AN ATTACK ON BARBERCRAFT <br /> <br />[Dedicated to George Cecil Jones] <br /> <br /> <br />At last an end of all I hoped and feared! <br />Muttered the hermit through his elfin beard. <br /> <br />Then what art thou? the evil whisper whirred. <br />I doubt me soerly if the hermit heard. <br /> <br />To all God's questions never a word he said, <br />But simply shook his venerable head. <br /> <br />God sent all plagues; he laughed and heeded not, <br />Till people certified him insane. <br /> <br />But somehow all his fellow-luntaics <br />Began to imitate his silly ticks. <br /> <br />And stranger still, their prospects so enlarged <br />That one by one the patients were discharged. <br /> <br />God asked him by what right he interfered; <br />He only laughed and into his elfin beard. <br /> <br />When God revealed Himself to mortal prayer <br />He gave a fatal opening to Voltaire. <br /> <br />Our Hermi had dispensed with Sinai's thunder, <br />But on the other hand he made no blunder; <br /> <br />He knew ( no doubt) that any axiom <br />Would furnish bricks to build some Donkeydom. <br /> <br />But!-all who urged that hermit to confess <br />Caught the infection of his happiness. <br /> <br />I would it were my fate to dree his weird; <br />I think that I will grow an elfin beard.<br /><br />Aleister Crowley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hermit/
