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- THE RITE OF LUNA
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- OFFICERS
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- LUNA. "Silver Robe and Veil. Violin. Artemis. The Lady of the Moon."
- CANCER. "Amber Robe. Cup. Warden of the Holy Graal."
- TAURUS. "Orange Robe. Bow and Quiver. The Lord of the Bow."
- A NYMPH. "White robe. The Head of the Dragon."
- A SATYR. "Black Robe. The Tail of the Dragon."
- PAN. "Black Robe, Tom-tom."
-
- "In the East Luna is throned, Cancer on her right, Taurus on her left. Beyond
- these the Satyr and the Nymph. At the apex of a descending Triangle,
- upon the earth, Pan."
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- THE RITE OF LUNA
-
- "One reciteth "The Twelvefold Certitude of God," from" 963
- "The veil is withdrawn."
-
- CANCER. 333-333-333.
- TAURUS. 333-333-333.
- CANCER. 1. Brother Taurus, what is the hour?
- TAURUS. Moonrise.
- CANCER. 1. Brother Taurus, what is the place?
- TAURUS. The Chapel of the Holy Graal.
- CANCER. 1. What is my office?
- TAURUS. Warden of the Graal.
- CANCER. 1. What is my robe?
- TAURUS. Chastity.
- CANCER. 1. What is my weapon?
- TAURUS. Vigilance.
- CANCER. 1. Whom do we serve?
- TAURUS. The Lady Artemis.
- CANCER. 1. How many are her servants?
- TAURUS. Nine.
- CANCER. 1. Who are they?
- TAURUS. Three for the dew; three for the rain; and three for the snow.
- CANCER. 1. Who are the great Officers?
- TAURUS. Thyself, the Warden of the Holy Graal.
- Myself, the Lord of the Bow.
- A nymph, a satyr ---
- PAN. 1. And Pan!
- CANCER. Brother Pan, I command thee to honour our Lady Artemis.
- TAURUS. Bear the Cup of Libation!
- CANCER. 333-333-333.
- [PAN" recites chorus from Swinburne's "Atalanta."
-
- When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces ...
- The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.
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- TAURUS. The Goddess stirs not.
- CANCER. Silence is the secret of our Lady Artemis.
- PAN. Hath no man lifted her veil?
- CANCER. No man hath lifted her veil.
- TAURUS. Bear the Cup of Libation!
- CANCER. 333-333-333. It is the hour of sealing up the shrine.
- TAURUS. Let us banish the spirits of the elements.
- ["Performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and returns."]
- Bear the Cup of Libation!
- CANCER. 333-333-333. Let us banish the spirits of the planets.
- ["Performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram and returns."]
- CANCER. Bear the Cup of Libation!
- PAN. 333-333-333. Let us banish the holy Emanations from the One, lest our Lady's sleep be stirred.
- ["He banishes the Sephiroth by the appointed Ritual."
- Bear the Cup of Libation!
- CANCER. 333-333-333. Brother Taurus, the shrine is well guarded.
- TAURUS. The shrine is perfectly guarded.
- SATYR. Bear the Cup of Libation!
- CANCER. 333-333-333.
- PAN.
- Hear me, Lord of the Stars!
- For thee I have worshipped ever
- With stains and sorrows and scars,
- With joyful, joyful endeavour.
- Hear me, O lily-white goat!
- O crisp as a thicket of Thorns,
- With a collar of gold for Thy throat,
- A scarlet bow for Thy horns!
-
- Here, in the dusty air,
- I build Thee a shrine of yew.
- All green is the garland I wear,
- But I feed it with blood for dew!
- After the orange bars
- That ribbed the green west dying
- Are dead, O Lord of the Stars,
- I come to Thee, come to Thee crying.
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- The ambrosial moon that arose
- With breasts slow heaving in splendour
- Drops wine from her infinite snows,
- Ineffably, utterly, tender.
