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- 29
- u80ici1.11hVI
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- 1. Thou wast a priestess, O my God, among the Druids; and we knew the
- powers of the oak.
-
- 2. We made us a temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou
- didst wear openly and I concealed.
-
- 3. There we performed many wonderful things by midnight.
-
- 4. By the waning moon did we work.
-
- 5. Over the plain came the atrocious cry of wolves.
-
- 6. We answered; we hunted with the pack.
-
- 7. We came even unto the new Chapel and Thou didst bear away the Holy Graal
- beneath Thy Druid vestments.
-
- 8. Secretly and by stealth did we drink of the informing sacrament.
-
- 9. Then a terrible disease seized upon the folk of the grey land; and we
- rejoiced.
-
- 10. O my God, disguise Thy glory!
-
- 11. Come as a thief, and let us steal away the Sacraments!
-
- 12. In our groves, in our cloistral cells, in our honeycomb of happiness, let
- us drink, let us drink!
-
- 13. It is the wine that tinges everything with the true tincture of
- infallible gold.
-
- 14. There are deep secrets in these songs. It is not enough to hear the
- bird; to enjoy song he must be the bird.
-
- 15. I am the bird, and Thou art my song, O my glorious galloping God!
-
- 16. Thou reinest in the stars; thou drivest the constellations seven abreast
- through the circus of Nothingness.
-
- 17. Thou Gladiator God!
-
- 18. I play upon mine harp; Thou fightest the beasts and the flames.
-
- 19. Thou takest Thy joy in the music, and I in the fighting.
-
- 20. Thou and I are beloved of the Emperor.
-
- 21. See! he has summoned us to the Imperial dais.
-
- The night falls; it is a great orgy of worship and bliss.
-
- 22. The night falls like a spangled cloak from the shoulders of a prince upon
- a slave.
- 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 cates 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.
-