1. |
My God, how I love Thee! |
2. |
With the vehement appetite of a beast I hunt Thee through the
Universe. |
3. |
Thou art standing as it were upon a pinnacle at the edge of some
fortified city. I am a white bird, and perch upon Thee. |
4. |
Thou art My Lover: I see Thee as a nymph with her white limbs stretched
by the spring. |
5. |
She lies upon the moss; there is none other but she: |
6. |
Art Thou not Pan? |
7. |
I am He. Speak not, O my God! Let the work be accomplished in
silence. |
8. |
Let my cry of pain be crystallized into a little white fawn to run away
into the forest! |
9. |
Thou art a centaur, O my God, from the violet-blossoms that crown Thee
to the hoofs of the horse. |
10. |
Thou art harder than tempered steel; there is no diamond beside
Thee. |
11. |
Did I not yield this body and soul? |
12. |
I woo thee with a dagger drawn across my throat. |
13. |
Let the spout of blood quench Thy blood-thirst, O my God! |
14. |
Thou art a little white rabbit in the burrow Night. |
15. |
I am greater than the fox and the hole. |
16. |
Give me Thy kisses, O Lord God! |
17. |
The lightning came and licked up the little flock of
sheep. |
18. |
There is a tongue and a flame; I see that trident walking over the
sea. |
19. |
A phœnix hath it for its head; below are two prongs. They spear
the wicked. |
20. |
I will spear Thee, O Thou little grey god, unless Thou
beware! |
21. |
From the grey to the gold; from the gold to that which is beyond the
gold of Ophir. |
22. |
My God! but I love Thee! |
23. |
Why hast Thou whispered so ambiguous things? Wast Thou afraid, O
goat-hoofed One, O horned One, O pillar of lightning? |
24. |
From the lightning fall pearls; from the pearls black specks of
nothing. |
25. |
I based all on one, one on naught. |
26. |
Afloat in the æther, O my God, my God! |
27. |
O Thou great hooded sun of glory, cut off these eyelids! |
28. |
Nature shall die out; she hideth me, closing mine eyelids with fear, she
hideth me from My destruction, O Thou open eye. |
29. |
O ever-weeping One! |
30. |
Not Isis my mother, nor Osiris my self; but the incestuous Horus given
over to Typhon, so may I be! |
31. |
There thought; and thought is evil. |
32. |
Pan! Pan! Io Pan! it is enough. |
33. |
Fall not into death, O my soul! Think that death is the bed into which
you are falling! |
34. |
O how I love Thee, O my God! Especially is there a vehement parallel
light from infinity, vilely diffracted in the haze of this mind. |
35. |
I love Thee.
I love Thee.
I love Thee. |
36. |
Thou art a beautiful thing whiter than a woman in the column of this
vibration. |
37. |
I shoot up vertically like an arrow, and become that
Above. |
38. |
But it is death, and the flame of the pyre. |
39. |
Ascend in the flame of the pyre, O my soul! Thy God is like the cold
emptiness of the utmost heaven, into which thou radiatest thy little
light. |
40. |
When Thou shall know me, O empty God, my flame shall utterly expire in
Thy great N. O. X. |
41. |
What shalt Thou be, my God, when I have ceased to love
Thee? |
42. |
A worm, a nothing, a niddering knave! |
43. |
But Oh! I love Thee. |
44. |
I have thrown a million flowers from the basket of the Beyond at Thy
feet, I have anointed Thee and Thy Staff with oil and blood and
kisses. |
45. |
I have kindled Thy marble into life— ay! into death. |
46. |
I have been smitten with the reek of Thy mouth, that drinketh never wine
but life. |
47. |
How the dew of the Universe whitens the lips! |
48. |
Ah! trickling flow of the stars of the mother Supernal,
begone! |
49. |
I Am She that should come, the Virgin of all men. |
50. |
I am a boy before Thee, O Thou satyr God. |
51. |
Thou wilt inflict the punishment of pleasure— Now! Now!
Now! |
52. |
Io Pan! Io Pan! I love Thee. I love Thee. |
53. |
O my God, spare me! |
54. |
Now!
