALICIA.
+Attend the dawn
+Of an unknown comet, that shall come
+From the unfathomable wells of space
+Into its halidom.
+
+CRASSUS.
+I know it not. Last night I walked alone
+Here, and saw nothing.
+
+ALICIA.
+                        I was not with you!
+There is no God upon the eternal throne
+Of stars begemming the bewildering blue
+Unless one has the eyes to see him. Think
+How we two stand upon the brink
+Of nothing! Here's a globe, whereto we trust,
+No larger than the smallest speck of dust
+Or mote in the sunbeam is to that sun's self,
+And we are like dead leaves in autumn's whil
+Of wind upon it.
+
+CRASSUS.
+                        Mystify me, girl!
+It is the right of an elf.
+Surely your flickering fire
+Will draw me to some mire!
+
+ALICIA.
+Here the stream dips its mouth into the wood.
+So does youth's calm and chaste beatitude
+Touch the black mouth of Love, the ancient whore.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Girl! what a scorpion leaping from your lips!
+
+ALICIA.
+My mouth stings as no scorpion ever stang.
+in this round impudent smiling face of mine
+There is a poison fiercer than all wine;
+And from these eyes more subtle sorrows pour
+Than you can dream. These teeth have been at grips
+With gods; I have sung what no girl ever sang.
+These ears have heard
+An insufferable word!
+
+CRASSUS.
+What do you mean?
+
+ALICIA.
+                        The secret's in a kiss.
+Here are no kisses. Here great Artemis
+Rules; only in the woodland may a man
+Hide his eyes from her, pledge himself to Pan.
+Come! through the tangled arches
+Of cypresses and larches,
+Stoop; under Artemis we walked upright;
+But this is Pan's home, and the House of Night.
+                        [They enter the wood.]
+
+CRASSUS.
+So when I stoop, my cheek comes close to yours.
+Give me a kiss.
+
+ALICIA.
+The poisonous apple lures
+Thus the boy's mouth. Beware!
+
+CRASSUS.
+O you are fair!
+Fairer than ever! In this tangle of trees
+Your hot breath wraps you in perfume.
+
+ALICIA.
+There is some gloom or doom,
+A bitter harsh ingredient
+In these my sorceries
+Of animal scent.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Yes! there is fear mixed with the fascination.
+It is the reverence that chastity, be sure!
+Gains from the impure.
+
+ALICIA.
+O virtuous nation!
+It is the fear of the uninitiate
+Before the throne of Fate
+The hierophant.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Kiss me, however!
+
+ALICIA.
+Did I grant
+This favour, all were lost. It is your truth
+To Adela that tempts my youth.
+                [Henceforth Alicia shakes with silent laughter.]
+
+CRASSUS.
+What little breasts you have!
+
+ALICIA.
+Ay, maiden breasts!
+Would you betray my oath?
+
+CRASSUS.
+My will contests
+My wishes.
+
+ALICIA.
+Wait, and you shall surely see
+Part of the secret that ensorcels me.
+See all these bosses! It is not
+As if a Titan smote himself into the earth,
+And was caught into her, made one with her?
+
+CRASSUS.
+The scent is fierce and hot
+Like a rutting panther's slot.
+Yet you are matched with mirth,
+Shaking each other like two wrestlers.
+
+ALICIA.
+What should stir
+Your melancholy but laughter?
+
+CRASSUS.
+Look, before us
+Light streams, a tremulous chorus.
+Oh, it is vague and vacillating!
+
+ALICIA.
+Love,
+Young love of maidens, is the soul thereof.
+And in the midst, behold, O man!
+The image of great Pan.
+
+CRASSUS.
+I fear him.
+
+ALICIA.
+Go and lie there, at his feet.
+Lie supine! Lie on that moss-covered root,
+While I draw forth the flute
+And make a marvellous music.
+                        [She ceases laughing and begins to play.]
+
+CRASSUS.
