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 Caesar, 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 cakes 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.
VII
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 Olalam! Imal! Tutulu! as it is written in the ancient book.
7 Three words of that book are as life to a new aeon; 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 Winged 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 accursed 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