It is done! Death. |
55. |
I cried aloud the word— and it was a mighty spell to bind the
Invisible, an enchantment to unbind the bound; yea, to unbind the
bound. |
1. |
O my God! use Thou me again, alway. For ever! For ever! |
2. |
That which came fire from Thee cometh water from me; let therefore Thy
Spirit lay hold on me, so that my right hand loose the lightning. |
3. |
Travelling through space, I saw the onrush of two galaxies, butting each
other and goring like bulls upon earth. I was afraid. |
4. |
Thus they ceased fight, and turned upon me, and I was sorely crushed and
torn. |
5. |
I had rather have been trampled by the World-Elephant. |
6. |
O my God! Thou art my little pet tortoise! |
7. |
Yet Thou sustainest the World-Elephant. |
8. |
I creep under Thy carapace, like a lover into the bed of his beautiful;
I creep in, and sit in Thine heart, as cubby and cosy as may be. |
9. |
Thou shelterest me, that I hear not the trumpeting of that
World-Elephant. |
10. |
Thou art not worth an obol in the agora; yet Thou art not to be bought
at the ransom of the whole Universe. |
11. |
Thou art like a beautiful Nubian slave leaning her naked purple against
the green pillars of marble that are above the bath. |
12. |
Wine jets from her black nipples. |
13. |
I drank wine awhile agone in the house of Pertinax. The cup-boy favoured
me, and gave me of the right sweet Chian. |
14. |
There was a Doric boy, skilled in feats of strength, an athlete. The
full moon fled away angrily down the wrack.
Ah! but we laughed. |
15. |
I was pernicious drunk, O my God! Yet Pertinax brought me to the
bridal. |
16. |
I had a crown of thorns for all my dower. |
17. |
Thou art like a goat’s horn from Astor, O Thou God of mine,
gnarl’d and crook’d and devilish strong. |
18. |
Colder than all the ice of all the glaciers of the Naked Mountain was
the wine it poured for me. |
19. |
A wild country and a waning moon.
Clouds scudding over the sky.
A circuit of pines, and of tall yews beyond. Thou in the
midst! |
20. |
O all ye toads and cats, rejoice! Ye slimy things, come
hither! |
21. |
Dance, dance to the Lord our God! |
22. |
He is he! He is he! He is he! |
23. |
Why should I go on? |
24. |
Why? Why? comes the sudden cackle of a million imps of
hell. |
25. |
And the laughter runs. |
26. |
But sickens not the Universe; but shakes not the stars. |
27. |
God! how I love Thee! |
28. |
I am walking in an asylum; all the men and women about me are
insane. |
29. |
Oh madness! madness! madness! desirable art thou! |
30. |
But I love Thee, O God! |
31. |
These men and women rave and howl; they froth out folly. |
32. |
I begin to be afraid. I have no check; I am alone. Alone.
Alone. |
33. |
Think, O God, how I am happy in Thy love. |
34. |
O marble Pan! O false leering face! I love Thy dark kisses, bloody and
stinking! O marble Pan! Thy kisses are like sunlight on the blue Ægean;
their blood is the blood of the sunset over Athens; their stink is like a
garden of Roses of Macedonia. |
35. |
I dreamt of sunset and roses and vines; Thou wast there, O my God, Thou
didst habit Thyself as an Athenian courtesan, and I loved Thee. |
36. |
Thou art no dream, O Thou too beautiful alike for sleep and
waking! |
37. |
I disperse the insane folk of the earth; I walk alone with my little
puppets in the garden. |
38. |
I am Gargantuan great; yon galaxy is but the smoke-ring of mine
incense. |
39. |
Burn Thou strange herbs, O God! |
40. |
Brew me a magic liquor, boys, with your glances! |
41. |
The very soul is drunken. |
42. |
Thou art drunken, O my God, upon my kisses. |
43. |
The Universe reels; Thou hast looked upon it. |
44. |
Twice, and all is done. |
45. |
Come, O my God, and let us embrace! |
46. |
Lazily, hungrily, ardently, patiently; so will I work. |
47. |
There shall be an End. |
48. |
O God! O God! |
49. |
I am a fool to love Thee; Thou art cruel, Thou withholdest
Thyself. |
50. |
Come to me now! I love Thee! I love Thee! |
51. |
O my darling, my darling— Kiss me! Kiss me! Ah! but
again. |
