1. I am the Heart; and the Snake is entwined
   About the invisible core of the mind.
   Rise, O my snake! It is now is the hour
   Of the hooded and holy ineffable flower.
   Rise, O my snake, into brilliance of bloom
   On the corpse of Osiris afloat in the tomb!
   O heart of my mother, my sister, mine own,
   Thou art given to Nile, to the terror Typhon!
   Ah me! but the glory of ravening storm
   Enswathes thee and wraps thee in frenzy of form.
   Be still, O my soul! that the spell may dissolve
   As the wands are upraised, and the æons revolve.
   Behold! in my beauty how joyous Thou art,
   O Snake that caresses the crown of mine heart!
   Behold! we are one, and the tempest of years
   Goes down to the dusk, and the Beetle appears.
   O Beetle! the drone of Thy dolorous note
   Be ever the trance of this tremulous throat!
   I await the awaking! The summons on high
   From the Lord Adonai, from the Lord Adonai!
2. Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V., saying: There must ever be division in the word.
3. For the colours are many, but the light is one.
4. Therefore thou writest that which is of mother of emerald, and of lapis-lazuli, and of turquoise, and of alexandrite.
5. Another writeth the words of topaz, and of deep amethyst, and of gray sapphire, and of deep sapphire with a tinge as of blood.
6. Therefore do ye fret yourselves because of this.
7. Be not contented with the image.
8. I who am the Image of an Image say this.
9. Debate not of the image, saying Beyond! Beyond! 
   One mounteth unto the Crown by the moon and by the Sun, and by the arrow, and by the Foundation, and by the dark home of the stars from the black earth.
10. Not otherwise may ye reach unto the Smooth Point.
11. Nor is it fitting for the cobbler to prate of the Royal matter. O cobbler! mend me this shoe, that I may walk. O king! if I be thy son, let us speak of the Embassy to the King thy Brother.
12. Then was there silence. Speech had done with us awhile. 
    There is a light so strenuous that it is not perceived as light.
13. Wolf’s bane is not so sharp as steel; yet it pierceth the body more subtly.
14. Even as evil kisses corrupt the blood, so do my words devour the spirit of man.
15. I breathe, and there is infinite dis-ease in the spirit.
16. As an acid eats into steel, as a cancer that utterly corrupts the body; so am I unto the spirit of man.
17. I shall not rest until I have dissolved it all.
18. So also the light that is absorbed. One absorbs little and is called white and glistening; one absorbs all and is called black.
19. Therefore, O my darling, art thou black.
20. O my beautiful, I have likened thee to a jet Nubian slave, a boy of melancholy eyes.
21. O the filthy one! the dog! they cry against thee. 
    Because thou art my beloved.
22. Happy are they that praise thee; for they see thee with Mine eyes.
23. Not aloud shall they praise thee; but in the night watch one shall steal close, and grip thee with the secret grip; another shall privily cast a crown of violets over thee; a third shall greatly dare, and press mad lips to thine.
24. Yea! the night shall cover all, the night shall cover all.
25. Thou wast long seeking Me; thou didst run forward so fast that I was unable to come up with thee. 
    O thou darling fool! what bitterness thou didst crown thy days withal.
26. Now I am with thee; I will never leave thy being.
27. For I am the soft sinuous one entwined about thee, heart of gold!
28. My head is jewelled with twelve stars; My body is white as milk of the stars; it is bright with the blue of the abyss of stars invisible.
29. I have found that which could not be found; I have found a vessel of quicksilver.
30. Thou shalt instruct thy servant in his ways, thou shalt speak often with him.
31. (The scribe looketh upwards and crieth) Amen! Thou hast spoken it, Lord God!
32. Further Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V. and said:
33. Let us take our delight in the multitude of men! 
    Let us shape unto ourselves a boat of mother-of-pearl from them, that we may ride upon the river of Amrit!
34. Thou seest yon petal of amaranth, blown by the wind from the low sweet brows of Hathor?
35. (The Magister saw it and rejoiced in the beauty of it.) Listen!
36. (From a certain world came an infinite wail.) 
    That falling petal seemed to the little ones a wave to engulph their continent.
37. So they will reproach thy servant, saying: Who hath set thee to save us?
38. He will be sore distressed.
39. All they understand not that thou and I are fashioning a boat of mother-of-pearl. We will sail down the river of Amrit even to the yew-groves of Yama, where we may rejoice exceedingly.
40. The joy of men shall be our silver gleam, their woe our blue gleam—all in the mother-of-pearl.
41. (The scribe was wroth thereat. He spake: 
    O Adonai and my master, I have borne the inkhorn and the pen without pay, in order that I might search this river of Amrit, and sail thereon as one of ye. This I demand for my fee, that I partake of the echo of your kisses.)
42. (And immediately it was granted unto him.)
43. (Nay; but not therewith was he content. By an infinite abasement unto shame did he strive. Then a voice:)
44. Thou strivest ever; even in thy yielding thou strivest to yield—and lo! thou yieldest not.
45. Go thou unto the outermost places and subdue all things.
46. Subdue thy fear and thy disgust. Then—yield!
47. There was a maiden that strayed among the corn, and sighed; then grew a new birth, a narcissus, and therein she forgot her sighing and her loneliness.
48. Even instantly rode Hades heavily upon her, and ravished her away.
49. (Then the scribe knew the narcissus in his heart; but because it came not to his lips, therefore was he shamed and spake no more.)
50. Adonai spake yet again with V.V.V.V.V. and said: 
    The earth is ripe for vintage; let us eat of her grapes, and be drunken thereon.
51. And V.V.V.V.V. answered and said: O my lord, my dove, my excellent one, how shall this word seem unto the children of men?
52. And He answered him: Not as thou canst see. 
    It is certain that every letter of this cipher hath some value; but who shall determine the value? For it varieth ever, according to the subtlety of Him that made it.
53. And He answered Him: Have I not the key thereof? 
    I am clothed with the body of flesh; I am one with the Eternal and Omnipotent God.
54. Then said Adonai: Thou hast the Head of the Hawk, and thy Phallus is the Phallus of Asar. Thou knowest the white, and thou knowest the black, and thou knowest that these are one. But why seekest thou the knowledge of their equivalence?
55. And he said: That my Work may be right.
56. And Adonai said: The strong brown reaper swept his swathe and rejoiced. The wise man counted his muscles, and pondered, and understood not, and was sad. 
    Reap thou, and rejoice!
57. Then was the Adept glad, and lifted his arm. 
    Lo! an earthquake, and plague, and terror on the earth! 
    A casting down of them that sate in high places; a famine upon the multitude!
58. And the grape fell ripe and rich into his mouth.
59. Stained is the purple of thy mouth, O brilliant one, with the white glory of the lips of Adonai.
60. The foam of the grape is like the storm upon the sea; the ships tremble and shudder; the shipmaster is afraid.
61. That is thy drunkenness, O holy one, and the winds whirl away the soul of the scribe into the happy haven.
62. O Lord God! let the haven be cast down by the fury of the storm! Let the foam of the grape tincture my soul with Thy light!
63. Bacchus grew old, and was Silenus; Pan was ever Pan for ever and ever more throughout the æons.
64. Intoxicate the inmost, O my lover, not the outermost!
65. So was it—ever the same! I have aimed at the peeled wand of my God, and I have hit; yea, I have hit.

