Liber Liberi
vel Lapidis Lazuli
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Chapter IV
- 1.
- I am like a maiden bathing in a clear pool of fresh water.
- 2.
- O my God! I see Thee dark and desirable, rising through the water as a golden smoke.
- 3.
- Thou art altogether golden, the hair and the eyebrows and the brilliant face; even into the finger-tips and toe-tips Thou art one rosy dream of gold.
- 4.
- Deep into Thine eyes that are golden my soul leaps, like an archangel menacing the sun.
- 5.
- My sword passes through and through Thee; crystalline moons ooze out of Thy beautiful body that is hidden behind the ovals of Thine eyes.
- 6.
- Deeper, ever deeper. I fall, even as the whole Universe falls down the abyss of Years.
- 7.
- For Eternity calls; the Overworld calls; the world of the Word is awaiting us.
- 8.
- Be done with speech, O God! Fasten the fangs of the hound Eternity in this my throat!
- 9.
- I am like a wounded bird flapping in circles.
- 10.
- Who knows where I shall fall?
- 11.
- O blessid One! O God! O my devourer!
- 12.
- Let me fall, fall down, fall away, afar, alone!
- 13.
- Let me fall!
- 14.
- Nor is there any rest, Sweet Heart, save in the cradle of royal Bacchus, the thigh of the most Holy One.
- 15.
- There rest, under the canopy of night.
- 16.
- Uranus chid Eros; Marsyas chid Olympas; I chid my beautiful lover with his sunray mane; shall I not sing?
- 17.
- Shall not mine incantations bring around me the wonderful company of the wood-gods, their bodies glistening with the ointment of moonlight and honey and myrrh?
- 18.
- Worshipful are ye, O my lovers; let us forward to the dimmest hollow!
- 19.
- There we will feast upon mandrake and upon moly!
- 20.
- There the lovely One shall spread us His holy banquet. In the brown cakes of corn we shall taste the food of the world, and be strong.
- 21.
- In the ruddy and awful cup of death we shall drink the blood of the world, and be drunken!
- 22.
- Ohi! the song to Iao, the song to Iao!
- 23.
- Come, let us sing to thee, Iacchus invisible, Iacchus triumphant, Iacchus indicible!
- 24.
- Iacchus, O Iacchus, O Iacchus, be near us!
- 25.
- Then was the countenance of all time darkened, and the true light shone forth.
- 26.
- There was also a certain cry in an unknown tongue, whose stridency troubled the still waters of my soul, so that my mind and my body were healed of their disease, self-knowledge.
- 27.
- Yea, an angel troubled the waters.
- 28.
- This was the cry of Him: IIIOOShBTh-IO-IIIIAMAMThIBI-II.
- 29.
- Nor did I sing this for a thousand times a night for a thousand nights before Thou camest, O my flaming God, and pierced me with Thy spear. Thy scarlet robe unfolded the whole heavens, so that the Gods said: All is burning: it is the end.
- 30.
- Also Thou didst set Thy lips to the wound and suck out a million eggs. And Thy mother sat upon them, and lo! stars and stars and ultimate Things whereof stars are the atoms.
- 31.
- Then I perceived Thee, O my God, sitting like a white cat upon the trellis-work of the arbour; and the hum of the spinning worlds was but Thy pleasure.
- 32.
- O white cat, the sparks fly from Thy fur! Thou dost crackle with splitting the worlds.
- 33.
- I have seen more of Thee in the white cat than I saw in the Vision of Fons.
- 34.
- In the boat of Ra did I travel, but I never found upon the visible Universe any being like unto Thee!
- 35.
- Thou wast like a winged white horse, and I raced Thee through eternity against the Lord of the Gods.
- 36.
- So still we race!
- 37.
- Thou wast like a flake of snow falling in the pine-clad woods.
- 38.
- In a moment Thou wast lost in a wilderness of the like and the unlike.
- 39.
- But I beheld the beautiful God at the back of the blizzard -- and Thou wast He!
- 40.
- Also I read in a great Book.
- 41.
- On ancient skin was written in letters of gold: Verbum fit Verbum.
- 42.
- Also Vitriol and the hierophant's name
V.V.V.V.V.
- 43.
- All this wheeled in fire, in star-fire, rare and far and utterly lonely -- even as Thou and I, O desolate soul my God!
- 44.
- Yea, and the writing
It is well.
This is the voice which shook the earth.
- 45.
- Eight times he cried aloud, and by eight and by eight shall I count Thy favours, Oh Thou Elevenfold God 418!
- 46.
- Yea, and by many more; by the ten in the twenty-two directions; even as the perpendicular of the Pyramid -- so shall Thy favours be.
- 47.
- If I number them, they are One.
- 48.
- Excellent is Thy love, Oh Lord! Thou art revealed by the darkness, and he who gropeth in the horror of the groves shall haply catch Thee, even as a snake that seizeth on a little singing-bird.
- 49.
- I have caught Thee, O my soft thrush; I am like a hawk of mother-of-emerald; I catch Thee by instinct, though my eyes fail from Thy glory.
- 50.
- Yet they are but foolish folk yonder. I see them on the yellow sand, all clad in Tyrian purple.
- 51.
- They draw their shining God unto the land in nets; they build a fire to the Lord of Fire, and cry unhallowed words, even the dreadful curse Amri maratza, maratza, atman deona lastadza maratza maritza -- maran!
- 52.
- Then do they cook the shining god, and gulp him whole.
- 53.
- These are evil folk, O beautiful boy! let us pass on to the Otherworld.
- 54.
- Let us make ourselves into a pleasant bait, into a seductive shape!
- 55.
- I will be like a splendid naked woman with ivory breasts and golden nipples; my whole body shall be like the milk of the stars. I will be lustrous and Greek, a courtesan of Delos, of the unstable Isle.
- 56.
- Thou shalt be like a little red worm on a hook.
- 57.
- But thou and I will catch fish alike.
- 58.
- Then wilt thou be a shining fish with golden back and silver belly: I will be like a violent beautiful man, stronger than two score bulls, a man of the West bearing a great sack of precious jewels upon a staff that is greater than the axis of the all.
- 59.
- And the fish shall be sacrificed to Thee and the strong man crucified for Me, and Thou and I will kiss, and atone for the wrong of the Beginning; yea, for the wrong of the beginning.
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