52. |
Sleep, take me! Death, take me! This life is too full; it pains, it
slays, it suffices. |
53. |
Let me go back into the world; yea, back into the world. |
1. |
I was the priest of Ammon-Ra in the temple of Ammon-Ra at
Thebai. |
2. |
But Bacchus came singing with his troops of vine-clad girls, of girls in
dark mantles; and Bacchus in the midst like a fawn! |
3. |
God! how I ran out in my rage and scattered the chorus! |
4. |
But in my temple stood Bacchus as the priest of Ammon-Ra. |
5. |
Therefore I went wildly with the girls into Abyssinia; and there we
abode and rejoiced. |
6. |
Exceedingly; yea, in good sooth! |
7. |
I will eat the ripe and the unripe fruit for the glory of
Bacchus. |
8. |
Terraces of ilex, and tiers of onyx and opal and sardonyx leading up to
the cool green porch of malachite. |
9. |
Within is a crystal shell, shaped like an oyster— O glory of
Priapus! O beatitude of the Great Goddess! |
10. |
Therein is a pearl. |
11. |
O Pearl! thou hast come from the majesty of dread
Ammon-Ra. |
12. |
Then I the priest beheld a steady glitter in the heart of the
pearl. |
13. |
So bright we could not look! But behold! a blood-red rose upon a rood of
glowing gold! |
14. |
So I adored the God. Bacchus! thou art the lover of my
God! |
15. |
I who was priest of Ammon-Ra, who saw the Nile flow by for many moons,
for many, many moons, am the young fawn of the grey land. |
16. |
I will set up my dance in your conventicles, and my secret loves shall
be sweet among you. |
17. |
Thou shalt have a lover among the lords of the grey land. |
18. |
This shall he bring unto thee, without which all is in vain; a
man’s life spilt for thy love upon Mine Altars. |
19. |
Amen. |
20. |
Let it be soon, O God, my God! I ache for Thee, I wander very lonely
among the mad folk, in the grey land of desolation. |
21. |
Thou shalt set up the abominable lonely Thing of wickedness. Oh joy! to
lay that corner-stone! |
22. |
It shall stand erect upon the high mountain; only my God shall commune
with it. |
23. |
I will build it of a single ruby; it shall be seen from afar
off. |
24. |
Come! let us irritate the vessels of the earth: they shall distil
strange wine. |
25. |
It grows under my hand: it shall cover the whole heaven. |
26. |
Thou art behind me: I scream with a mad joy. |
27. |
Then said Ithuriel the strong; let Us also worship this invisible
marvel! |
28. |
So did they, and the archangels swept over the heaven. |
29. |
Strange and mystic, like a yellow priest invoking mighty flights of
great grey birds from the North, so do I stand and invoke Thee! |
30. |
Let them obscure not the sun with their wings and their
clamour! |
31. |
Take away form and its following! |
32. |
I am still. |
33. |
Thou art like an osprey among the rice, I am the great red pelican in
the sunset waters. |
34. |
I am like a black eunuch; and Thou art the scimitar. I smite off the
head of the light one, the breaker of bread and salt. |
35. |
Yea! I smite— and the blood makes as it were a sunset on the lapis
lazuli of the King’s Bedchamber. |
36. |
I smite. The whole world is broken up into a mighty wind, and a voice
cries aloud in a tongue that men cannot speak. |
37. |
I know that awful sound of primal joy; let us follow on the wings of the
gale even unto the holy house of Hathor; let us offer the five jewels of the
cow upon her altar! |
38. |
Again the inhuman voice! |
39. |
I rear my Titan bulk into the teeth of the gale, and I smite and
prevail, and swing me out over the sea. |
40. |
There is a strange pale God, a god of pain and deadly
wickedness. |
41. |
My own soul bites into itself, like a scorpion ringed with
fire. |
42. |
That pallid God with face averted, that God of subtlety and laughter,
that young Doric God, him will I serve. |
43. |
For the end thereof is torment unspeakable. |
44. |
Better the loneliness of the great grey sea! |
45. |
But ill befall the folk of the grey land, my God! |
46. |
Let me smother them with my roses! |
47. |
Oh Thou delicious God, smile sinister! |