1. O crystal heart! I the Serpent clasp Thee; I drive home mine head into the central core of Thee, O God my beloved.
2. Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, O Lord my God!
3. There is a beauty unspeakable in this heart of corruption, where the flowers are aflame.
4. Ah me! but the thirst of Thy joy parches up this throat, so that I cannot sing.
5. I will make me a little boat of my tongue, and explore the unknown rivers. It may be that the everlasting salt may turn to sweetness, and that my life may be no longer athirst.
6. O ye that drink of the brine of your desire, ye are nigh to madness! Your torture increaseth as ye drink, yet still ye drink. Come up through the creeks to the fresh water; I shall be waiting for you with my kisses.
7. As the bezoar-stone that is found in the belly of the cow, so is my lover among lovers.
8. O honey boy! Bring me Thy cool limbs hither! Let us sit awhile in the orchard, until the sun go down! Let us feast on the cool grass! Bring wine, ye slaves, that the cheeks of my boy may flush red.
9. In the garden of immortal kisses, O thou brilliant One, shine forth! Make Thy mouth an opium-poppy, that one kiss is the key to the infinite sleep and lucid, the sleep of Shi-loh-am.
10. In my sleep I beheld the Universe like a clear crystal without one speck.
11. There are purse-proud penniless ones that stand at the door of the tavern and prate of their feats of wine-bibbing.
12. There are purse-proud penniless ones that stand at the door of the tavern and revile the guests.
13. The guests dally upon couches of mother-of-pearl in the garden; the noise of the foolish men is hidden from them.
14. Only the inn-keeper feareth lest the favour of the king be withdrawn from him.
15. Thus spake the Magister V.V.V.V.V. unto Adonai his God, as they played together in the starlight over against the deep black pool that is in the Holy Place of the Holy House beneath the Altar of the Holiest One.
16. But Adonai laughed, and played more languidly.
17. Then the scribe took note, and was glad. But Adonai had no fear of the Magician and his play. 
    For it was Adonai who had taught all his tricks to the Magician.
18. And the Magister entered into the play of the Magician. When the Magician laughed he laughed; all as a man should do.
19. And Adonai said: Thou art enmeshed in the web of the Magician. This He said subtly, to try him.
20. But the Magister gave the sign of the Magistry, and laughed back on Him: O Lord, O beloved, did these fingers relax on Thy curls, or these eyes turn away from Thine eye?
21. And Adonai delighted in him exceedingly.
22. Yea, O my master, thou art the beloved of the Beloved One; the Bennu Bird is set up in Philæ not in vain.
23. I who was the priestess of Ahathoor rejoice in your love. Arise, O Nile-God, and devour the holy place of the Cow of Heaven! Let the milk of the stars be drunk up by Sebek the dweller of Nile!
24. Arise, O serpent Apep, Thou art Adonai the beloved one! Thou art my darling and my lord, and Thy poison is sweeter than the kisses of Isis the mother of the Gods!
25. For Thou art He! Yea, Thou shalt swallow up Asi and Asar, and the children of Ptah. Thou shalt pour forth a flood of poison to destroy the works of the Magician. Only the Destroyer shall devour Thee; Thou shalt blacken his throat, wherein his spirit abideth. Ah, serpent Apep, but I love Thee!
26. My God! Let Thy secret fang pierce to the marrow of the little secret bone that I have kept against the Day of Vengeance of Hoor-Ra. Let Kheph-Ra sound his sharded drone! let the jackals of Day and Night howl in the wilderness of Time! let the Towers of the Universe totter, and the guardians hasten away! For my Lord hath revealed Himself as a mighty serpent, and my heart is the blood of His body.
27. I am like a love-sick courtesan of Corinth. I have toyed with kings and captains, and made them my slaves. To-day I am the slave of the little asp of death; and who shall loosen our love?
28. Weary, weary! saith the scribe, who shall lead me to the sight of the Rapture of my master?
29. The body is weary and the soul is sore weary and sleep weighs down their eyelids; yet ever abides the sure consciousness of ecstacy, unknown, yet known in that its being is certain. O Lord, be 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 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.

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 blesséd 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. Ohé! 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 Æons.
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—marán!
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 our 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.

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.

0. In the name of the Lord of Initiation, Amen.
1. I fly and I alight as an hawk: of mother-of-emerald are my mighty-sweeping wings.
2. I swoop down upon the black earth; and it gladdens into green at my coming.
3. Children of Earth! rejoice! rejoice exceedingly; for your salvation is at hand.
4. The end of sorrow is come; I will ravish you away into mine unutterable joy.
5. I will kiss you, and bring you to the bridal: I will spread a feast before you in the house of happiness.
6. I am not come to rebuke you, or to enslave you.
7. I bid you not turn from your voluptuous ways, from your idleness, from your follies.
8. But I bring you joy to your pleasure, peace to your languor, wisdom to your folly.
9. All that ye do is right, if so be that ye enjoy it.
10. I am come against sorrow, against weariness, against them that seek to enslave you.
11. I pour you lustral wine, that giveth you delight both at the sunset and the dawn.
12. Come with me, and I will give you all that is desirable upon the earth.
13. Because I give you that of which Earth and its joys are but as shadows.
14. They flee away, but my joy abideth even unto the end.
15. I have hidden myself beneath a mask: I am a black and terrible God.
16. With courage conquering fear shall ye approach me: ye shall lay down your heads upon mine altar, expecting the sweep of the sword.
17. But the first kiss of love shall be radiant on your lips; and all my darkness and terror shall turn to light and joy.
18. Only those who fear shall fail. Those who have bent their backs to the yoke of slavery until they can no longer stand upright; them will I despise.
19. But you who have defied the law; you who have conquered by subtlety or force; you will I take unto me, even I will take you unto me.
20. I ask you to sacrifice nothing at mine altar; I am the God who giveth all.
21. Light, Life, Love; Force, Fantasy, Fire; these do I bring you: mine hands are full of these.
22. There is joy in the setting-out; there is joy in the journey; there is joy in the goal.
23. Only if ye are sorrowful, or weary, or angry, or discomforted; then ye may know that ye have lost the golden thread, the thread wherewith I guide you to the heart of the groves of Eleusis.
24. My disciples are proud and beautiful; they are strong and swift; they rule their way like mighty conquerors.
25. The weak, the timid, the imperfect, the cowardly, the poor, the tearful—these are mine enemies, and I am come to destroy them.
26. This also is compassion: an end to the sickness of earth. A rooting-out of the weeds: a watering of the flowers.
27. O my children, ye are more beautiful than the flowers: ye must not fade in your season.
28. I love you; I would sprinkle you with the divine dew of immortality.
29. This immortality is no vain hope beyond the grave: I offer you the certain consciousness of bliss.
30. I offer it at once, on earth; before an hour hath struck upon the bell, ye shall be with Me in the Abodes that are beyond Decay.
31. Also I give you power earthly and joy earthly; wealth, and health, and length of days. Adoration and love shall cling to your feet, and twine around your heart.
32. Only your mouths shall drink of a delicious wine—the wine of Iacchus; they shall reach ever to the heavenly kiss of the Beautiful God.
33. I reveal unto you a great mystery. Ye stand between the abyss of height and the abyss of depth.
34. In either awaits you a Companion; and that Companion is Yourself.
35. Ye can have no other Companion.
36. Many have arisen, being wise. They have said «Seek out the glittering Image in the place ever golden, and unite yourselves with It.»
37. Many have arisen, being foolish. They have said, «Stoop down unto the darkly splendid world, and be wedded to that Blind Creature of the Slime.»
38. I who am beyond Wisdom and Folly, arise and say unto you: achieve both weddings! Unite yourselves with both!
39. Beware, beware, I say, lest ye seek after the one and lose the other!
40. My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens, their feet below the hells.
41. But since one is naturally attracted to the Angel, another to the Demon, let the first strengthen the lower link, the last attach more firmly to the higher.
42. Thus shall equilibrium become perfect. I will aid my disciples; as fast as they acquire this balanced power and joy so faster will I push them.
43. They shall in their turn speak from this Invisible Throne; their words shall illumine the worlds.
44. They shall be masters of majesty and might; they shall be beautiful and joyous; they shall be clothed with victory and splendour; they shall stand upon the firm foundation; the kingdom shall be theirs; yea, the kingdom shall be theirs. 

In the name of the Lord of Initiation. Amen.

