Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli

PROLOGUE OF THE UNBORN

1Into my loneliness comes -

2The sound of a flute in dim groves that haunt the uttermost hills

3Even from the brave river they reach to the edge of the wilderness

4And I behold Pan

5The snows are eternal above, above -

6And their perfume smokes upward into the nostrils of the stars

7But what have I to do with these?

8To me only the distant flute, the abiding vision of Pan

9On all sides Pan to the eye, to the ear

10The perfume of Pan pervading, the taste of him utterly filling my mouth, so that the tongue breaks forth into a weird and monstrous speech

11The embrace of him intense on every centre of pain and pleasure

12The sixth interior sense aflame with the inmost self of Him

13Myself flung down the precipice of being

14Even to the abyss, annihilation

15An end to loneliness, as to all

16Pan! Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan!

1My God, how I love Thee!

2With the vehement appetite of a beast I hunt Thee through the Universe

3Thou art standing as it were upon a pinnacle at the edge of some fortified city. I am a white bird, and perch upon Thee

4Thou art My Lover: I see Thee as a nymph with her white limbs stretched by the spring

5She lies upon the moss; there is none other but she:

6Art Thou not Pan?

7I am He. Speak not, O my God! Let the work be accomplished in silence

8Let my cry of pain be crystallized into a little white fawn to run away into the forest!

9Thou art a centaur, O my God, from the violet-blossoms that crown Thee to the hoofs of the horse

10Thou art harder than tempered steel; there is no diamond beside Thee

11Did I not yield this body and soul?

12I woo thee with a dagger drawn across my throat

13Let the spout of blood quench Thy blood-thirst, O my God!

14Thou art a little white rabbit in the burrow Night

15I am greater than the fox and the hole

16Give me Thy kisses, O Lord God!

17The lightning came and licked up the little flock of sheep

18There is a tongue and a flame; I see that trident walking over the sea

19A phoenix hath it for its head; below are two prongs. They spear the wicked

20I will spear Thee, O Thou little grey god, unless Thou beware!

21From the grey to the gold; from the gold to that which is beyond the gold of Ophir

22My God! but I love Thee!

23Why hast Thou whispered so ambiguous things? Wast Thou afraid, O goat-hoofed One, O horned One, O pillar of lightning?

24From the lightning fall pearls; from the pearls black specks of nothing

25I based all on one, one on naught

26Afloat in the aether, O my God, my God!

27O Thou great hooded sun of glory, cut off these eyelids!

28Nature shall die out; she hideth me, closing mine eyelids with fear, she hideth me from My destruction, O Thou open eye

29O ever-weeping One!

30Not Isis my mother, nor Osiris my self; but the incestuous Horus given over to Typhon, so may I be!

31There thought; and thought is evil

32Pan! Pan! Io Pan! it is enough

33Fall not into death, O my soul! Think that death is the bed into which you are falling!

34O how I love Thee, O my God! Especially is there a vehement parallel light from infinity, vilely diffracted in the haze of this mind

35I love Thee. I love Thee. I love Thee

36Thou art a beautiful thing whiter than a woman in the column of this vibration

37I shoot up vertically like an arrow, and become that Above

38But it is death, and the flame of the pyre

39Ascend 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

40When Thou shall know me, O empty God, my flame shall utterly expire in Thy great N. O. X

41What shalt Thou be, my God, when I have ceased to love Thee?

42A worm, a nothing, a niddering knave!

43But Oh! I love Thee

44I 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

45I have kindled Thy marble into life - ay! into death

46I have been smitten with the reek of Thy mouth, that drinketh never wine but life

47How the dew of the Universe whitens the lips!

48Ah! trickling flow of the stars of the mother Supernal, begone!

49I Am She that should come, the Virgin of all men

50I am a boy before Thee, O Thou satyr God

51Thou wilt inflict the punishment of pleasure - Now! Now! Now!

52Io Pan! Io Pan! I love Thee. I love Thee

53O my God, spare me!