48. |
I pluck Thee, O my God, like a purple plum upon a sunny tree. How Thou
dost melt in my mouth, Thou consecrated sugar of the Stars! |
49. |
The world is all grey before mine eyes; it is like an old worn
wine-skin. |
50. |
All the wine of it is on these lips. |
51. |
Thou hast begotten me upon a marble Statue, O my God! |
52. |
The body is icy cold with the coldness of a million moons; it is harder
than the adamant of eternity. How shall I come forth into the
light? |
53. |
Thou art He, O God! O my darling! my child! my plaything! Thou art like
a cluster of maidens, like a multitude of swans upon the lake. |
54. |
I feel the essence of softness. |
55. |
I am hard and strong and male; but come Thou! I shall be soft and weak
and feminine. |
56. |
Thou shalt crush me in the wine-press of Thy love. My blood shall stain
Thy fiery feet with litanies of Love in Anguish. |
57. |
There shall be a new flower in the fields, a new vintage in the
vineyards. |
58. |
The bees shall gather a new honey; the poets shall sing a new
song. |
59. |
I shall gain the Pain of the Goat for my prize; and the God that sitteth
upon the shoulders of Time shall drowse. |
60. |
Then shall all this which is written be accomplished: yea, it shall be
accomplished. |
1. |
I am like a maiden bathing in a clear pool of fresh water. |
2. |
O my God! I see Thee dark and desirable, rising through the water as a
golden smoke. |
3. |
Thou art altogether golden, the hair and the eyebrows and the brilliant
face; even into the finger-tips and toe-tips Thou art one rosy dream of
gold. |
4. |
Deep into Thine eyes that are golden my soul leaps, like an archangel
menacing the sun. |
5. |
My sword passes through and through Thee; crystalline moons ooze out of
Thy beautiful body that is hidden behind the ovals of Thine eyes. |
6. |
Deeper, ever deeper. I fall, even as the whole Universe falls down the
abyss of Years. |
7. |
For Eternity calls; the Overworld calls; the world of the Word is
awaiting us. |
8. |
Be done with speech, O God! Fasten the fangs of the hound Eternity in
this my throat! |
9. |
I am like a wounded bird flapping in circles. |
10. |
Who knows where I shall fall? |
11. |
O blesséd One! O God! O my devourer! |
12. |
Let me fall, fall down, fall away, afar, alone! |
13. |
Let me fall! |
14. |
Nor is there any rest, Sweet Heart, save in the cradle of royal Bacchus,
the thigh of the most Holy One. |
15. |
There rest, under the canopy of night. |
16. |
Uranus chid Eros; Marsyas chid Olympas; I chid my beautiful lover with
his sunray mane; shall I not sing? |
17. |
Shall not mine incantations bring around me the wonderful company of the
wood-gods, their bodies glistening with the ointment of moonlight and honey and
myrrh? |
18. |
Worshipful are ye, O my lovers; let us forward to the dimmest
hollow! |
19. |
There we will feast upon mandrake and upon moly! |
20. |
There the lovely One shall spread us His holy banquet. In the brown
cakes of corn we shall taste the food of the world, and be
strong. |
21. |
In the ruddy and awful cup of death we shall drink the blood of
the world, and be drunken! |
22. |
Ohé! the song to Iao, the song to Iao! |
23. |
Come, let us sing to thee, Iacchus invisible, Iacchus triumphant,
Iacchus indicible! |
24. |
Iacchus, O Iacchus, O Iacchus, be near us! |
25. |
Then was the countenance of all time darkened, and the true light shone
forth. |
26. |
There was also a certain cry in an unknown tongue, whose stridency
troubled the still waters of my soul, so that my mind and my body were healed
of their disease, self-knowledge. |
27. |
Yea, an angel troubled the waters. |
28. |
This was the cry of Him: IIIOOShBTh-IO-IIIIAMAMThIBI-II. |
29. |
Nor did I sing this for a thousand times a night for a thousand nights
before Thou camest, O my flaming God, and pierced me with Thy spear. Thy
scarlet robe unfolded the whole heavens, so that the Gods said: All is burning:
it is the end. |
30. |
Also Thou didst set Thy lips to the wound and suck out a million eggs.