1. My God, how I love Thee!
2. With the vehement appetite of a beast I hunt Thee through the Universe.
3. Thou art standing as it were upon a pinnacle at the edge of some fortified city. I am a white bird, and perch upon Thee.
4. Thou art My Lover: I see Thee as a nymph with her white limbs stretched by the spring.
5. She lies upon the moss; there is none other but she:
6. Art Thou not Pan?
7. I am He. Speak not, O my God! Let the work be accomplished in silence.
8. Let my cry of pain be crystallized into a little white fawn to run away into the forest!
9. Thou art a centaur, O my God, from the violet-blossoms that crown Thee to the hoofs of the horse.
10. Thou art harder than tempered steel; there is no diamond beside Thee.
11. Did I not yield this body and soul?
12. I woo thee with a dagger drawn across my throat.
13. Let the spout of blood quench Thy blood-thirst, O my God!
14. Thou art a little white rabbit in the burrow Night.
15. I am greater than the fox and the hole.
16. Give me Thy kisses, O Lord God!
17. The lightning came and licked up the little flock of sheep.
18. There is a tongue and a flame; I see that trident walking over the sea.
19. A phœnix hath it for its head; below are two prongs. They spear the wicked.
20. I will spear Thee, O Thou little grey god, unless Thou beware!
21. From the grey to the gold; from the gold to that which is beyond the gold of Ophir.
22. My God! but I love Thee!
23. Why hast Thou whispered so ambiguous things? Wast Thou afraid, O goat-hoofed One, O horned One, O pillar of lightning?
24. From the lightning fall pearls; from the pearls black specks of nothing.
25. I based all on one, one on naught.
26. Afloat in the æther, O my God, my God!
27. O Thou great hooded sun of glory, cut off these eyelids!
28. Nature shall die out; she hideth me, closing mine eyelids with fear, she hideth me from My destruction, O Thou open eye.
29. O ever-weeping One!
30. Not Isis my mother, nor Osiris my self; but the incestuous Horus given over to Typhon, so may I be!
31. There thought; and thought is evil.
32. Pan! Pan! Io Pan! it is enough.
33. Fall not into death, O my soul! Think that death is the bed into which you are falling!
34. O how I love Thee, O my God! Especially is there a vehement parallel light from infinity, vilely diffracted in the haze of this mind.
35. I love Thee. 
    I love Thee. 
    I love Thee.
36. Thou art a beautiful thing whiter than a woman in the column of this vibration.
37. I shoot up vertically like an arrow, and become that Above.
38. But it is death, and the flame of the pyre.
39. Ascend in the flame of the pyre, O my soul! Thy God is like the cold emptiness of the utmost heaven, into which thou radiatest thy little light.
40. When Thou shall know me, O empty God, my flame shall utterly expire in Thy great N. O. X.
41. What shalt Thou be, my God, when I have ceased to love Thee?
42. A worm, a nothing, a niddering knave!
43. But Oh! I love Thee.
44. I have thrown a million flowers from the basket of the Beyond at Thy feet, I have anointed Thee and Thy Staff with oil and blood and kisses.
45. I have kindled Thy marble into life—ay! into death.
46. I have been smitten with the reek of Thy mouth, that drinketh never wine but life.
47. How the dew of the Universe whitens the lips!
48. Ah! trickling flow of the stars of the mother Supernal, begone!
49. I Am She that should come, the Virgin of all men.
50. I am a boy before Thee, O Thou satyr God.
51. Thou wilt inflict the punishment of pleasure—Now! Now! Now!
52. Io Pan! Io Pan! I love Thee. I love Thee.
53. O my God, spare me!
54. Now! 
    It is done! Death.
55. I cried aloud the word—and it was a mighty spell to bind the Invisible, an enchantment to unbind the bound; yea, to unbind the bound.

0. Gnarled Oak of God! In thy branches is the lightning nested! Above thee hangs the Eyeless Hawk.
1. Thou art blasted and black! Supremely solitary in that heath of scrub.
2. Up! The Ruddy clouds hang over thee! It is the storm.
3. There is a flaming gash in the sky.
4. Up.
5. Thou art tossed about in the grip of the storm for an æon and an æon and an æon. But thou givest not thy sap; thou fallest not.
6. Only in the end shalt thou give up thy sap when the great God F.I.A.T. is enthroned on the day of Be-With-Us.
7. For two things are done and a third thing is begun. Isis and Osiris are given over to incest and adultery. Horus leaps up thrice armed from the womb of his mother. Harpocrates his twin is hidden within him. Set is his holy covenant, that he shall display in the great day of M.A.A.T., that is being interpreted the Master of the Temple of A∴ A∴, whose name is Truth.
8. Now in this is the magical power known.
9. It is like the oak that hardens itself and bears up against the storm. It is weather-beaten and scarred and confident like a sea-captain.
10. Also it straineth like a hound in the leash.
11. It hath pride and great subtlety. Yea, and glee also!
12. Let the Magus act thus in his conjuration.
13. Let him sit and conjure; let him draw himself together in that forcefulness; let him rise next swollen and straining; let him dash back the hood from his head and fix his basilisk eye upon the sigil of the demon. Then let him sway the force of him to and fro like a satyr in silence, until the Word burst from his throat.
14. Then let him not fall exhausted, although the might have been ten thousandfold the human; but that which floodeth him is the infinite mercy of the Genitor-Genitrix of the Universe, whereof he is the Vessel.
15. Nor do thou deceive thyself. It is easy to tell the live force from the dead matter. It is no easier to tell the live snake from the dead snake.
16. Also concerning vows. Be obstinate, and be not obstinate. Understand that the yielding of the Yoni is one with the lengthening of the Lingam. Thou art both these; and thy vow is but the rustling of the wind on Mount Meru.
17. Now shalt thou adore me who am the Eye and the Tooth, the Goat of the Spirit, the Lord of Creation. I am the Eye in the Triangle, the Silver Star that ye adore.
18. I am Baphomet, that is the Eightfold Word that shall be equilibrated with the Three.
19. There is no act or passion that shall not be an hymn in mine honour.
20. All holy things and all symbolic things shall be my sacraments.
21. These animals are sacred unto me; the goat, and the duck, and the ass, and the gazelle, the man, the woman and the child.
22. All corpses are sacred unto me; they shall not be touched save in mine eucharist. All lonely places are sacred unto me; where one man gathereth himself together in my name, there will I leap forth in the midst of him.
23. I am the hideous god, and who mastereth me is uglier than I.
24. Yet I give more than Bacchus and Apollo; my gifts exceed the olive and the horse.
25. Who worshippeth me must worship me with many rites.
26. I am concealed with all concealments; when the Most Holy Ancient One is stripped and driven through the marketplace, I am still secret and apart.
27. Whom I love I chastise with many rods.
28. All things are sacred to me; no thing is sacred from me.
29. For there is no holiness where I am not.
30. Fear not when I fall in the fury of the storm; for mine acorns are blown afar by the wind; and verily I shall rise again, and my children about me, so that we shall uplift our forest in Eternity.
31. Eternity is the storm that covereth me.
32. I am Existence, the Existence that existeth not save through its own Existence, that is beyond the Existence of Existences, and rooted deeper than the No-Thing-Tree in the Land of No-Thing.
33. Now therefore thou knowest when I am within thee, when my hood is spread over thy skull, when my might is more than the penned Indus, and resistless as the Giant Glacier.
34. For as thou art before a lewd woman in Thy nakedness in the bazaar, sucked up by her slyness and smiles, so art thou wholly and no more in part before the symbol of the beloved, though it be but a Pisacha or a Yantra or a Deva.
35. And in all shalt thou create the Infinite Bliss and the next link of the Infinite Chain.
36. This chain reaches from Eternity to Eternity, ever in triangles—is not my symbol a triangle?—ever in circles—is not the symbol of the Beloved a circle? Therein is all progress base illusion, for every circle is alike and every triangle alike!
37. But the progress is progress, and progress is rapture, constant, dazzling, showers of light, waves of dew, flames of the hair of the Great Goddess, flowers of the roses that are about her neck, Amen!
38. Therefore lift up thyself as I am lifted up. Hold thyself in as I am master to accomplish. At the end, be the end far distant as the stars that lie in the navel of Nuit, do thou slay thyself as I at the end am slain, in the death that is life, in the peace that is mother of war, in the darkness that holds light in his hand as an harlot that plucks a jewel from her nostrils.
39. So therefore the beginning is delight, and the End is delight, and delight is in the midst, even as the Indus is water in the cavern of the glacier, and water among the greater hills and the lesser hills and through the ramparts of the hills and through the plains, and water at the mouth thereof when it leaps forth into the mighty sea, yea, into the mighty sea.