54Now! It is done! Death

55I 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

1O my God! use Thou me again, alway. For ever! For ever!

2That 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

3Travelling through space, I saw the onrush of two galaxies, butting each other and goring like bulls upon earth. I was afraid

4Thus they ceased fight, and turned upon me, and I was sorely crushed and torn

5I had rather have been trampled by the World-Elephant

6O my God! Thou art my little pet tortoise!

7Yet Thou sustainest the World-Elephant

8I 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

9Thou shelterest me, that I hear not the trumpeting of that World-Elephant

10Thou art not worth an obol in the agora; yet Thou art not to be bought at the ransom of the whole Universe

11Thou art like a beautiful Nubian slave leaning her naked purple against the green pillars of marble that are above the bath

12Wine jets from her black nipples

13I drank wine awhile agone in the house of Pertinax. The cup-boy favoured me, and gave me of the right sweet Chian

14There was a Doric boy, skilled in feats of strength, an athlete. The full moon fled away angrily down the wrack. Ah! but we laughed

15I was pernicious drunk, O my God! Yet Pertinax brought me to the bridal

16I had a crown of thorns for all my dower

17Thou art like a goat's horn from Astor, O Thou God of mine, gnarl'd and crook'd and devilish strong

18Colder than all the ice of all the glaciers of the Naked Mountain was the wine it poured for me

19A wild country and a waning moon Clouds scudding over the sky. A circuit of pines, and of tall yews beyond. Thou in the midst!

20O all ye toads and cats, rejoice! Ye slimy things, come hither!

21Dance, dance to the Lord our God!

22He is he! He is he! He is he!

23Why should I go on?

24Why? Why? comes the sudden cackle of a million imps of hell

25And the laughter runs

26But sickens not the Universe; but shakes not the stars

27God! how I love Thee!

28I am walking in an asylum; all the men and women about me are insane

29Oh madness! madness! madness! desirable art thou!

30But I love Thee, O God!

31These men and women rave and howl; they froth out folly

32I begin to be afraid. I have no check; I am alone. Alone. Alone

33Think, O God, how I am happy in Thy love

34O 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 Aegean; their blood is the blood of the sunset over Athens; their stink is like a garden of Roses of Macedonia

35I 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

36Thou art no dream, O Thou too beautiful alike for sleep and waking!

37I disperse the insane folk of the earth; I walk alone with my little puppets in the garden

38I am Gargantuan great; yon galaxy is but the smoke-ring of mine incense

39Burn Thou strange herbs, O God!

40Brew me a magic liquor, boys, with your glances!

41The very soul is drunken

42Thou art drunken, O my God, upon my kisses

43The Universe reels; Thou hast looked upon it

44Twice, and all is done

45Come, O my God, and let us embrace!

46Lazily, hungrily, ardently, patiently; so will I work

47There shall be an End

48O God! O God!

49I am a fool to love Thee; Thou art cruel, Thou withholdest Thyself

50Come to me now! I love Thee! I love Thee!

51O my darling, my darling - Kiss me! Kiss me! Ah! but again

52Sleep, take me! Death, take me! This life is too full; it pains, it slays, it suffices

53Let me go back into the world; yea, back into the world

1I was the priest of Ammon-Ra in the temple of Ammon-Ra at Thebai

2But Bacchus came singing with his troops of vine-clad girls, of girls in dark mantles; and Bacchus in the midst like a fawn!

3God! how I ran out in my rage and scattered the chorus!

4But in my temple stood Bacchus as the priest of Ammon-Ra

5Therefore I went wildly with the girls into Abyssinia; and there we abode and rejoiced

6Exceedingly; yea, in good sooth!

7I will eat the ripe and the unripe fruit for the glory of Bacchus

8Terraces of ilex, and tiers of onyx and opal and sardonyx leading up to the cool green porch of malachite

9Within is a crystal shell, shaped like an oyster - O glory of Priapus! O beatitude of the Great Goddess!

