A
poem by
Aleister Crowley, published in
Konx om Pax as part of the story "
The Stone of the Philosophers".
The Mosque Bewitched
An aged sorceror there dwelt within the town of Marrakesh
The fangs of Hell in life who felt twitching his soul out through the
flesh.
Though not originally bad his moral ruin was complete:
His pious parents said he had the devil's claw-marks on his feet.
An outward wart upon the nose spells inward malice in the gizzard.
The path is easy, I suppose, for such a one to play the wizard.
In any case he took the risk, and left off things like soap and eating,
Till he could give the world a bisque, ten spells in thirty, and a beating.
Well, at the age of eighty-eight he found himself the One-horse Wire
For the Jehannum Maiden Plate -- by Satan, out of Lake o' Fire.
So calling Iblis of the Jinn (a god among the damnéd Ghebers)
He offered up a final sin to play a last joke on the neighbours.
The deed was signed in fire and blood; and ere the morn was dewy wet
An hog for the Muezzin upstood, and chanted from the Minaret.
"There is no God! no God! (he sware) Mohammed was a charlatan!
Sleep is more excellent than prayer! and pork is pleasant in the pan!"
The elders knew that only one could crack such execrable quips.
They hurried off to have the fun of slicing him in little strips.
But Iblis met then with a grin worth ninety-nine per cent. per annum.
"You've missed the fun -- but pray walk in! -- we're off this minute to
Jehannum!"
In sooth, the fiend's unseemly mirth mocked all their wagging beards alike,
As from the bowels of the earth quacked an ironical "Labbaik!"
The moral is -- if all your folk are sure you are a black magician,
You may as well enjoy the joke; you cannot damage your position.
The moral is -- when mothers crossed perform the usual Christian revel
And tell their children they are "lost," they simply drive them to the
devil.