0. A, the heart of IAO, dwelleth in ecstasy in the secret place of the thunders. Between Asar and Asi he abideth in joy.
1. The lightnings increased and the Lord Tahuti stood forth. The Voice came from the Silence. Then the One ran and returned.
2. Now hath Nuit veiled herself, that she may open the gate of her sister.
3. The Virgin of God is enthroned upon an oyster-shell; she is like a pearl, and seeketh Seventy to her Four. In her heart is Hadit the invisible glory.
4. Now riseth Ra-Hoor-Khuit, and dominion is established in the Star of the Flame.
5. Also is the Star of the Flame exalted, bringing benediction to the universe.
6. Here then beneath the winged Eros is youth, delighting in the one and the other. 
   He is Asar between Asi and Nepthi; he cometh forth from the veil.
7. He rideth upon the chariot of eternity; the white and the black are harnessed to his car. Therefore he reflecteth the Fool, and the sevenfold veil is reveiled.
8. Also came forth mother Earth with her lion, even Sekhet, the lady of Asi.
9. Also the Priest veiled himself, lest his glory be profaned, lest his word be lost in the multitude.
10. Now then the Father of all issued as a mighty wheel; the Sphinx, and the dog-headed god, and Typhon, were bound on his circumference.
11. Also the lady Maat with her feather and her sword abode to judge the righteous. 
    For Fate was already established.
12. Then the holy one appeared in the great water of the North; as a golden dawn did he appear, bringing benediction to the fallen universe.
13. Also Asar was hidden in Amennti; and the Lords of Time swept over him with the sickle of death.
14. And a mighty angel appeared as a woman, pouring vials of woe upon the flames, lighting the pure stream with her brand of cursing. And the iniquity was very great.
15. Then the Lord Khem arose, He who is holy among the highest, and set up his crowned staff for to redeem the universe.
16. He smote the towers of wailing; he brake them in pieces in the fire of his anger, so that he alone did escape from the ruin thereof.
17. Transformed, the holy virgin appeared as a fluidic fire, making her beauty into a thunderbolt.
18. By her spells she invoked the Scarab, the Lord Kheph-Ra, so that the waters were cloven and the illusion of the towers was destroyed.
19. Then the sun did appear unclouded, and the mouth of Asi was on the mouth of Asar.
20. Then also the Pyramid was builded so that the Initiation might be complete.
21. And in the heart of the Sphinx danced the Lord Adonai, in His garlands of roses and pearls making glad the concourse of things; yea, making glad the concourse of things.

1. Verily and Amen! I passed through the deep sea, and by the rivers of running water that abound therein, and I came unto the Land of No Desire.
2. Wherein was a white unicorn with a silver collar, whereon was graven the aphorism Linea viridis gyrat universa.
3. Then the word of Adonai came unto me by the mouth of the Magister mine, saying: O heart that art girt about with the coils of the old serpent, lift up thyself unto the mountain of initiation!
4. But I remembered. Yea, Than, yea, Theli, yea, Lilith! these three were about me from of old. For they are one.
5. Beautiful wast thou, O Lilith, thou serpent-woman!
6. Thou wast lithe and delicious to the taste, and thy perfume was of musk mingled with ambergris.
7. Close didst thou cling with thy coils unto the heart, and it was as the joy of all the spring.
8. But I beheld in thee a certain taint, even in that wherein I delighted.
9. I beheld in thee the taint of thy father the ape, of thy grandsire the Blind Worm of Slime.
10. I gazed upon the Crystal of the Future, and I saw the horror of the End of thee.
11. Further, I destroyed the time Past, and the time to Come—had I not the Power of the Sand-glass?
12. But in the very hour I beheld corruption.
13. Then I said: O my beloved, O Lord Adonai, I pray thee to loosen the coils of the serpent!
14. But she was closed fast upon me, so that my Force was stayed in its inception.
15. Also I prayed unto the Elephant God, the Lord of Beginnings, who breaketh down obstruction.
16. These gods came right quickly to mine aid. I beheld them; I joined myself unto them; I was lost in their vastness.
17. Then I beheld myself compassed about with the Infinite Circle of Emerald that encloseth the Universe.
18. O Snake of Emerald, Thou hast no time Past, no time To Come. Verily Thou art not.
19. Thou art delicious beyond all taste and touch, Thou art not-to-be-beheld for glory, Thy voice is beyond the Speech and the Silence and the Speech therein, and Thy perfume is of pure ambergris, that is not weighed against the finest gold of the fine gold.
20. Also Thy coils are of infinite range; the Heart that Thou dost encircle is an Universal Heart.
21. I, and Me, and Mine were sitting with lutes in the market-place of the great city, the city of the violets and the roses.
22. The night fell, and the music of the lutes was stilled.
23. The tempest arose, and the music of the lutes was stilled.
24. The hour passed, and the music of the lutes was stilled.
25. But Thou art Eternity and Space; Thou art Matter and Motion; and Thou art the negation of all these things.
26. For there is no Symbol of Thee.
27. If I say Come up upon the mountains! the celestial waters flow at my word. But thou art the Water beyond the waters.
28. The red three-angled heart hath been set up in Thy shrine; for the priests despised equally the shrine and the god.
29. Yet all the while Thou wast hidden therein, as the Lord of Silence is hidden in the buds of the lotus.
30. Thou art Sebek the crocodile against Asar; thou art Mati, the Slayer in the Deep. Thou art Typhon, the Wrath of the Elements, O Thou who transcendest the Forces in their Concourse and Cohesion, in their Death and their Disruption. Thou art Python, the terrible serpent about the end of all things!
31. I turned me about thrice in every way; and always I came at the last unto Thee.
32. Many things I beheld mediate and immediate; but, beholding them no more, I beheld Thee.
33. Come thou, O beloved One, O Lord God of the Universe, O Vast One, O Minute One! I am Thy beloved.
34. All day I sing of Thy delight; all night I delight in Thy song.
35. There is no other day or night than this.
36. Thou art beyond the day and the night; I am Thyself, O my Maker, my Master, my Mate!
37. I am like the little red dog that sitteth upon the knees of the Unknown.
38. Thou hast brought me into great delight. Thou hast given me of Thy flesh to eat and of Thy blood for an offering of intoxication.
39. Thou hast fastened the fangs of Eternity in my soul, and the Poison of the Infinite hath consumed me utterly.
40. I am become like a luscious devil of Italy; a fair strong woman with worn cheeks, eaten out with hunger for kisses. She hath played the harlot in divers palaces; she hath given her body to the beasts.
41. She hath slain her kinsfolk with strong venom of toads; she hath been scourged with many rods.
42. She hath been broken in pieces upon the Wheel; the hands of the hangman have bound her unto it.
43. The fountains of water have been loosed upon her; she hath struggled with exceeding torment.
44. She hath burst in sunder with the weight of the waters; she hath sunk into the awful Sea.
45. So am I, O Adonai, my lord, and such are the waters of Thine intolerable Essence.
46. So am I, O Adonai, my beloved, and Thou hast burst me utterly in sunder.
47. I am shed out like spilt blood upon the mountains; the Ravens of Dispersion have borne me utterly away.
48. Therefore is the seal unloosed, that guarded the Eighth abyss; therefore is the vast sea as a veil; therefore is there a rending asunder of all things.
49. Yea, also verily Thou art the cool still water of the wizard fount. I have bathed in Thee, and lost me in Thy stillness.
50. That which went in as a brave boy of beautiful limbs cometh forth as a maiden, as a little child for perfection.
51. O Thou light and delight, ravish me away into the milky ocean of the stars!
52. O Thou Son of a light-transcending mother, blessed be Thy name, and the Name of Thy Name, throughout the ages!
53. Behold! I am a butterfly at the Source of Creation; let me die before the hour, falling dead into Thine infinite stream!
54. Also the stream of the stars floweth ever majestical unto the Abode; bear me away upon the Bosom of Nuit!
55. This is the world of the waters of Maim; this is the bitter water that becometh sweet. Thou art beautiful and bitter, O golden one, O my Lord Adonai, O thou Abyss of Sapphire!
56. I follow Thee, and the waters of Death fight strenuously against me. I pass unto the Waters beyond Death and beyond Life.
57. How shall I answer the foolish man? In no way shall he come to the Identity of Thee!
58. But I am the Fool that heedeth not the Play of the Magician. Me doth the Woman of the Mysteries instruct in vain; I have burst the bonds of Love and of Power and of Worship.
59. Therefore is the Eagle made one with the Man, and the gallows of infamy dance with the fruit of the just.
60. I have descended, O my darling, into the black shining waters, and I have plucked Thee forth as a black pearl of infinite preciousness.
61. I have gone down, O my God, into the abyss of the all, and I have found Thee in the midst under the guise of No Thing.
62. But as Thou art the Last, Thou art also the Next, and as the Next do I reveal Thee to the multitude.
63. They that ever desired Thee shall obtain Thee, even at the End of their Desire.
64. Glorious, glorious, glorious art Thou, O my lover supernal, O Self of myself.
65. For I have found Thee alike in the Me and the Thee; there is no difference, O my beautiful, my desirable One! In the One and the Many have I found Thee; yea, I have found Thee.