10Therein is a pearl

11O Pearl! thou hast come from the majesty of dread Ammon-Ra

12Then I the priest beheld a steady glitter in the heart of the pearl

13So bright we could not look! But behold! a blood-red rose upon a rood of glowing gold!

14So I adored the God. Bacchus! thou art the lover of my God!

15I 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

16I will set up my dance in your conventicles, and my secret loves shall be sweet among you

17Thou shalt have a lover among the lords of the grey land

18This shall he bring unto thee, without which all is in vain; a man's life spilt for thy love upon My Altars

19Amen

20Let 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

21Thou shalt set up the abominable lonely Thing of wickedness. Oh joy! to lay that corner-stone!

22It shall stand erect upon the high mountain; only my God shall commune with it

23I will build it of a single ruby; it shall be seen from afar off

24Come! let us irritate the vessels of the earth: they shall distil strange wine

25It grows under my hand: it shall cover the whole heaven

26Thou art behind me: I scream with a mad joy

27Then said Ithuriel the strong; let Us also worship this invisible marvel!

28So did they, and the archangels swept over the heaven

29Strange and mystic, like a yellow priest invoking mighty flights of great grey birds from the North, so do I stand and invoke Thee!

30Let them obscure not the sun with their wings and their clamour!

31Take away form and its following!

32I am still

33Thou art like an osprey among the rice, I am the great red pelican in the sunset waters

34I 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

35Yea! I smite - and the blood makes as it were a sunset on the lapis lazuli of the King's Bedchamber

36I smite! The whole world is broken up into a mighty wind, and a voice cries aloud in a tongue that men cannot speak

37I 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!

38Again the inhuman voice!

39I rear my Titan bulk into the teeth of the gale, and I smite and prevail, and swing me out over the sea

40There is a strange pale God, a god of pain and deadly wickedness

41My own soul bites into itself, like a scorpion ringed with fire

42That pallid God with face averted, that God of subtlety and laughter, that young Doric God, him will I serve

43For the end thereof is torment unspeakable

44Better the loneliness of the great grey sea!

45But ill befall the folk of the grey land, my God!

46Let me smother them with my roses!

47Oh Thou delicious God, smile sinister!

48I 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!

49The world is all grey before mine eyes; it is like an old worn wine-skin

50All the wine of it is on these lips

51Thou hast begotten me upon a marble Statue, O my God!

52The 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?

53Thou 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

54I feel the essence of softness

55I am hard and strong and male; but come Thou! I shall be soft and weak and feminine

56Thou shalt crush me in the wine-press of Thy love. My blood shall stain Thy fiery feet with litanies of Love in Anguish

57There shall be a new flower in the fields, a new vintage in the vineyards

58The bees shall gather a new honey; the poets shall sing a new song

59I shall gain the Pain of the Goat for my prize; and the God that sitteth upon the shoulders of Time shall drowse

60Then shall all this which is written be accomplished: yea, it shall be accomplished

1I am like a maiden bathing in a clear pool of fresh water

2O my God! I see Thee dark and desirable, rising through the water as a golden smoke

3Thou 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

4Deep into Thine eyes that are golden my soul leaps, like an archangel menacing the sun

5My sword passes through and through Thee; crystalline moons ooze out of Thy beautiful body that is hidden behind the ovals of Thine eyes

6Deeper, ever deeper. I fall, even as the whole Universe falls down the abyss of Years

7For Eternity calls; the Overworld calls; the world of the Word is awaiting us

8Be done with speech, O God! Fasten the fangs of the hound Eternity in this my throat!

9I am like a wounded bird flapping in circles

10Who knows where I shall fall?

11O blessed One! O God! O my devourer!

12Let me fall, fall down, fall away, afar, alone!

13Let me fall!

14Nor is there any rest, Sweet Heart, save in the cradle of royal Bacchus, the thigh of the most Holy One

15There rest, under the canopy of night

16Uranus chid Eros; Marsyas chid Olympas; I chid my beautiful lover with his sunray mane; shall I not sing?