- O moon! ambrosial moon!
- Arise on my desert of sorrow,
- That the magical eyes of me swoon
- With lust of rain to-morrow!
-
- Ages and ages ago
- I stood on the bank of a river,
- Holy and holy and holy, I know,
- For ever and ever and ever!
- A priest in the mystical shrine,
- I muttered a redeless rune,
- Till the waters were redder than wine
- In the blush of the harlot moon.
-
- I and my brother priests
- Worshipped a wonderful woman
- With a body lithe as a beast's
- Subtly, horribly human.
- Deep in the pit of her eyes
- I saw the image of death,
- And I drew the water of sighs
- From the well of her lullaby breath.
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- She sitteth veiled for ever,
- Brooding over the waste.
- She hath stirred or spoken never.
- She is fiercely, manly chaste!
- What madness make me awake
- From the silence of utmost eld
- The grey cold slime of the snake
- That her poisonous body held?
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- By night I ravished a maid
- From her father's camp to the cave.
- I bared the beautiful blade:
- I dipped her thrice i' the wave;
- I slit her throat as a lamb's
- That the fount of blood leapt high
- With my clamorous dithyrambs,
- Like a stain on the shield of the sky.
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- With blood and censer and song
- I rent the mysterious veil:
- My eyes gaze long and long
- On the deep of that blissful bale.
- My cold grey kisses awake
- From the silence of utmost eld
- The grey cold slime of the snake
- That her beautiful body held.
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- But --- God! I was not content
- With the blasphemous secret of years;
- The veil is hardly rent
- While the eyes rain stones for tears.
- So I clung to the lips and laughed
- As the storms of death abated,
- The storms of the grievious graft
- By the swing of her soul unsated.
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- Wherefore reborn as I am
- By a stream profane and foul,
- In the reign of a Tortured Lamb,
- In the realm of a sexless Owl,
- I am set apart from the rest
- By meed of the mystic rune
- That reads in peril and pest
- The ambrosial moon --- the moon!
-
- For under the tawny star
- That shines in the Bull above
- I can rein the riotous car
- Of galloping, galloping Love;
- And straight to the steady ray
- Of the Lion-heart Lord I career,
- Pointing my flaming way
- With the spasm of night for a spear!
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- O moon! O secret sweet!
- Chalcedony clouds of caresses
- About the flame of our feet,
- The night of our terrible tresses!
- Is it a wonder, then,
- If the people are mad with blindness,
- And nothing is stranger to men
- Than silence, and wisdom, and kindness?
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- Nay! let him fashion an arrow
- Whose heart is sober and stout!
- Let him pierce his God to the marrow!
- Let the soul of his God flow out!
- Whether a snake or a sun
- In his horoscope Heaven hath cast,
- It is nothing; every one
- Shall win to the moon at last.
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- The mage has wrought by his art
- A billion shapes in the sun.
- Look through to the heart of his heart,
- And the many are shapes of one!
- An end to the art of the mage,
- And the cold grey blank of the prison!
- An end to the adamant age!
- The ambrosial moon is arisen.
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- I have bought a lily-white goat
- For the price of a crown of thorns,
- A collar of gold for its throat,
- A scarlet bow for its horns;
- I have bought a lark in the lift
- For the price of a butt of sherry:
- With these, and God for a gift,
- It needs no wine to be merry!
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- I have bought for a wafer of bread
- A garden of poppies and clover;
- For a water bitter and dead,
- A foam of fire flowing over.
- From the Lamb and his prison fare
- And the Owl's blind stupor, arise!
- Be ye wise, and strong, and fair,
- And the nectar afloat in your eyes!
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- Arise, O ambrosial moon,
- By the strong immemorial spell,
- By the subtle veridical rune
- That is mighty in heaven and hell!
- Drip thy mystical dews
- On the tongues of the tender fauns,
- In the shade of initiate yews,
- Remote from the desert dawns!
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- Satyrs and Fauns, I call.