And Thy mother sat upon them, and lo! stars and stars and ultimate Things
whereof stars are the atoms. |
31. |
Then I perceived Thee, O my God, sitting like a white cat upon the
trellis-work of the arbour; and the hum of the spinning worlds was but Thy
pleasure. |
32. |
O white cat, the sparks fly from Thy fur! Thou dost crackle with
splitting the worlds. |
33. |
I have seen more of Thee in the white cat than I saw in the Vision of
Æons. |
34. |
In the boat of Ra did I travel, but I never found upon the visible
Universe any being like unto Thee! |
35. |
Thou wast like a winged white horse, and I raced Thee through eternity
against the Lord of the Gods. |
36. |
So still we race! |
37. |
Thou wast like a flake of snow falling in the pine-clad
woods. |
38. |
In a moment Thou wast lost in a wilderness of the like and the
unlike. |
39. |
But I beheld the beautiful God at the back of the blizzard— and
Thou wast He! |
40. |
Also I read in a great Book. |
41. |
On ancient skin was written in letters of gold: Verbum fit
Verbum. |
42. |
Also Vitriol and the hierophant’s name
V.V.V.V.V. |
43. |
All this wheeled in fire, in star-fire, rare and far and utterly
lonely— even as Thou and I, O desolate soul my God! |
44. |
Yea, and the writing
|
It is well. |
This is the voice which shook the earth. |
45. |
Eight times he cried aloud, and by eight and by eight shall I count Thy
favours, Oh Thou Elevenfold God 418! |
46. |
Yea, and by many more; by the ten in the twenty-two directions; even as
the perpendicular of the Pyramid— so shall Thy favours be. |
47. |
If I number them, they are One. |
48. |
Excellent is Thy love, Oh Lord! Thou art revealed by the darkness, and
he who gropeth in the horror of the groves shall haply catch Thee, even as a
snake that seizeth on a little singing-bird. |
49. |
I have caught Thee, O my soft thrush; I am like a hawk of
mother-of-emerald; I catch Thee by instinct, though my eyes fail from Thy
glory. |
50. |
Yet they are but foolish folk yonder. I see them on the yellow sand, all
clad in Tyrian purple. |
51. |
They draw their shining God unto the land in nets; they build a fire to
the Lord of Fire, and cry unhallowed words, even the dreadful curse Amri
maratza, maratza, atman deona lastadza maratza maritza—
marán! |
52. |
Then do they cook the shining god, and gulp him whole. |
53. |
These are evil folk, O beautiful boy! let us pass on to the
Otherworld. |
54. |
Let us make ourselves into a pleasant bait, into a seductive
shape! |
55. |
I will be like a splendid naked woman with ivory breasts and golden
nipples; my whole body shall be like the milk of the stars. I will be lustrous
and Greek, a courtesan of Delos, of the unstable Isle. |
56. |
Thou shalt be like a little red worm on a hook. |
57. |
But thou and I will catch our fish alike. |
58. |
Then wilt thou be a shining fish with golden back and silver belly: I
will be like a violent beautiful man, stronger than two score bulls, a man of
the West bearing a great sack of precious jewels upon a staff that is greater
than the axis of the all. |
59. |
And the fish shall be sacrificed to Thee and the strong man crucified
for Me, and Thou and I will kiss, and atone for the wrong of the Beginning;
yea, for the wrong of the beginning. |
1. |
O my beautiful God! I swim in Thy heart like a trout in the mountain
torrent. |
2. |
I leap from pool to pool in my joy; I am goodly with brown and gold and
silver. |
3. |
Why, I am lovelier than the russet autumn woods at the first
snowfall. |
4. |
And the crystal cave of my thought is lovelier than I. |
5. |
Only one fish-hook can draw me out; it is a woman kneeling by the bank
of the stream. It is she that pours the bright dew over herself, and into the
sand so that the river gushes forth. |
6. |
There is a bird on yonder myrtle; only the song of that bird can draw me
out of the pool of Thy heart, O my God! |
7. |
Who is this Neapolitan boy that laughs in his happiness? His lover is
the mighty crater of the Mountain of Fire. I saw his charred limbs borne down
the slopes in a stealthy tongue of liquid stone. |
8. |
And Oh! the chirp of the cicada! |
9. |
I remember the days when I was cacique in Mexico. |
10. |
O my God, wast Thou then as now my beautiful lover? |
11. |
Was my boyhood then as now Thy toy, Thy joy? |
12. |
Verily, I remember those iron days. |
13. |
I remember how we drenched the bitter lakes with our torrent of gold;
how we sank the treasurable image in the crater of Citlaltepetl. |