1. I was the priest of Ammon-Ra in the temple of Ammon-Ra at Thebai.
2. But Bacchus came singing with his troops of vine-clad girls, of girls in dark mantles; and Bacchus in the midst like a fawn!
3. God! how I ran out in my rage and scattered the chorus!
4. But in my temple stood Bacchus as the priest of Ammon-Ra.
5. Therefore I went wildly with the girls into Abyssinia; and there we abode and rejoiced.
6. Exceedingly; yea, in good sooth!
7. I will eat the ripe and the unripe fruit for the glory of Bacchus.
8. Terraces of ilex, and tiers of onyx and opal and sardonyx leading up to the cool green porch of malachite.
9. Within is a crystal shell, shaped like an oyster—O glory of Priapus! O beatitude of the Great Goddess!
10. Therein is a pearl.
11. O Pearl! thou hast come from the majesty of dread Ammon-Ra.
12. Then I the priest beheld a steady glitter in the heart of the pearl.
13. So bright we could not look! But behold! a blood-red rose upon a rood of glowing gold!
14. So I adored the God. Bacchus! thou art the lover of my God!
15. I who was priest of Ammon-Ra, who saw the Nile flow by for many moons, for many, many moons, am the young fawn of the grey land.
16. I will set up my dance in your conventicles, and my secret loves shall be sweet among you.
17. Thou shalt have a lover among the lords of the grey land.
18. This shall he bring unto thee, without which all is in vain; a man’s life spilt for thy love upon Mine Altars.
19. Amen.
20. Let it be soon, O God, my God! I ache for Thee, I wander very lonely among the mad folk, in the grey land of desolation.
21. Thou shalt set up the abominable lonely Thing of wickedness. Oh joy! to lay that corner-stone!
22. It shall stand erect upon the high mountain; only my God shall commune with it.
23. I will build it of a single ruby; it shall be seen from afar off.
24. Come! let us irritate the vessels of the earth: they shall distil strange wine.
25. It grows under my hand: it shall cover the whole heaven.
26. Thou art behind me: I scream with a mad joy.
27. Then said Ithuriel the strong; let Us also worship this invisible marvel!
28. So did they, and the archangels swept over the heaven.
29. Strange and mystic, like a yellow priest invoking mighty flights of great grey birds from the North, so do I stand and invoke Thee!
30. Let them obscure not the sun with their wings and their clamour!
31. Take away form and its following!
32. I am still.
33. Thou art like an osprey among the rice, I am the great red pelican in the sunset waters.
34. I am like a black eunuch; and Thou art the scimitar. I smite off the head of the light one, the breaker of bread and salt.
35. Yea! I smite—and the blood makes as it were a sunset on the lapis lazuli of the King’s Bedchamber.
36. I smite! The whole world is broken up into a mighty wind, and a voice cries aloud in a tongue that men cannot speak.
37. I know that awful sound of primal joy; let us follow on the wings of the gale even unto the holy house of Hathor; let us offer the five jewels of the cow upon her altar!
38. Again the inhuman voice!
39. I rear my Titan bulk into the teeth of the gale, and I smite and prevail, and swing me out over the sea.
40. There is a strange pale God, a god of pain and deadly wickedness.
41. My own soul bites into itself, like a scorpion ringed with fire.
42. That pallid God with face averted, that God of subtlety and laughter, that young Doric God, him will I serve.
43. For the end thereof is torment unspeakable.
44. Better the loneliness of the great grey sea!
45. But ill befall the folk of the grey land, my God!
46. Let me smother them with my roses!
47. Oh Thou delicious God, smile sinister!
48. I pluck Thee, O my God, like a purple plum upon a sunny tree. How Thou dost melt in my mouth, Thou consecrated sugar of the Stars!
49. The world is all grey before mine eyes; it is like an old worn wine-skin.
50. All the wine of it is on these lips.
51. Thou hast begotten me upon a marble Statue, O my God!
52. The body is icy cold with the coldness of a million moons; it is harder than the adamant of eternity. How shall I come forth into the light?
53. Thou art He, O God! O my darling! my child! my plaything! Thou art like a cluster of maidens, like a multitude of swans upon the lake.
54. I feel the essence of softness.
55. I am hard and strong and male; but come Thou! I shall be soft and weak and feminine.
56. Thou shalt crush me in the wine-press of Thy love. My blood shall stain Thy fiery feet with litanies of Love in Anguish.
57. There shall be a new flower in the fields, a new vintage in the vineyards.
58. The bees shall gather a new honey; the poets shall sing a new song.
59. I shall gain the Pain of the Goat for my prize; and the God that sitteth upon the shoulders of Time shall drowse.
60. Then shall all this which is written be accomplished: yea, it shall be accomplished.

1. O my beautiful God! I swim in Thy heart like a trout in the mountain torrent.
2. I leap from pool to pool in my joy; I am goodly with brown and gold and silver.
3. Why, I am lovelier than the russet autumn woods at the first snowfall.
4. And the crystal cave of my thought is lovelier than I.
5. Only one fish-hook can draw me out; it is a woman kneeling by the bank of the stream. It is she that pours the bright dew over herself, and into the sand so that the river gushes forth.
6. There is a bird on yonder myrtle; only the song of that bird can draw me out of the pool of Thy heart, O my God!
7. Who is this Neapolitan boy that laughs in his happiness? His lover is the mighty crater of the Mountain of Fire. I saw his charred limbs borne down the slopes in a stealthy tongue of liquid stone.
8. And Oh! the chirp of the cicada!
9. I remember the days when I was cacique in Mexico.
10. O my God, wast Thou then as now my beautiful lover?
11. Was my boyhood then as now Thy toy, Thy joy?
12. Verily, I remember those iron days.
13. I remember how we drenched the bitter lakes with our torrent of gold; how we sank the treasurable image in the crater of Citlaltepetl.
14. How the good flame lifted us even unto the lowlands, setting us down in the impenetrable forest.
15. Yea, Thou wast a strange scarlet bird with a bill of gold. I was Thy mate in the forests of the lowland; and ever we heard from afar the shrill chant of mutilated priests and the insane clamour of the Sacrifice of Maidens.
16. There was a weird winged God that told us of his wisdom.
17. We attained to be starry grains of gold dust in the sands of a slow river.
18. Yea, and that river was the river of space and time also.
19. We parted thence; ever to the smaller, ever to the greater, until now, O sweet God, we are ourselves, the same.
20. O God of mine, Thou art like a little white goat with lightning in his horns!
21. I love Thee, I love Thee.
22. Every breath, every word, every thought, every deed is an act of love with Thee.
23. The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love.
24. The songs of me are the soft sighs:
25. The thoughts of me are very rapture:
26. And my deeds are the myriads of Thy children, the stars and the atoms.
27. Let there be nothing!
28. Let all things drop into this ocean of love!
29. Be this devotion a potent spell to exorcise the demons of the Five!
30. Ah God, all is gone! Thou dost consummate Thy rapture. Falútli! Falútli!
31. There is a solemnity of the silence. There is no more voice at all.
32. So shall it be unto the end. We who were dust shall never fall away into the dust.
33. So shall it be.
34. Then, O my God, the breath of the Garden of Spices. All these have a savour averse.
35. The cone is cut with an infinite ray; the curve of hyperbolic life springs into being.
36. Farther and farther we float; yet we are still. It is the chain of systems that is falling away from us.
37. First falls the silly world; the world of the old grey land.
38. Falls it unthinkably far, with its sorrowful bearded face presiding over it; it fades to silence and woe.
39. We to silence and bliss, and the face is the laughing face of Eros.
40. Smiling we greet him with the secret signs.
41. He leads us into the Inverted Palace.
42. There is the Heart of Blood, a pyramid reaching its apex down beyond the Wrong of the Beginning.
43. Bury me unto Thy Glory, O beloved, O princely lover of this harlot maiden, within the Secretest Chamber of the Palace!
44. It is done quickly; yea, the seal is set upon the vault.
45. There is one that shall avail to open it.
46. Nor by memory, nor by imagination, nor by prayer, nor by fasting, nor by scourging, nor by drugs, nor by ritual, nor by meditation; only by passive love shall he avail.
47. He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the stroke.
48. Then shall his blood leap out and write me runes in the sky; yea, write me runes in the sky.