+O I writhe
+Beneath the force of lips, of fingers lithe
+That touch the delicate stops so delicately.
+
+ALICIA.
+Hush!
+I have drawn the bird from the bush.
+Pan will appear anon.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Ah! Ah! ... Ah! Ah!
+
+ALICIA.
+This music moves you. Now I'll play a tune
+That would make mad the melancholy moon.
+This.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Ah! you tear my soul out with the trills.
+Your fingers play like summer lightning on the shaft.
+It is like a storm on the mountains when it shrills;
+Like the angry sea when it booms. Hark!
+
+ALICIA.
+Some god laughed.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Your mouth is like some god's It burns and blooms
+With fire unheard of, with unguessed perfumes.
+O let me kiss you!
+
+ALICIA.
+So you stop my song!
+                        [She ceases the tune.]
+
+CRASSUS.
+There is another song.
+
+ALICIA.
+You do me wrong.
+For you love Adela!
+
+CRASSUS.
+By God, girl, no!
+I love Alicia.
+
+ALICIA.
+Ah! you love her SO! [She laughs]
+
+CRASSUS.
+Your laugh is shocking - why do you mock me, dear?
+
+ALICIA.
+Because you will not guess my secret here.
+But - put your arms about my neck, and swar
+You love me, and will always keep them there.
+Then I might dare.
+
+CRASSUS.
+I swear it. O my sweet!
+
+ALICIA.
+Then take my kiss.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Your mouth is like a rose of fire. But what is this?
+I cannot bear it.
+
+ALICIA.
+Ai! Uhu! Uhu!
+It is my heart; this arrow strikes me through.
+Stir not one muscle for a moment. Death!
+You beast, you kill me with your urgent breath.
+
+CRASSUS.
+O how I love you! [He moves violently.]
+
+ALICIA.
+Fool! Now all my pain
+Must be gone through again.
+It is sure your chastity's unstained by crime;
+You do the wrong thing just at the right time!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Why do you taunt me? All the wood is spring's,
+And love is hovering o'er us with his wings.
+
+ALICIA.
+Sub pennis, penis!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Hush! you break the spell.
+
+ALICIA.
+Oh! you great fools fo men, I know you well.
+But nothing is so detrimental
+To love as to be sentimental.
+I will yet make you wise.
+Know that I have the magic to disguise
+Myself in manyt ways. Do you feel this?
+(Lie still, this heaven were ruined by a kiss!)
+I am a butterfly, such idle flitting
+As to a flower like you is fitting
+Now I'm a mole. Do you think you know me now?
+Here is the earthworm severed by the plough.
+
+CRASSUS.
+You are a witch. I want your love; you give
+Only love's comedy.
+
+ALICIA.
+The way to live
+Is to find comedy and tragedy
+In everything. But if you cannot see
+Through to the Bacchanal spirit, this should suit.
+Here is the blacksmith hammering a flute.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Oh love, love, kiss me!
+
+ALICIA.
+I will forge a ring
+Of bloom of blood-kisses upon your neck,
+Till it is like a garden of roses in late spring.
+
+CRASSUS.
+"Soft, and stung softly, fairer for a fleck."
+
+ALICIA.
+O marvellous nation!
+Vanity, dullness, slobber, and quotation!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Why do you love me if you scorn me so?
+
+ALICIA.
+Why, did I say I loved you? I say no.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Why do you make love?
+
+ALICIA.
+To beguile the hour;
+To crown my rose-wreath with a greener flower'
+To do my master's bidding, that's to give
+Life to yourself, who only think you live.
+But listen! Have you seen the nine waves roll
+Monotonous upon the shoal,
+Rising and falling like a maiden asleep;
+Then with a lift and a leap
+The ninth wave curls, and breaks upon the beach,
+And rushes up it, swallowing the sand?
+I am that ocean.... Now, you understand?
+
+CRASSUS.
+Alicia! O! this is unbearable.
+Surely this wave washes the shore of hell!
+
+ALICIA.