- Bring your beauty to man!
- I am the mate for ye all;
- I am the passionate Pan.
- Come, O come to the dance,
- Leaping with wonderful whips,
- Life on the stroke of a glance,
- Death in the stroke of the lips!
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- I am hidden beyond,
- Shed in a secret sinew,
- Smitten through by the fond
- Folly of wisdom in you!
- Come, while the moon (the moon!)
- Sheds her ambrosial splendour,
- Reels in the redeless rune
- Ineffably, utterly, tender!
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- Hark! the appealing cry
- Of deadly hurt in the hollow: ---
- Hyacinth! Hyacinth! Ay!
- Smitten to death by Apollo.
- Swift, O maiden moon,
- Send thy ray-dews after;
- Turn the dolorous tune
- To soft ambiguous laughter!
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- Mourn, O Maenads, mourn!
- Surely your comfort is over:
- All we laugh at you lorn.
- Ours are the poppies and clover!
- O that mouth and eyes,
- Mischievous, male, alluring!
- O that twitch of the thighs,
- Dorian past enduring!
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- Where is wisdom now!
- Where the sage and his doubt?
- Surely the sweat of the brow
- Hath driven the demon out.
- Surely the scented sleep
- That crowns the equal war
- Is wiser than only to weep ---
- To weep for evermore!
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- Now, at the crown of the year,
- The decadent days of October,
- I come to thee, God, without fear;
- Pious, chaste, and sober.
- I solemnly sacrifice
- This first-fruit flower of wine
- For a vehicle of thy vice,
- As I am Thine to be mine.
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- For five in the year gone by
- I pray thee give to me one;
- A lover stronger than I,
- A moon to swallow the sun!
- May he be like a lily-white goat,
- Crisp as a thicket of thorns,
- With a collar of gold for this throat,
- A scarlet bow for his horns!
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- CANCER. May our Lady Artemis be favourable!
- TAURUS. May our Lady Artemis never be awakened!
- [NYMPH "comes forward and dances her virginal dance."
- PAN. Of what worth is the gold in the mine?
- CANCER. Brother Pan, be silent.
- NYMPH. Bear the Cup of Libation!
- CANCER. 333-333-333.
- PAN. ["Recites."
- Mother of Light, and the Gods! Mother of Music awake!
- Silence and Speech are at odds; Heaven and Hell are at stake.
- By the Rose and the Cross I conjure; I constrain by the Snake and the
- Sword;
- I am he that is sworn to endure --- Bring us the word of the Lord!
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- By the brood of the Bysses of Brightening, whose God was my sire;
- By the Lord of the Flame and the Lightning, the King of the Spirits of Fire;
- By the Lord of the Waves and the Waters, the King of the Hosts of the Sea,
- The fairest of all of whose daughters was mother to me;
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- By the Lord of the Winds and the Breezes, the King of the Spirits of Air,
- In whose bosom the infinite ease is that cradled me there;
- By the Lord of the Fields and the Mountains, the King of the Spirits of Earth
- That nurtured my life at his fountains from the hour of my birth;
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- By the Wand and the Cup I conjure; by the Dagger and Disk I constrain;
- I am he that is sworn to endure; make thy music again!
- I am Lord of the Star and the Seal; I am Lord of the Snake and the Sword;
- Reveal us the riddle, reveal! Bring us the word of the Lord;
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- As the flame of the sun, as the roar of the sea, as the storm of the air,
- As the quake of the earth --- let it soar for a boon, for a bane, for a snare,
- For a lure, for a light, for a kiss, for a rod, for a scourge, for a sword ---
- Bring us thy burden of bliss --- Bring us the word of the Lord!
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- TAURUS. In vain thou askest speech from our Lady of Silence:
- CANCER. Bear the Cup of Libation!
- PAN. 333-333-333.
- ["Recites."
- Roll through the caverns of matter, the world's irremovable bounds!