17Shall 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?

18Worshipful are ye, O my lovers; let us forward to the dimmest hollow!

19There we will feast upon mandrake and upon moly!

20There 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

21In the ruddy and awful cup of death we shall drink the blood of the world, and be drunken!

22Ohe! the song to Iao, the song to Iao!

23Come, let us sing to thee, Iacchus invisible, Iacchus triumphant, Iacchus indicible!

24Iacchus, O Iacchus, O Iacchus, be near us!

25Then was the countenance of all time darkened, and the true light shone forth

26There 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

27Yea, an angel troubled the waters

28This was the cry of Him: IIIOOShBThIO-IIIIAMAMThIBI-II

29Nor 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

30Also 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

31Then 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

32O white cat, the sparks fly from Thy fur! Thou dost crackle with splitting the worlds

33I have seen more of Thee in the white cat than I saw in the Vision of Aeons

34In the boat of Ra did I travel, but I never found upon the visible Universe any being like unto Thee!

35Thou wast like a winged white horse, and I raced Thee through eternity against the Lord of the Gods

36So still we race!

37Thou wast like a flake of snow falling in the pine-clad woods

38In a moment Thou wast lost in a wilderness of the like and the unlike

39But I beheld the beautiful God at the back of the blizzard - and Thou wast He!

40Also I read in a great book

41On ancient skin was written in letters of gold: Verbum fit Verbum

42Also Vitriol and the hierophant's name V.V.V.V.V

43All this wheeled in fire, in star-fire, rare and far and utterly lonely - even as Thou and I, O desolate soul my God!

44Yea, and the writing It is well. This is the voice which shook the earth

45Eight times he cried aloud, and by eight and by eight shall I count Thy favours, Oh Thou Elevenfold God 418!

46Yea, and by many more; by the ten in the twenty-two directions; even as the perpendicular of the Pyramid - so shall Thy favours be

47If I number them, they are One

48Excellent 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

49I 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

50Yet they are but foolish folk yonder. I see them on the yellow sand, all clad in Tyrian purple

51They 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 - maran!

52Then do they cook the shining god, and gulp him whole

53These are evil folk, O beautiful boy! let us pass on to the Otherworld

54Let us make ourselves into a pleasant bait, into a seductive shape!

55I 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

56Thou shalt be like a little red worm on a hook

57But thou and I will catch our fish alike

58Then 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

59And 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

1O my beautiful God! I swim in Thy heart like a trout in the mountain torrent

2I leap from pool to pool in my joy; I am goodly with brown and gold and silver

3Why, I am lovelier than the russet autumn woods at the first snowfall

4And the crystal cave of my thought is lovelier than I

5Only 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

6There 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!

7Who 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

8And Oh! the chirp of the cicada!

9I remember the days when I was cacique in Mexico

10O my God, wast Thou then as now my beautiful lover?

11Was my boyhood then as now Thy toy, Thy joy?

12Verily, I remember those iron days

13I remember how we drenched the bitter lakes with our torrent of gold; how we sank the treasurable image in the crater of Citlaltepetl

14How the good flame lifted us even unto the lowlands, setting us down in the impenetrable forest

15Yea, 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

16There was a weird winged God that told us of his wisdom

17We attained to be starry grains of gold dust in the sands of a slow river

18Yea, and that river was the river of space and time also

19We parted thence; ever to the smaller, ever to the greater, until now, O sweet God, we are ourselves, the same

20O God of mine, Thou art like a little white goat with lightning in his horns!

21I love Thee, I love Thee

22Every breath, every word, every thought, every deed is an act of love with Thee

23The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love

24The songs of me are the soft sighs:

25The thoughts of me are very rapture:

26And my deeds are the myriads of Thy children, the stars and the atoms

27Let there be nothing!

28Let all things drop into this ocean of love!

29Be this devotion a potent spell to exorcise the demons of the Five!