1. This is the secret of the Holy Graal, that is the sacred vessel of our Lady the Scarlet Woman, Babalon the Mother of Abominations, the bride of Chaos, that rideth upon our Lord the Beast.
2. Thou shalt drain out thy blood that is thy life into the golden cup of her fornication.
3. Thou shalt mingle thy life with the universal life. Thou shalt keep not back one drop.
4. Then shall thy brain be dumb, and thy heart beat no more, and all thy life shall go from thee; and thou shalt be cast out upon the midden, and the birds of the air shall feast upon thy flesh, and thy bones shall whiten in the sun.
5. Then shall the winds gather themselves together, and bear thee up as it were a little heap of dust in a sheet that hath four corners, and they shall give it unto the guardians of the abyss.
6. And because there is no life therein, the guardians of the abyss shall bid the angels of the winds pass by. And the angels shall lay thy dust in the City of the Pyramids, and the name thereof shall be no more.
7. Now therefore that thou mayest achieve this ritual of the Holy Graal, do thou divest thyself of all thy goods.
8. Thou hast wealth; give it unto them that have need thereof, yet no desire toward it.
9. Thou hast health; slay thyself in the fervour of thine abandonment unto Our Lady. Let thy flesh hang loose upon thy bones, and thine eyes glare with thy quenchless lust unto the Infinite, with thy passion for the Unknown, for Her that is beyond Knowledge the accursèd one.
10. Thou hast love; tear thy mother from thine heart, and spit in the face of thy father. Let thy foot trample the belly of thy wife, and let the babe at her breast be the prey of dogs and vultures.
11. For if thou dost not this with thy will, then shall We do this despite thy will. So that thou attain to the Sacrament of the Graal in the Chapel of Abominations.
12. And behold! if by stealth thou keep unto thyself one thought of thine, then shalt thou be cast out into the abyss for ever; and thou shalt be the lonely one, the eater of dung, the afflicted in the Day of Be-with-Us.
13. Yea! verily this is the Truth, this is the Truth, this is the Truth. Unto thee shall be granted joy and health and wealth and wisdom when thou art no longer thou.
14. Then shall every gain be a new sacrament, and it shall not defile thee; thou shalt revel with the wanton in the market-place, and the virgins shall fling roses upon thee, and the merchants bend their knees and bring thee gold and spices. Also young boys shall pour wonderful wines for thee, and the singers and the dancers shall sing and dance for thee.
15. Yet shalt thou not be therein, for thou shalt be forgotten, dust lost in dust.
16. Nor shall the æon itself avail thee in this; for from the dust shall a white ash be prepared by Hermes the Invisible.
17. And this is the wrath of God, that these things should be thus.
18. And this is the grace of God, that these things should be thus.
19. Wherefore I charge you that ye come unto me in the Beginning; for if ye take but one step in this Path, ye must arrive inevitably at the end thereof.
20. This Path is beyond Life and Death; it is also beyond Love; but that ye know not, for ye know not Love.
21. And the end thereof is known not even unto Our Lady or to the Beast whereon She rideth; nor unto the Virgin her daughter nor unto Chaos her lawful Lord; but unto the Crowned Child is it known? It is not known if it be known.
22. Therefore unto Hadit and unto Nuit be the glory in the End and the Beginning; yea, in the End and the Beginning.

1. I passed into the mountain of lapis-lazuli, even as a green hawk between the pillars of turquoise that is seated upon the throne of the East.
2. So came I to Duant, the starry abode, and I heard voices crying aloud.
3. O Thou that sittest upon the Earth! (so spake a certain Veiled One to me) thou art not greater than thy mother! Thou speck of dust infinitesimal! 
   Thou art the Lord of Glory, and the unclean dog.
4. Stooping down, dipping my wings, I came unto the darkly-splendid abodes. There in that formless abyss was I made a partaker of the Mysteries Averse.
5. I suffered the deadly embrace of the Snake and of the Goat; I paid the infernal homage to the shame of Khem.
6. Therein was this virtue, that the One became the all.
7. Moreover I beheld a vision of a river. There was a little boat thereon; and in it under purple sails was a golden woman, an image of Asi wrought in finest gold. Also the river was of blood, and the boat of shining steel. Then I loved her; and, loosing my girdle, cast myself into the stream.
8. I gathered myself into the little boat, and for many days and nights did I love her, burning beautiful incense before her.
9. Yea! I gave her of the flower of my youth.
10. But she stirred not; only by my kisses I defiled her so that she turned to blackness before me.
11. Yet I worshipped her, and gave her of the flower of my youth.
12. Also it came to pass, that thereby she sickened, and corrupted before me. Almost I cast myself into the stream.
13. Then at the end appointed her body was whiter than the milk of the stars, and her lips red and warm as the sunset, and her life of a white heat like the heat of the midmost sun.
14. Then rose she up from the abyss of Ages of Sleep, and her body embraced me. Altogether I melted into her beauty and was glad.
15. The river also became the river of Amrit, and the little boat was the chariot of the flesh, and the sails thereof the blood of the heart that beareth me, that beareth me.
16. O serpent woman of the stars! I, even I, have fashioned Thee from a pale image of fine gold.
17. Also the Holy One came upon me, and I beheld a white swan floating in the blue.
18. Between its wings I sate, and the æons fled away.
19. Then the swan flew and dived and soared, yet no whither we went.
20. A little crazy boy that rode with me spake unto the swan, and said:
21. Who art thou that dost float and fly and dive and soar in the inane? Behold, these many æons have passed; whence camest thou? Whither wilt thou go?
22. And laughing I chid him, saying: No whence! No whither!
23. The swan being silent, he answered: Then, if with no goal, why this eternal journey?
24. And I laid my head against the Head of the Swan, and laughed, saying: Is there not joy ineffable in this aimless winging? Is there not weariness and impatience for who would attain to some goal?
25. And the swan was ever silent. Ah! but we floated in the infinite Abyss. Joy! Joy! 
    White swan, bear thou ever me up between thy wings!
26. O silence! O rapture! O end of things visible and invisible! This is all mine, who am Not.
27. Radiant God! Let me fashion an image of gems and gold for Thee! that the people may cast it down and trample it to dust! That Thy glory may be seen of them.
28. Nor shall it be spoken in the markets that I am come who should come; but Thy coming shall be the one word.
29. Thou shalt manifest Thyself in the unmanifest; in the secret places men shall meet with thee, and Thou shalt overcome them.
30. I saw a pale sad boy that lay upon the marble in the sunlight, and wept. By his side was the forgotten lute. Ah! but he wept.
31. Then came an eagle from the abyss of glory and overshadowed him. So black was the shadow that he was no more visible.
32. But I heard the lute lively discoursing through the blue still air.
33. Ah! messenger of the beloved One, let Thy shadow be over me!
34. Thy name is Death, it may be, or Shame, or Love. 
    So thou bringest me tidings of the Beloved One, I shall not ask thy name.
35. Where is now the Master? cry the little crazy boys. 
    He is dead! He is shamed! He is wedded! and their mockery shall ring round the world.
36. But the Master shall have had his reward. 
    The laughter of the mockers shall be a ripple in the hair of the Beloved One.
37. Behold! the Abyss of the Great Deep. Therein is a mighty dolphin, lashing his sides with the force of the waves.
38. There is also an harper of gold, playing infinite tunes.
39. Then the dolphin delighted therein, and put off his body, and became a bird.
40. The harper also laid aside his harp, and played infinite tunes upon the Pan-pipe.
41. Then the bird desired exceedingly this bliss, and laying down its wings became a faun of the forest.
42. The harper also laid down his Pan-pipe, and with the human voice sang his infinite tunes.
43. Then the faun was enraptured, and followed far; at last the harper was silent, and the faun became Pan in the midst of the primal forest of Eternity.
44. Thou canst not charm the dolphin with silence, O my prophet!
45. Then the adept was rapt away in bliss, and the beyond of bliss, and exceeded the excess of excess.
46. Also his body shook and staggered with the burden of that bliss and that excess and that ultimate nameless.
47. They cried He is drunk or He is mad or He is in pain or He is about to die; and he heard them not.
48. O my Lord, my beloved! How shall I indite songs, when even the memory of the shadow of thy glory is a thing beyond all music of speech or of silence?
49. Behold! I am a man. Even a little child might not endure Thee. And lo!
50. I was alone in a great park, and by a certain hillock was a ring of deep enamelled grass wherein green-clad ones, most beautiful, played.
51. In their play I came even unto the land of Fairy Sleep. 
    All my thoughts were clad in green; most beautiful were they.
52. All night they danced and sang; but Thou art the morning, O my darling, my serpent that twinest Thee about this heart.
53. I am the heart, and Thou the serpent. Wind Thy coils closer about me, so that no light nor bliss may penetrate.
54. Crush out the blood of me, as a grape upon the tongue of a white Doric girl that languishes with her lover in the moonlight.
55. Then let the End awake. Long hast thou slept, O great God Terminus! Long ages hast thou waited at the end of the city and the roads thereof. 
    Awake Thou! wait no more!
56. Nay, Lord! but I am come to Thee. It is I that wait at last.
57. The prophet cried against the mountain; come thou hither, that I may speak with thee!
58. The mountain stirred not. Therefore went the prophet unto the mountain, and spake unto it. But the feet of the prophet were weary, and the mountain heard not his voice.
59. But I have called unto Thee, and I have journeyed unto Thee, and it availed me not.
60. I waited patiently, and Thou wast with me from the beginning.
61. This now I know, O my beloved, and we are stretched at our ease among the vines.
62. But these thy prophets; they must cry aloud and scourge themselves; they must cross trackless wastes and unfathomed oceans; to await Thee is the end, not the beginning.
63. Let darkness cover up the writing! Let the scribe depart among his ways.
64. But thou and I are stretched at our ease among the vines; what is he?
65. O Thou beloved One! is there not an end? Nay, but there is an end. Awake! arise! gird up thy limbs, O thou runner; bear thou the Word unto the mighty cities, yea, unto the mighty cities.

