La légende de l'Absinthe
 by Aleister Crowley

Apollo, mourning the demise of Hyacinth,
Would not cede vicotry to death.
His sould, adept of transformation,
Had to find a holy alchemy for beauty.
So from his celestial hand he exhausts and crushes
The subtlest gifts from divine Flora.
Their borken bodies sigh a golden exhalation
From which he harvest our first drop of - Absinthe!

In crouching cellars, in sparkling palaces,
Alone or together, drink that potion of loving!
For it is a sorcery, a conjuration,
This pale opal wine aborts misery.
Opens the intimate sanctuary of beauty
- Bewitches my heart, exalts my soul in ectasy

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was a bon-vivant of the highest degree. His experimentations with the occult, sexual peccadilloes, and general scandalous behavior made the gossip pages of the time with some regularity. He was so (in)famous, he was given the moniker of "the wickedest man in the world", while Somerset Maugham described him as "a fake, but not entirely a fake". So of course, he was an absintheur as well!