- Roll, ye wild billows of ether! the Sistron is shaken and sounds!
- Wild and sonorous the clamour, vast in the region of death.
- Live with the fire of the Spirit, the essence and flame of the breath!
- Sound, O sound!
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- Gleam in the world of the dark, where the chained ones shall tremble and flee!
- Gleam in the skies of the dusk, for the Light of the Dawn is in me!
- Light on the forehead and life in the nostrils, and love in the breast,
- Shine, O Thou Star of the Dawning, thou Sun of the Radiant Crest!
- Shine, O shine!
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- Flame through the sky in the strength of the chariot-wheels of the Sun!
- Flame, ye young fingers of light, on the west of the morning that run!
- Flame, O thou Meteor Car, for my fire is exalted in thee!
- Lighten the darkness and herald the daylight, and waken the sea!
- Flame, O flame!
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- Crown Her, O crown Her with stars as with flowers for a virginal gaud!
- Crown Her, O crown Her with Light and the flame of the down-rushing Sword!
- Crown Her, O crown Her with Love for maiden and mother and wife!
- Hail unto Isis! Hail! For She is the Lady of Life!
- Isis crowned!
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- CANCER. In vain thou invokest our Lady of the Moon!
- TAURUS. Bear the Cup of Libation!
- CANCER. 333-333-333.
- PAN.
- Must every star that saves the night
- Gleam fearfully afar,
- Give no man love, but only light,
- Or cease to be a star?
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- Nay, there's no man since time began
- Through the ages until now,
- But won the goal of his set soul,
- A star upon his brow!
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- Oh! though no star serene as thou
- Shine in my night forlorn,
- Come, let me set thee on my brow,
- And make its darkness morn!
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- PAN. ["Rises."] Brother Satyr, scourge forth these that profane the sanctuary of our Lady: for they know not the secret of the shrine.
- [SATYR "dances the dance of the scourge, driving the officers down the
- stage, where they crouch."]
- PAN. ["Goes to altar."] Brother Satyr, I command you to perform the dance
- of Syrinx and Pan, in honour of our Lady Artemis.
- SATYR. And in thine honour!
- ["He dances the dance and falls prostrate in the midst."
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- PAN. ["Advancing to the Throne of Luna."]
- Uncharmable charmer
- Of Bacchus and Mars,
- In the sounding rebounding
- Abyss of the stars!
- O virgin in armour,
- Thine arrows unsling
- In the brilliant resilient
- First rays of the spring!
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- By the force of the fashion
- Of love, when I broke
- Through the shroud, through the cloud,
- Through the storm, through the smoke,
- To the mountain of passion
- Volcanic that woke ---
- By the rage of the mage
- I invoke, I invoke!
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- By the midnight of madness,
- The lone-lying sea,
- The swoon of the moon,
- Your swoon into me;
- The sentinel sadness
- Of cliff-clinging pine,
- That night of delight
- You were mine, you were mine!
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- Your were mine, O my saint,
- My maiden, my mate,
- By the might of the right
- Of the night of our fate.
- Though I fall, though I faint,
- Though I char, though I choke,
- By the hour of our power
- I invoke, I invoke!
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- By the mystical union
- Of fairy and faun,
- Unspoken, unbroken ---
- The dusk to the dawn! ---
- A secret communion,
- Unmeasured, unsung,
- The listless, resistless,
- Tumultuous tongue! ---
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- O virgin in armour
- Thine arrows unsling,
- In the brilliant resilient
- First rays of the sprint!
- No Godhead could charm her,
- But manhood awoke ---
- O fiery Valkyrie,
- I invoke, I invoke!
- ["He tears down the veil."
- [LUNA "plays accordingly.<<Chaccone; Bach.>>"
- ["A long silence."
- CANCER. 333-333-333.
- TAURUS. 1. Brother Warden of the Graal, our task is ended.
- CANCER. Let us depart, it is accomplished.
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