30Ah God, all is gone! Thou dost consummate Thy rapture. Falutli! Falutli!

31There is a solemnity of the silence. There is no more voice at all

32So shall it be unto the end. We who were dust shall never fall away into the dust

33So shall it be

34Then, O my God, the breath of the Garden of Spices. All these have a savour averse

35The cone is cut with an infinite ray; the curve of hyperbolic life springs into being

36Farther and farther we float; yet we are still. It is the chain of systems that is falling away from us

37First falls the silly world; the world of the old grey land

38Falls it unthinkably far, with its sorrowful bearded face presiding over it; it fades to silence and woe

39We to silence and bliss, and the face is the laughing face of Eros

40Smiling we greet him with the secret signs

41He leads us into the Inverted Palace

42There is the Heart of Blood, a pyramid reaching its apex down beyond the Wrong of the Beginning

43Bury me unto Thy Glory, O beloved, O princely lover of this harlot maiden, within the Secretest Chamber of the Palace!

44It is done quickly; yea, the seal is set upon the vault

45There is one that shall avail to open it

46Nor 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

47He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the stroke

48Then shall his blood leap out and write me runes in the sky; yea, write me runes in the sky

1Thou wast a priestess, O my God, among the Druids; and we knew the powers of the oak

2We made us a temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou didst wear openly and I concealed

3There we performed many wonderful things by midnight

4By the waning moon did we work

5Over the plain came the atrocious cry of wolves

6We answered; we hunted with the pack

7We came even unto the new Chapel and Thou didst bear away the Holy Graal beneath Thy Druid vestments

8Secretly and by stealth did we drink of the informing sacrament

9Then a terrible disease seized upon the folk of the grey land; and we rejoiced

10O my God, disguise Thy glory!

11Come as a thief, and let us steal away the Sacraments!

12In our groves, in our cloistral cells, in our honeycomb of happiness, let us drink, let us drink!

13It is the wine that tinges everything with the true tincture of infallible gold

14There are deep secrets in these songs. It is not enough to hear the bird; to enjoy song he must be the bird

15I am the bird, and Thou art my song, O my glorious galloping God!

16Thou reinest in the stars; thou drivest the constellations seven abreast through the circus of Nothingness

17Thou Gladiator God!

18I play upon mine harp; Thou fightest the beasts and the flames

19Thou takest Thy joy in the music, and I in the fighting

20Thou and I are beloved of the Emperor

21See! he has summoned us to the Imperial dais. The night falls; it is a great orgy of worship and bliss

22The night falls like a spangled cloak from the shoulders of a prince upon a slave

23He rises a free man!

24Cast thou, O prophet, the cloak upon these slaves!

25A great night, and scarce fires therein; but freedom for the slave that its glory shall encompass

26So also I went down into the great sad city

27There dead Messalina bartered her crown for poison from the dead Locusta; there stood Caligula, and smote the seas of forgetfulness

28Who wast Thou, O Caesar, that Thou knewest God in an horse?

29For 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!

30Ah! but I love thee, God!

31Thou art like a moon upon the ice-world

32Thou art like the dawn of the utmost snows upon the burnt-up flats of the tiger's land

33By silence and by speech do I worship Thee

34But all is in vain

35Only Thy silence and Thy speech that worship me avail

36Wail, O ye folk of the grey land, for we have drunk your wine, and left ye but the bitter dregs

37Yet from these we will distil ye a liquor beyond the nectar of the Gods

38There is value in our tincture for a world of Spice and gold

39For our red powder of projection is beyond all possibilities

40There are few men; there are enough

41We shall be full of cup-bearers, and the wine is not stinted

42O dear my God! what a feast Thou hast provided

43Behold the lights and the flowers and the maidens!

44Taste of the wines and the cakes and the splendid meats!

45Breathe in the perfumes and the clouds of little gods like wood-nymphs that inhabit the nostrils!