14. |
How the good flame lifted us even unto the lowlands, setting us down in
the impenetrable forest. |
15. |
Yea, Thou wast a strange scarlet bird with a bill of gold. I was Thy
mate in the forests of the lowland; and ever we heard from afar the shrill
chant of mutilated priests and the insane clamour of the Sacrifice of
Maidens. |
16. |
There was a weird winged God that told us of his wisdom. |
17. |
We attained to be starry grains of gold dust in the sands of a slow
river. |
18. |
Yea, and that river was the river of space and time also. |
19. |
We parted thence; ever to the smaller, ever to the greater, until now, O
sweet God, we are ourselves, the same. |
20. |
O God of mine, Thou art like a little white goat with lightning in his
horns! |
21. |
I love Thee, I love Thee. |
22. |
Every breath, every word, every thought, every deed is an act of love
with Thee. |
23. |
The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love. |
24. |
The songs of me are the soft sighs: |
25. |
The thoughts of me are very rapture: |
26. |
And my deeds are the myriads of Thy children, the stars and the
atoms. |
27. |
Let there be nothing! |
28. |
Let all things drop into this ocean of love! |
29. |
Be this devotion a potent spell to exorcise the demons of the
Five! |
30. |
Ah God, all is gone! Thou dost consummate Thy rapture. Falútli!
Falútli! |
31. |
There is a solemnity of the silence. There is no more voice at
all. |
32. |
So shall it be unto the end. We who were dust shall never fall away into
the dust. |
33. |
So shall it be. |
34. |
Then, O my God, the breath of the Garden of Spices. All these have a
savour averse. |
35. |
The cone is cut with an infinite ray; the curve of hyperbolic life
springs into being. |
36. |
Farther and farther we float; yet we are still. It is the chain of
systems that is falling away from us. |
37. |
First falls the silly world; the world of the old grey
land. |
38. |
Falls it unthinkably far, with its sorrowful bearded face presiding over
it; it fades to silence and woe. |
39. |
We to silence and bliss, and the face is the laughing face of
Eros. |
40. |
Smiling we greet him with the secret signs. |
41. |
He leads us into the Inverted Palace. |
42. |
There is the Heart of Blood, a pyramid reaching its apex down beyond the
Wrong of the Beginning. |
43. |
Bury me unto Thy Glory, O beloved, O princely lover of this harlot
maiden, within the Secretest Chamber of the Palace! |
44. |
It is done quickly; yea, the seal is set upon the vault. |
45. |
There is one that shall avail to open it. |
46. |
Nor by memory, nor by imagination, nor by prayer, nor by fasting, nor by
scourging, nor by drugs, nor by ritual, nor by meditation; only by passive love
shall he avail. |
47. |
He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the
stroke. |
48. |
Then shall his blood leap out and write me runes in the sky; yea, write
me runes in the sky. |
1. |
Thou wast a priestess, O my God, among the Druids; and we knew the
powers of the oak. |
2. |
We made us a temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou
didst wear openly and I concealed. |
3. |
There we performed many wonderful things by midnight. |
4. |
By the waning moon did we work. |
5. |
Over the plain came the atrocious cry of wolves. |
6. |
We answered; we hunted with the pack. |
7. |
We came even unto the new Chapel and Thou didst bear away the Holy Graal
beneath Thy Druid vestments. |
8. |
Secretly and by stealth did we drink of the informing
sacrament. |
9. |
Then a terrible disease seized upon the folk of the grey land; and we
rejoiced. |
10. |
O my God, disguise Thy glory! |
11. |
Come as a thief, and let us steal away the Sacraments! |
12. |
In our groves, in our cloistral cells, in our honeycomb of happiness,
let us drink, let us drink! |
13. |
It is the wine that tinges everything with the true tincture of
infallible gold. |
14. |
There are deep secrets in these songs. It is not enough to hear the
bird; to enjoy song he must be the bird. |
15. |
I am the bird, and Thou art my song, O my glorious galloping
God! |
16. |
Thou reinest in the stars; thou drivest the constellations seven abreast
through the circus of Nothingness. |
17. |
Thou Gladiator God! |
18. |
I play upon mine harp; Thou fightest the beasts and the
flames. |
19. |
Thou takest Thy joy in the music, and I in the fighting. |
20. |
Thou and I are beloved of the Emperor. |
21. |
See! he has summoned us to the Imperial dais.