+Each follows each
+Remorseless and indifferent as Nature
+Is to each creature.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Wonderful, wonderful woman!
+                        [She throws her head back, and laughs]
+
+ALICIA.
+Now, you think
+You know my secret. I have given you drink,
+And you are wise. But hush! to all emotion
+Save this the pulse and swell of Ocean
+For at the last with mouth and fingers wried
+All must proclaim the triumph of the tide.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Ah! still you mock me with your cruel laugh.
+
+ALICIA.
+It is your foolish epitaph.
+
+CRASSUS.
+But this can be no mockery. Heave and sway
+And curl and thrust - these waves are not at play.
+
+ALICIA.
+You feel the ocean breaking on the shoal;
+But passionless and moveless is its soul.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Ah! but your soul is in your breath.
+
+ALICIA.
+Only as the graven image of death
+Which men call life, and ignorantly adore!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Spare me! I cannot bear you more.
+
+ALICIA.
+Then will I drown you. Lock your fingers fast
+In mind, and let our mouths mix at the last.
+                        [The stuatue of PAN is seen to be alive.]
+
+PAN.
+Shrill, shrill
+Over the hill!
+The hunter is hot - this is the kill!
+Scream! Scream!
+Dissolving the dream
+Of life, the knife to the heart of the wife!
+The fountain jets
+Its flood of blood,
+And the moss that it wets
+Is an amethyst flame of violets.
+
+Who shall escape
+Murder and rape
+What I am alive in my solemn shape?
+Shrill, shrill,
+Over the hill!
+The hunter is hot - this is the kill!
+The heart of the home
+Is a fury of foam;
+The storm is awake, and the billows comb.
+But though I be
+Their frenzy of glee,
+I am also the passionless soul of the sea!
+
+Mine eyes glint fire,
+And my cruel lips curl;
+Mine the desire
+Of the god and the girl;
+But fierier and fleeter,
+And subtler and sweeter
+Than the race of the rhythm, the march of the metre,
+Is the shrilling, shrilling
+Of the knife in the killing
+That ends, when it must,
+(O the throb and the thrust!)
+In a death, in the dust,
+The silence, the stillness, of satiate lust,
+The solemn pause
+When the veil withdraws
+And man looks on his god, on the Causeless Cause.
+Still, still,
+Under the hill!
+The hunter is dead - this is the kill!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Pan spoke.
+
+ALICIA.
+Pan never speaks till man is dumb,
+And only then if he be like a child
+Silently curled within its mother's womb,
+Or feeding at her breast. There is a wild
+Way also - when his dumbness is of death.
+And there's a first and second death. Remember
+To die so that no god's or angel's breath
+May quicken into life the wasted ember!
+
+CRASSUS.
+I am dead now.
+
+ALICIA.
+But I must raise you up.
+The night grows darker; all Pan's light is gone,
+And you and I are pledged to sup
+Upon a secret.
+
+CRASSUS.
+All your secret shone.
+                        [She laughs again.]
+
+ALICIA.
+Oh, when you know it! But you must divine
+Adela's shrine.
+
+CRASSUS.
+I am weary of Adela grown chaste and chill.
+
+ALICIA.
+The hunter lags; how heavy is the hill!
+But you are bound to Adela.
+
+CRASSUS.
+To you!
+
+ALICIA.
+But you have given me freedom. I will leave you.
+
+CRASSUS.
+What have I done to grieve you?
+
+ALICIA.
+You have been the solemn fool with face awry
+That I have gathered in my ecstasy.
+You are only a vulgar primrose I have plucked.
+
+CRASSUS.
+At least, she-devil, you have been well-treated.
+
+ALICIA.
+O tragic farce - not even rimes completed!
+Nay, darling! no rebellion. When you know
+My secret, you will understand. You are bound
+To Adela within the portico,
+To me upon this ground.
+By day, in life, adore the Lares, man!
+By night, in deaht, make offering to Pan!
+Can you cut day from night by any endeavour?