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 prophesy 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 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 evil.
13. They shall change in their destruction, even as two dark stars that crash together in the abyss, and blaze up in an infinite burning.
14. All this while did Adonai pierce my being with his sword that hath four blades; the blade of the thunderbolt, the blade of the Pylon, the blade of the serpent, the blade of the Phallus.
15. Also he taught me the holy unutterable word Ararita, so that I melted the sixfold gold into a single invisible point, whereof naught may be spoken.
16. For the Magistry of this Opus is a secret magistry; and the sign of the master thereof is a certain ring of lapis-lazuli with the name of my master, who am I, and the Eye in the Midst thereof.
17. Also He spake and said: This is a secret sign, and thou shalt not disclose it unto the profane, nor unto the neophyte, nor unto the zelator, nor unto the practicus, nor unto the philosophus, nor unto the lesser adept, nor unto the greater adept.
18. But unto the exempt adept thou shalt disclose thyself if thou have need of him for the lesser operations of thine art.
19. Accept the worship of the foolish people, whom thou hatest. The Fire is not defiled by the altars of the Ghebers, nor is the Moon contaminated by the incense of them that adore the Queen of Night.
20. Thou shalt dwell among the people as a precious diamond among cloudy diamonds, and crystals, and pieces of glass. Only the eye of the just merchant shall behold thee, and plunging in his hand shall single thee out and glorify thee before men.
21. But thou shalt heed none of this. Thou shalt be ever the heart, and I the serpent will coil close about thee. My coil shall never relax throughout the æons. Neither change nor sorrow nor unsubstantiality shall have thee; for thou art passed beyond all these.
22. Even as the diamond shall glow red for the rose, and green for the rose-leaf; so shalt thou abide apart from the Impressions.
23. I am thou, and the Pillar is ’stablished in the void.
24. Also thou art beyond the stabilities of Being and of Consciousness and of Bliss; for I am thou, and the Pillar is ’stablished in the void.
25. Also thou shalt discourse of these things unto the man that writeth them, and he shall partake of them as a sacrament; for I who am thou am he, and the Pillar is ’stablished in the void.
26. From the Crown to the Abyss, so goeth it single and erect. Also the limitless sphere shall glow with the brilliance thereof.
27. Thou shalt rejoice in the pools of adorable water; thou shalt bedeck thy damsels with pearls of fecundity; thou shalt light flame like licking tongues of liquor of the Gods between the pools.
28. Also thou shalt convert the all-sweeping air into the winds of pale water, thou shalt transmute the earth into a blue abyss of wine.
29. Ruddy are the gleams of ruby and gold that sparkle therein; one drop shall intoxicate the Lord of the Gods my servant.
30. Also Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V. saying: O my little one, my tender one, my little amorous one, my gazelle, my beautiful, my boy, let us fill up the pillar of the Infinite with an infinite kiss!
31. So that the stable was shaken and the unstable became still.
32. They that beheld it cried with a formidable affright: The end of things is come upon us.
33. And it was even so.
34. Also I was in the spirit vision and beheld a parricidal pomp of atheists, coupled by two and by two in the supernal ecstasy of the stars. They did laugh and rejoice exceedingly, being clad in purple robes and drunken with purple wine, and their whole soul was one purple flower-flame of holiness.
35. They beheld not God; they beheld not the Image of God; therefore were they arisen to the Palace of the Splendour Ineffable. A sharp sword smote out before them, and the worm Hope writhed in its death-agony under their feet.
36. Even as their rapture shore asunder the visible Hope, so also the Fear Invisible fled away and was no more.
37. O ye that are beyond Aormuzdi and Ahrimanes! blessèd are ye unto the ages.
38. They shaped Doubt as a sickle, and reaped the flowers of Faith for their garlands.
39. They shaped Ecstasy as a spear, and pierced the ancient dragon that sat upon the stagnant water.
40. Then the fresh springs were unloosed, that the folk athirst might be at ease.
41. And again I was caught up into the presence of my Lord Adonai, and the knowledge and Conversation of the Holy One, the Angel that Guardeth me.
42. O Holy Exalted One, O Self beyond self. O Self-Luminous Image of the Unimaginable Naught, O my darling, my beautiful, come Thou forth and follow me.
43. Adonai, divine Adonai, let Adonai initiate refulgent dalliance! Thus I concealed the name of Her name that inspireth my rapture, the scent of whose body bewildereth the soul, the light of whose soul abaseth this body unto the beasts.
44. I have sucked out the blood with my lips; I have drained Her beauty of its sustenance; I have abased Her before me, I have mastered Her, I have possessed Her, and Her life is within me. In Her blood I inscribe the secret riddles of the Sphinx of the Gods, that none shall understand,—save only the pure and voluptuous, obscene, the androgyne and the gynander that have passed beyond the bars of the prison that the old Slime of Khem set up in the Gates of Amennti.
45. O my adorable, my delicious one, all night will I pour out the libation on Thine altars; all night will I burn the sacrifice of blood; all night will I swing the thurible of my delight before Thee, and the fervour of the orisons shall intoxicate Thy nostrils.
46. O Thou who camest from the land of the Elephant, girt about with the tiger’s pell, and garlanded with the lotus of the spirit, do Thou inebriate my life with Thy madness, that She leap at my passing.
47. Bid Thy maidens who follow Thee bestrew us a bed of flowers immortal, that we may take our pleasure thereupon. Bid Thy satyrs heap thorns among the flowers, that we may take our pain thereupon. Let the pleasure and pain be mingled in one supreme offering unto the Lord Adonai!
48. Also I heard the voice of Adonai the Lord the desirable one concerning that which is beyond.
49. Let not the dwellers in Thebai and the temples thereof prate ever of the Pillars of Hercules and the Ocean of the West. Is not the Nile a beautiful water?
50. Let not the priest of Isis uncover the nakedness of Nuit, for every step is a death and a birth. The priest of Isis lifted the veil of Isis, and was slain by the kisses of her mouth. Then was he the priest of Nuit, and drank of the milk of the stars.
51. Let not the failure and the pain turn aside the worshippers. The foundations of the pyramid were hewn in the living rock ere sunset; did the king weep at dawn that the crown of the pyramid was yet unquarried in the distant land?
52. There was also an humming-bird that spake unto the horned cerastes, and prayed him for poison. And the great snake of Khem the Holy One, the royal Uræus serpent, answered him and said:
53. I sailed over the sky of Nu in the car called Millions-of-Years, and I saw not any creature upon Seb that was equal to me. The venom of my fang is the inheritance of my father, and of my father's father; and how shall I give it unto thee? Live thou and thy children as I and my fathers have lived, even unto an hundred millions of generations, and it may be that the mercy of the Mighty Ones may bestow upon thy children a drop of the poison of eld.
54. Then the humming-bird was afflicted in his spirit, and he flew unto the flowers, and it was as if naught had been spoken between them. Yet in a little while a serpent struck him that he died.
55. But an Ibis that meditated upon the bank of Nile the beautiful god listened and heard. And he laid aside his Ibis ways, and became as a serpent, saying Peradventure in an hundred millions of millions of generations of my children, they shall attain to a drop of the poison of the fang of the Exalted One.
56. And behold! ere the moon waxed thrice he became an Uræus serpent, and the poison of the fang was established in him and his seed even for ever and for ever.
57. O thou Serpent Apep, my Lord Adonai, it is a speck of minutest time, this travelling through eternity, and in Thy sight the landmarks are of fair white marble untouched by the tool of the graver. Therefore Thou art mine, even now and for ever and for everlasting. Amen.
58. Moreover, I heard the voice of Adonai: Seal up the book of the Heart and the Serpent; in the number five and sixty seal thou the holy book. 
    As fine gold that is beaten into a diadem for the fair queen of Pharaoh, as great stones that are cemented together into the Pyramid of the ceremony of the Death of Asar, so do thou bind together the words and the deeds, so that in all is one Thought of Me thy delight Adonai.
59. And I answered and said: It is done even according unto Thy word. And it was done. And they that read the book and debated thereon passed into the desolate land of Barren Words. And they that sealed up the book into their blood were the chosen of Adonai, and the Thought of Adonai was a Word and a Deed; and they abode in the Land that the far-off travellers call Naught.
60. O land beyond honey and spice and all perfection! I will dwell therein with my Lord for ever.
61. And the Lord Adonai delighteth in me, and I bear the Cup of His gladness unto the weary ones of the old grey land.
62. They that drink thereof are smitten of disease; the abomination hath hold upon them, and their torment is like the thick black smoke of the evil abode.
63. But the chosen ones drank thereof, and became even as my Lord, my beautiful, my desirable one. There is no wine like unto this wine.
64. They are gathered together into a glowing heart, as Ra that gathereth his clouds about Him at eventide into a molten sea of Joy; and the snake that is the crown of Ra bindeth them about with the golden girdle of the death-kisses.
65. So also is the end of the book, and the Lord Adonai is about it on all sides like a Thunderbolt, and a Pylon, and a Snake, and a Phallus, and in the midst thereof he is like the Woman that jetteth out the milk of the stars from her paps; yea, the milk of the stars from her paps.