The night falls; it is a great orgy of worship and
bliss. |
22. |
The night falls like a spangled cloak from the shoulders of a prince
upon a slave. |
23. |
He rises a free man! |
24. |
Cast thou, O prophet, the cloak upon these slaves! |
25. |
A great night, and scarce fires therein; but freedom for the slave that
its glory shall encompass. |
26. |
So also I went down into the great sad city. |
27. |
There dead Messalina bartered her crown for poison from the dead
Locusta; there stood Caligula, and smote the seas of
forgetfulness. |
28. |
Who wast Thou, O Cæsar, that Thou knewest God in an
horse? |
29. |
For lo! we beheld the White Horse of the Saxon engraven upon the earth;
and we beheld the Horses of the Sea that flame about the old grey land, and the
foam from their nostrils enlightens us! |
30. |
Ah! but I love thee, God! |
31. |
Thou art like a moon upon the ice-world. |
32. |
Thou art like the dawn of the utmost snows upon the burnt-up flats of
the tiger’s land. |
33. |
By silence and by speech do I worship Thee. |
34. |
But all is in vain. |
35. |
Only Thy silence and Thy speech that worship me avail. |
36. |
Wail, O ye folk of the grey land, for we have drunk your wine, and left
ye but the bitter dregs. |
37. |
Yet from these we will distil ye a liquor beyond the nectar of the
Gods. |
38. |
There is value in our tincture for a world of Spice and
gold. |
39. |
For our red powder of projection is beyond all
possibilities. |
40. |
There are few men; there are enough. |
41. |
We shall be full of cup-bearers, and the wine is not
stinted. |
42. |
O dear my God! what a feast Thou hast provided. |
43. |
Behold the lights and the flowers and the maidens! |
44. |
Taste of the wines and the cates and the splendid meats! |
45. |
Breathe in the perfumes and the clouds of little gods like wood-nymphs
that inhabit the nostrils! |
46. |
Feel with your whole body the glorious smoothness of the marble coolth
and the generous warmth of the sun and the slaves! |
47. |
Let the Invisible inform all the devouring Light of its disruptive
vigour! |
48. |
Yea! all the world is split apart, as an old grey tree by the
lightning! |
49. |
Come, O ye gods, and let us feast. |
50. |
Thou, O my darling, O my ceaseless Sparrow-God, my delight, my desire,
my deceiver, come Thou and chirp at my right hand! |
51. |
This was the tale of the memory of Al A’in the priest; yea, of Al
A’in the priest. |
1. |
By the burning of the incense was the Word revealed, and by the distant
drug. |
2. |
O meal and honey and oil! O beautiful flag of the moon, that she hangs
out in the centre of bliss! |
3. |
These loosen the swathings of the corpse; these unbind the feet of
Osiris, so that the flaming God may rage through the firmament with his
fantastic spear. |
4. |
But of pure black marble is the sorry statue, and the changeless pain of
the eyes is bitter to the blind. |
5. |
We understand the rapture of that shaken marble, torn by the throes of
the crowned child, the golden rod of the golden God. |
6. |
We know why all is hidden in the stone, within the coffin, within the
mighty sepulchre, and we too answer Olalám! Imál! Tutúlu!