+If so, both life and death were lost for ever.
+Come, the stream steepens.
+
+CRASSUS.
+This road leads to hell.
+
+ALICIA.
+The way to heaven is shorter.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Who can tell?
+
+ALICIA.
+I have measured it.
+
+CRASSUS.
+You, girl?
+
+ALICIA.
+It is not hard.
+
+CRASSUS.
+What did you make the height of it?
+
+ALICIA.
+One yard.
+
+CRASSUS.
+You always mock me?
+
+ALICIA.
+Pity of my youth!
+I swerve not from, you stumble at, the truth.
+
+CRASSUS.
+I like not jests. This is a serious journey.
+
+ALICIA.
+Why did you make a mocker your attorney?
+The way to Rome leads through the Apennines.
+Bacchus has horns beneath the crown of vines.
+If you fear horns, make some polite excuse
+Not to invoke him by the name Zagreus!
+
+A FAUN [Passing among the trees].
+Ye thought me a lamb
+  With a crown of thorns;
+I am royal, a ram
+  With death in my horns.
+So mild and soft
+  And feminine,
+Ye held me aloft
+  And frowned on sin!
+But I was awake
+  In your clasp as I lay;
+I roused the snake
+  From its nest of clay;
+And ere ye knew
+  I had sunk my forehead
+Through and through;
+  Harsh and horrid
+Through all the pleasure
+  Of rose and vine
+I thrust my treasure,
+  The cone of the pine.
+Irru's maid
+  Was easily sated,
+For she was afraid
+  When Irru mated!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
+
+ALICIA.
+You would not laugh
+Were you the maid!
+
+CRASSUS.
+How could I be?
+
+ALICIA.
+Great calf!
+But you are all the same, blaspheme and jeer
+At any mystery beyond your sphere
+Of beer, and beef, and beer, and beef, and beer.
+Now you have frightened the shy god!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Why heed?
+Between your - arms - is all the god I need.
+
+ALICIA.
+Prudish and coarse to the last. Now hush indeed!
+The stream kisses the lake. We near the shrine.
+Stir no snapped twig. Let your foot - even yours -
+Fall like a fawn's.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Your breath is like new wine.
+
+ALICIA.
+Hush now! no porpoise gambols!
+
+CRASSUS.
+How obscure's
+The glimmer of the lake. Is that the isle?
+
+ALICIA.
+Yes! in that shadow lurks a smile.
+See; from that jagged cloud Diana starts
+Like a deer from the brake; her silver splendour darts
+Through the crisp air to the grove upon the isle...
+Do you see her? Do you see her?
+
+CRASSUS.
+Monstrous! Vile!
+These eyes betray me.
+
+ALICIA.
+No! your Adela lies
+With arms thrown back, head tilted, open thighs.
+Her lips flame out like poppies in the dusk.
+The breeze brings back to us a scent of musk.
+Her mouth is oozing kisses!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Filthy harlot!
+
+ALICIA.
+I never fed on a superber scarlet.
+And look! the wonder of plumes that foams upon
+Her tidal breast - oh, but a swan! a swan!
+A swan snow-white with his sole scarlet hidden
+In the abode forbidden!
+
+O but his eye swoons as his broad beak slips
+Within her luscious lips.
+O but - I cannot see - I long to die
+Alike for wonder - and for jealousy!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Vile, filthy whore! I'll catch you at it.
+
+ALICIA.
+Soft!
+See how his feathers hold her soul aloft!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Beast! Have you brought me through the wood for
+  this?
+
+ALICIA.
+Now wonder I must teach you how to kiss.
+
+CRASSUS.
+I'll clip his wings.
+
+ALICIA.
+Sub pennis, penis! 'Slife!
+It's not the wings of him that clip your wife.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Thou art as filthy a creature as she!
+
+ALICIA.
+Fat fool!
+All your emotions vary with your -
+
+CRASSUS.
+        What?
+
+ALICIA.