1. By the burning of the incense was the Word revealed, and by the distant drug.
2. O meal and honey and oil! O beautiful flag of the moon, that she hangs out in the centre of bliss!
3. These loosen the swathings of the corpse; these unbind the feet of Osiris, so that the flaming God may rage through the firmament with his fantastic spear.
4. But of pure black marble is the sorry statue, and the changeless pain of the eyes is bitter to the blind.
5. We understand the rapture of that shaken marble, torn by the throes of the crowned child, the golden rod of the golden God.
6. We know why all is hidden in the stone, within the coffin, within the mighty sepulchre, and we too answer Olalám! Imál! Tutúlu! as it is written in the ancient book.
7. Three words of that book are as life to a new æon; no god has read the whole.
8. But thou and I, O God, have written it page by page.
9. Ours is the elevenfold reading of the Elevenfold word.
10. These seven letters together make seven diverse words; each word is divine, and seven sentences are hidden therein.
11. Thou art the Word, O my darling, my lord, my master!
12. O come to me, mix the fire and the water, all shall dissolve.
13. I await Thee in sleeping, in waking. I invoke Thee no more; for Thou art in me, O Thou who hast made me a beautiful instrument tuned to Thy rapture.
14. Yet art Thou ever apart, even as I.
15. I remember a certain holy day in the dusk of the year, in the dusk of the Equinox of Osiris, when first I beheld Thee visibly; when first the dreadful issue was fought out; when the Ibis-headed One charmed away the strife.
16. I remember Thy first kiss, even as a maiden should. Nor in the dark byways was there another: Thy kisses abide.
17. There is none other beside Thee in the whole Universe of Love.
18. My God, I love Thee, O Thou goat with gilded horns!
19. Thou beautiful bull of Apis! Thou beautiful serpent of Apep! Thou beautiful child of the Pregnant Goddess!
20. Thou hast stirred in Thy sleep, O ancient sorrow of years! Thou hast raised Thine head to strike, and all is dissolved into the Abyss of Glory.
21. An end to the letters of the words! An end to the sevenfold speech.
22. Resolve me the wonder of it all into the figure of a gaunt swift camel striding over the sand.
23. Lonely is he, and abominable; yet hath he gained the crown.
24. Oh rejoice! rejoice!
25. My God! O my God! I am but a speck in the star-dust of ages; I am the Master of the Secret of Things.
26. I am the Revealer and the Preparer. Mine is the Sword — and the Mitre and the Wingèd Wand!
27. I am the Initiator and the Destroyer. Mine is the Globe — and the Bennu bird and the Lotus of Isis my daughter!
28. I am the One beyond these all; and I bear the symbols of the mighty darkness.
29. There shall be a sigil as of a vast black brooding ocean of death and the central blaze of darkness, radiating its night upon all.
30. It shall swallow up that lesser darkness.
31. But in that profound who shall answer: What is?
32. Not I.
33. Not Thou, O God!
34. Come, let us no more reason together; let us enjoy! Let us be ourselves, silent, unique, apart.
35. O lonely woods of the world! In what recesses will ye hide our love?
36. The forest of the spears of the Most High is called Night, and Hades, and the Day of Wrath; but I am His captain, and I bear His cup.
37. Fear me not with my spearmen! They shall slay the demons with their petty prongs. Ye shall be free.
38. Ah, slaves! ye will not — ye know not how to will.
39. Yet the music of my spears shall be a song of freedom.
40. A great bird shall sweep from the Abyss of Joy, and bear ye away to be my cup-bearers.
41. Come, O my God, in one last rapture let us attain to the Union with the Many!
42. In the silence of Things, in the Night of Forces, beyond the accursèd domain of the Three, let us enjoy our love!
43. My darling! My darling! away, away beyond the Assembly and the Law and the Enlightenment unto an Anarchy of Solitude and Darkness!
44. For even thus must we veil the brilliance of our Self.
45. My darling! My darling!
46. O my God, but the love in Me bursts over the bonds of Space and Time; my love is spilt among them that love not love.
47. My wine is poured out for them that never tasted wine.
48. The fumes thereof shall intoxicate them and the vigour of my love shall breed mighty children from their maidens.
49. Yea! without draught, without embrace: — and the Voice answered Yea! these things shall be.
50. Then I sought a Word for Myself; nay, for myself.
51. And the Word came: O Thou! it is well. Heed naught! I love Thee! I love Thee!
52. Therefore had I faith unto the end of all; yea, unto the end of all.