as it is written in the ancient book. |
7. |
Three words of that book are as life to a new æon; no god has read
the whole. |
8. |
But thou and I, O God, have written it page by page. |
9. |
Ours is the elevenfold reading of the Elevenfold word. |
10. |
These seven letters together make seven diverse words; each word is
divine, and seven sentences are hidden therein. |
11. |
Thou art the Word, O my darling, my lord, my master! |
12. |
O come to me, mix the fire and the water, all shall
dissolve. |
13. |
I await Thee in sleeping, in waking. I invoke Thee no more; for Thou art
in me, O Thou who hast made me a beautiful instrument tuned to Thy
rapture. |
14. |
Yet art Thou ever apart, even as I. |
15. |
I remember a certain holy day in the dusk of the year, in the dusk of
the Equinox of Osiris, when first I beheld Thee visibly; when first the
dreadful issue was fought out; when the Ibis-headed One charmed away the
strife. |
16. |
I remember Thy first kiss, even as a maiden should. Nor in the dark
byways was there another: Thy kisses abide. |
17. |
There is none other beside Thee in the whole Universe of
Love. |
18. |
My God, I love Thee, O Thou goat with gilded horns! |
19. |
Thou beautiful bull of Apis! Thou beautiful serpent of Apep! Thou
beautiful child of the Pregnant Goddess! |
20. |
Thou hast stirred in Thy sleep, O ancient sorrow of years! Thou hast
raised Thine head to strike, and all is dissolved into the Abyss of
Glory. |
21. |
An end to the letters of the words! An end to the sevenfold
speech. |
22. |
Resolve me the wonder of it all into the figure of a gaunt swift camel
striding over the sand. |
23. |
Lonely is he, and abominable; yet hath he gained the
crown. |
24. |
Oh rejoice! rejoice! |
25. |
My God! O my God! I am but a speck in the star-dust of ages; I am the
Master of the Secret of Things. |
26. |
I am the Revealer and the Preparer. Mine is the Sword— and the
Mitre and the Wingèd Wand! |
27. |
I am the Initiator and the Destroyer. Mine is the Globe— and the
Bennu Bird and the Lotus of Isis my daughter! |
28. |
I am the One beyond these all; and I bear the symbols of the mighty
darkness. |
29. |
There shall be a sigil as of a vast black brooding ocean of death and
the central blaze of darkness, radiating its night upon all. |
30. |
It shall swallow up that lesser darkness. |
31. |
But in that profound who shall answer: What is? |
32. |
Not I. |
33. |
Not Thou, O God! |
34. |
Come, let us no more reason together; let us enjoy! Let us be ourselves,
silent, unique, apart. |
35. |
O lonely woods of the world! In what recesses will ye hide our
love? |
36. |
The forest of the spears of the Most High is called Night, and Hades,
and the Day of Wrath; but I am His captain, and I bear His cup. |
37. |
Fear me not with my spearmen! They shall slay the demons with their
petty prongs. Ye shall be free. |
38. |
Ah, slaves! ye will not— ye know not how to will. |
39. |
Yet the music of my spears shall be a song of freedom. |
40. |
A great bird shall sweep from the Abyss of Joy, and bear ye away to be
my cup-bearers. |
41. |
Come, O my God, in one last rapture let us attain to the Union with the
Many! |
42. |
In the silence of Things, in the Night of Forces, beyond the
accursèd domain of the Three, let us enjoy our love! |
43. |
My darling! My darling! away, away beyond the Assembly and the Law and
the Enlightenment unto an Anarchy of Solitude and Darkness! |
44. |
For even thus must we veil the brilliance of our Self. |
45. |
My darling! My darling! |
46. |
O my God, but the love in Me bursts over the bonds of Space and Time; my
love is spilt among them that love not love. |
47. |
My wine is poured out for them that never tasted wine. |
48. |
The fumes thereof shall intoxicate them and the vigour of my love shall
breed mighty children from their maidens. |
49. |
Yea! without draught, without embrace:— and the Voice answered
Yea! these things shall be. |
50. |
Then I sought a Word for Myself; nay, for myself. |
51. |
And the Word came: O Thou! it is well. Heed naught! I love Thee! I love
Thee! |
52. |
Therefore had I faith unto the end of all; yea, unto the end of
all. |