46Feel with your whole body the glorious smoothness of the marble coolth and the generous warmth of the sun and the slaves!

47Let the Invisible inform all the devouring Light of its disruptive vigour!

48Yea! all the world is split apart, as an old grey tree by the lightning!

49Come, O ye gods, and let us feast

50Thou, O my darling, O my ceaseless Sparrow-God, my delight, my desire, my deceiver, come Thou and chirp at my right hand!

51This was the tale of the memory of Al A'in the priest; yea, of Al A'in the priest

1By the burning of the incense was the Word revealed, and by the distant drug

2O meal and honey and oil! O beautiful flag of the moon, that she hangs out in the centre of bliss!

3These 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

4But of pure black marble is the sorry statue, and the changeless pain of the eyes is bitter to the blind

5We understand the rapture of that shaken marble, torn by the throes of the crowned child, the golden rod of the golden God

6We know why all is hidden in the stone, within the coffin, within the mighty sepulchre, and we too answer Olalam! Imal! Tutulu! as it is written in the ancient book

7Three words of that book are as life to a new aeon; no god has read the whole

8But thou and I, O God, have written it page by page

9Ours is the elevenfold reading of the Elevenfold word

10These seven letters together make seven diverse words; each word is divine, and seven sentences are hidden therein

11Thou art the Word, O my darling, my lord, my master!

12O come to me, mix the fire and the water, all shall dissolve

13I 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

14Yet art Thou ever apart, even as I

15I 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

16I remember Thy first kiss, even as a maiden should. Nor in the dark byways was there another: Thy kisses abide

17There is none other beside Thee in the whole Universe of Love

18My God, I love Thee, O Thou goat with gilded horns!

19Thou beautiful bull of Apis! Thou beautiful serpent of Apep! Thou beautiful child of the Pregnant Goddess!

20Thou 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

21An end to the letters of the words! An end to the sevenfold speech

22Resolve me the wonder of it all into the figure of a gaunt swift camel striding over the sand

23Lonely is he, and abominable; yet hath he gained the crown

24Oh rejoice! rejoice!

25My God! O my God! I am but a speck in the star-dust of ages; I am the Master of the Secret of Things

26I am the Revealer and the Preparer. Mine is the Sword - and the Mitre and the Winged Wand!

27I am the Initiator and the Destroyer. Mine is the Globe - and the Bennu bird and the Lotus of Isis my daughter!

28I am the One beyond these all; and I bear the symbols of the mighty darkness

29There shall be a sigil as of a vast black brooding ocean of death and the central blaze of darkness, radiating its night upon all

30It shall swallow up that lesser darkness

31But in that profound who shall answer: What is?

32Not I

33Not Thou, O God!

34Come, let us no more reason together; let us enjoy! Let us be ourselves, silent, unique, apart

35O lonely woods of the world! In what recesses will ye hide our love?

36The 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

37Fear me not with my spearmen! They shall slay the demons with their petty prongs. Ye shall be free

38Ah, slaves! ye will not - ye know not how to will

39Yet the music of my spears shall be a song of freedom

40A great bird shall sweep from the abyss of Joy, and bear ye away to be my cup-bearers

41Come, O my God, in one last rapture let us attain to the Union with the Many!

42In the silence of Things, in the Night of Forces, beyond the accursed domain of the Three, let us enjoy our love!

43My darling! My darling! away, away beyond the Assembly and the Law and the Enlightenment unto an Anarchy of solitude and Darkness!

44For even thus must we veil the brilliance of our Self

45My darling! My darling!

46O 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

47My wine is poured out for them that never tasted wine

48The fumes thereof shall intoxicate them and the vigour of my love shall breed mighty children from their maidens

49Yea! without draught, without embrace: - and the Voice answered Yea! these things shall be

50Then I sought a Word for Myself; nay, for myself

51And the Word came: O Thou! it is well. Heed naught! I love Thee! I love Thee!

52Therefore had I faith unto the end of all; yea, unto the end of all