+Your state of health.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Be off with you, foul --
+
+ALICIA.
+Well?
+
+CRASSUS.
+I'll swim and stab them. The black mouth of hell
+Yawns for their murder.
+
+ALICIA.
+I'll be at the death.
+Dive then, but softly. Scarcely draw your breath.
+
+CRASSUS.
+O, she's unwary!
+
+ALICIA.
+Is your love forgotten?
+
+CRASSUS.
+All love is rotten.
+
+ALICIA.
+But your pure love for me you boasted of?
+
+CRASSUS.
+Ay, that was perfect love.
+
+ALICIA.
+You love me then, not her?
+
+CRASSUS.
+Indeed I do.
+
+ALICIA.
+Swear me the oath anew!
+
+CRASSUS.
+I swear to love you till the world shall end.
+
+ALICIA.
+Then, Crassus, I will always be your friend.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Ah, that is good! You do not mock me now!
+
+ALICIA.
+Creep softly to the land. Kiss but my brow.
+My curls are wet... No, never touch me there!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Why? Have I not?
+
+ALICIA.
+You have not.
+
+CRASSUS.
+Just my hand.
+
+ALICIA.
+You disobey your mistress's command?
+The time is near when you shall see
+The keyhole of my comedy!
+
+CRASSUS.
+Ha! Ha! Ha!
+
+ALICIA.
+Hush, you coarse slave; we'll surprise
+Your good wife in her mystic exercise.
+Quick, through the bramble!
+                        [They burst through upon ADELA.]
+
+CRASSUS.
+Now, you beast, I've got you!
+The curst of God, and plague of Naples, rot you!
+For this white brute - one slit!
+                        [He cuts the throat of THE SWAN with
+                        his dagger.]
+
+ADELA.
+Oh love betrayed!
+O my dead beauty! Faugh! deceitful maid.
+Not Crassus found me out. Had I the wings
+Of my dead love - oh love! -
+
+ALICIA.
+Why, wondrous things!
+
+ADELA.
+These nails shall serve. A servant!
+
+CRASSUS.
+She shall be
+My wife, damned witch, when I have done with thee!
+                        [THE SWAN dies.]
+
+ADELA.
+I'll kill her now. But see! my swan is dead.
+
+ALICIA.
+Yes! and what light is breaking overhead?
+What blaze of blue and gold envelops us?
+
+CRASSUS.
+O marvel! O miraculous!
+
+ADELA.
+What is it? Why, my lover's life, in me
+Once concentrated, now diffused, illumes
+The endless reaches of eternity
+With infinite brilliance, with intense perfumes.
+
+ALICIA.
+O then your lover was some god's disguise.
+
+ADELA.
+And you have robbed me. Now beware your eyes!
+                        [She springs at ALICIA, who guards herself
+                        easily. But in the struggle her robe tears.]
+
+ALICIA.
+Take care!
+
+ADELA.
+A boy!
+
+CRASSUS.
+A boy! Then what am I?
+
+ALICIA.
+That is the key-word of the comedy.
+You thought you had two vices at your need;
+But she had Jove and you had Ganymede.
+                        [They are struck dumb and still with
+                        amazement. ALICIA claps her hands four times.]
+
+Sweep through the air, bright blaze of eagle-wings!
+Crassus, sub pennis, penis! How he swings
+His bulk from yonder sightless poise, to bear
+me back to the Dominion of the air
+Where I shall bear the cup of Jupiter!
+Blind babes, love one another, no less true
+Because the gods have deigned to dwell with you!
+                        [The eagle bears GANYMEDE aloft.]
+
+CRASSUS.
+Adela! these mysteries too great
+For you and me to estimate.
+But, widowed both, come, seek domestic charms
+As we were wont, in one another's arms!
+What perfect moss for you to lie upon!
+
+ADELA.
+I am your wife, dear Crassus.
+        (sotto voce) Oh, my swan!
+
+
+CURTAIN.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Household Gods, by Aleister Crowley
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14040 ***