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- 42
- u80ici1.11h37. I was smooth and hard as ivory; the horror gat no
- hold.(mg)Then at the noise of the wind of Thy coming he was(mg)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 people 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 hour ineffable, 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.
-