As Above, So Below

We have called the hermits of the jungle, madmen, and the beggars in side alleys, tramps, and the babbling fiends in the asylum, lunatics, but I fear we have underestimated them. They have seen the horrors, they know the truths not meant to be known. I have seen such torments, such hellish places to inform you that no human mind can contain them, and so insanity is the only way.    

[asabovesobelowsaythewise]

Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies, But stranger still is Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead, Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa.

[asabovesobelowsaythewise]

confronting lives regressed unto the sea of unconsciousness, I find repeating vowels and barriers, and not a sight but more a sense of things that are.

Curiously curtailed all desire to be, to arrange and grow. Instead to escape unto the kaleidoscopic conundrum, desperate pacing trying to get away. I seem to flutter like a moth which has caught aflame, though with a cold mourning weight, a burden, as yoke upon the ox.

I have seen where the vast herds drink

the dismal depths, where tears gather

and without sound crouched beside each hind,

and myself too gazed into that pool

and myself too drank of it

Tumbling, turning, torn to weary windswept world, first foreboding, finally forlorn, till printed were my hands and smeared the hearth-ash made reflections of the horned kin through faint light which scattered amid the denned earth catches flashing glimpses upon tusk fetishes, chipped flint ossuary procession; stillness; antediluvian clergy; atavistic shroud; 

Sun sets distant

treetop horizon stretches on

without time

without sound

[deathandmysticism]

Occult Anatomy, ca. 1900

[deathandmysticism]

Apocalypsis S. Ioannis, 1553

[ubeink]

Friedrich König. “Märchen (Fairy Tale).” 1900.

[john-william-waterhouse-art]

-Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses-

[asabovesobelowsaythewise]

[fuckyeahstonerdoom]

[asabovesobelowsaythewise]

bring her to me torn and tattered through the town for all to see lo ! the devil leaves his mark on who serves him harlott or beast

bind her bloodied to despair keep searching it must be here

Once the accuser infests the flock the time hath come to cull them all lead them to the cleansing pyre Confess confess unto hellfire an end to this heresy hath come

[nocnitsa]

Tristan Fighting with a Dragon (Illustration in 'The Roman by Tristan and Iseult'), illustrated by Robert Engels, ed. of Art, Paris

[charnel-grounds]

Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) - Isle of the Dead: "Basel" version, 1880

[tedwassanasong]

A real young Bobby Liebling of Pentagram with Lou Reed.

[theodor-kittelsen]

Sorgen, Theodor Severin Kittelsen

[gustave-dore-art]

-Te Deum After Victory-

[jean-leon-gerome-paintings]

-Diogenes-

[jw-waterhouse]

The Soul of the Rose (1908), by J.W. Waterhouse 

“And the soul of the rose went into my blood” is a phrase from one of Alfred Tennyson’s most famous poems: “Maud”.  Waterhouse made a lot of paintings that were inspired by the poetry of Lord Tennyson and this is one of them.  Here, he just used it as a vehicle to combine the typical Pre-Raphaelite themes of feminine beauty and the beauty of nature.  Other references to the poem are lacking.  It is also a perfect example of how Waterhouse conveyed the sense of smell to a painting.

From “Maud, Part One” by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1855)

Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, Night, has flown,

Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,

And the planet of Love is on high,

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves

On a bed of daffodil sky,

To faint in the light of the sun she loves,

To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon;

All night has the casement jessamine stirr’d

To the dancers dancing in tune

Till a silence fell with the waking bird,

And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, “There is but one

With whom she has heart to be gay.

When will the dancers leave her alone?

She is weary of dance and play. ”

Now half to the setting moon are gone,

And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone

The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, “The brief night goes

In babble and revel and wine.

O young lordlover, what sighs are those

For one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine,” so I swear to the rose,

“For ever and ever, mine. ”

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

As the music clash’d in the hall;

And long by the garden lake I stood,

For I heard your rivulet fall

From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,

Our wood, that is dearer than all;

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet

That whenever a March-wind sighs

He sets the jewelprint of your feet

In violets blue as your eyes,

To the woody hollows in which we meet

And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake

One long milk-bloom on the tree;

The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;

But the rose was awake all night for your sake,

Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sigh’d for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,

Come hither, the dances are done,

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,

Queen lily and rose in one;

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,

To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;”

And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”

The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”

And the lily whispers, “I wait.”

She is coming, my own, my sweet;

Were it ever so airy a treat,

My heart would hear her and beat,

Were it earth in an earthy bed;

My dust would hear her and beat,

Had I lain for a century dead;

Would start and tremble under her feet,

And blossom in purple and red.

[illustratus]

The Vision of Saint Hubert by Franz von Stuck