LITMIR.BIZ

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my helper, and bring me to the bliss of the Beloved!

      30. I came to the house of the Beloved, and the wine was like fire that flieth with green wings through the world of waters.

      31. I felt the red lips of nature and the black lips of perfection. Like sisters they fondled me their little brother; they decked me out as a bride; they mounted me for Thy bridal chamber.

      32. They fled away at Thy coming; I was alone before Thee.

      33. I trembled at Thy coming, O my God, for Thy messenger was more terrible than the Death-star.

      34. On the threshold stood the fulminant figure of Evil, the Horror of emptiness, with his ghastly eyes like poisonous wells. He stood, and the chamber was corrupt; the air stank. He was an old and gnarled fish more hideous than the shells of Abaddon.

      35. He enveloped me with his demon tentacles; yea, the eight fears took hold upon me.

      36. But I was anointed with the right sweet oil of the Magister; I slipped from the embrace as a stone from the sling of a boy of the woodlands.

      37. I was smooth and hard as ivory; the horror gat no hold. Then at the noise of the wind of Thy coming he was dissolved away, and the abyss of the great void was unfolded before me.

      38. Across the waveless sea of eternity Thou didst ride with Thy captains and Thy hosts; with Thy chariots and horsemen and spearmen didst Thou travel through the blue.

      39. Before I saw Thee Thou wast already with me; I was smitten through by Thy marvellous spear.

      40. I was stricken as a bird by the bolt of the thunderer; I was pierced as the thief by the Lord of the Garden.

      41. O my Lord, let us sail upon the sea of blood!

      42. There is a deep taint beneath the ineffable bliss; it is the taint of generation.

      43. Yea, though the flower wave bright in the sunshine, the root is deep in the darkness of earth.

      44. Praise to thee, O beautiful dark earth, thou art the mother of a million myriads of myriads of flowers.

      45. Also I beheld my God, and the countenance of Him was a thousandfold brighter than the lightning. Yet in his heart I beheld the slow and dark One, the ancient one, the devourer of His children.

      46. In the height and the abyss, O my beautiful, there is no thing, verily, there is no thing at all, that is not altogether and perfectly fashioned for Thy delight.

      47. Light cleaveth unto Light, and filth to filth; with pride one contemneth another. But not Thou, who art all, and beyond it; who art absolved from the Division of the Shadows.

      48. O day of Eternity, let Thy wave break in foamless glory of sapphire upon the laborious coral of our making!

      49. We have made us a ring of glistening white sand, strewn wisely in the midst of the Delightful Ocean.

      50. Let the palms of brilliance flower upon our island; we shall eat of their fruit, and be glad.

      51. But for me the lustral water, the great ablution, the dissolving of the soul in that resounding abyss.

      52. I have a little son like a wanton goat; my daughter is like an unfledged eaglet; they shall get them fins, that they may swim.

      53. That they may swim, O my beloved, swim far in the warm honey of Thy being, O blessed one, O boy of beatitude!

      54. This heart of mine is girt about with the serpent that devoureth his own coils.

      55. When shall there be an end, O my darling, O when shall the Universe and the Lord thereof be utterly swallowed up?

      56. Nay! who shall devour the Infinite? who shall undo the Wrong of the Beginning?

      57. Thou criest like a white cat upon the roof of the Universe; there is none to answer Thee.

      58. Thou art like a lonely pillar in the midst of the sea; there is none to behold Thee, O Thou who beholdest all!

      59. Thou dost faint, thou dost fail, thou scribe; cried the desolate Voice; but I have filled thee with a wine whose savour thou knowest not.

      60. It shall avail to make drunken the peoÿle of the old gray sphere that rolls in the infinite Far-off; they shall lap the wine as dogs that lap the blood of a beautiful courtesan pierced through by the Spear of a swift rider through the city.

      61. I too am the Soul of the desert; thou shalt seek me yet again in the wilderness of sand.

      62. At thy right hand a great lord and a comely; at thy left hand a woman clad in gossamer and gold and having the stars in her hair. Ye shall journey far into a land of pestilence and evil; ye shall encamp in the river of a foolish city forgotten; there shall ye meet with Me.

      63. There will I make Mine habitation; as for bridal will I come bedecked and anointed; there shall the Consummation be accomplished.

      64. O my darling, I also wait for the brilliance of the hoineffable, when the universe shall be like a girdle for the midst of the ray of our love, extending beyond the permitted end of the endless One.

      65. Then, O thou heart, will I the serpent eat thee wholly up; yea, I will eat thee wholly up.

      V

       Table of Contents

      1. Ah! my Lord Adonai, that dalliest with the Magister in the Treasure-House of Pearls, let me listen to the echo of your kisses.

      2. Is not the starry heaven shaken as a leaf at the tremulous rapture of your love? Am not I the flying spark of light whirled away by the great wind of your perfection?

      3. Yea, cried the Holy One, and from Thy spark will I the Lord kindle a great light; I will burn through the great city in the old and desolate land; I will cleanse it from its great impurity.

      4. And thou, O prophet, shalt see these things, and thou shalt heed them not.

      5. Now is the Pillar established in the Void; now is Asi fulfilled of Asar; now is Hoor let down into the Animal Soul of Things like a fiery star that falleth upon the darkness of the earth.

      6. Through the midnight thou art dropt, O my child, my conqueror, my sword-girt captain, O Hoor! and they shall find thee as a black gnarl'd glittering stone, and they shall worship thee.

      7. My prophet shall proÿhesy concerning thee; around thee the maidens shall dance, and bright babes be born unto them. Thou shalt inspire the proud ones with infinite pride, and the humble ones with an ecstasy of abasement; all this shall transcend the Known and the Unknown with somewhat that hath no name. For it is as the abyss of the Arcanum that is opened in the secret Place of Silence.

      8. Thou hast come hither, O my prophet, through grave paths. Thou hast eaten of the dung of the Abominable Ones; thou hast prostrated thyself before the Goat and the Crocodile; the evil men have made thee a plaything; thou hast wandered as a painted harlot, ravishing with sweet scent and Chinese colouring, in the streets; thou hast darkened thine eyepits with Kohl; thou hast tinted thy lips with vermilion; thou hast plastered thy cheeks with ivory enamels. Thou hast played the wanton in every gate and by-way of the great city. The men of the city have lusted after thee to abuse thee and to beat thee. They have mouthed the golden spangles of fine dust wherewith thou didst bedeck thine hair; they have scourged the painted flesh of thee with their whips; thou hast suffered unspeakable things.

      9. But I have burnt within thee as a pure flame without oil. In the midnight I was brighter than the moon; in the daytime I exceeded utterly the sun; in the byways of of thy being I inflamed, and dispelled the illusion.

      10. Therefore thou art wholly pure before Me; therefore thou art My virgin unto eternity.

      11. Therefore I love thee with surpassing love; therefore they that despise thee shall adore thee.

      12. Thou shalt be lovely and pitiful toward them; thou shalt heal them of the unutterable

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