The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

III 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. 1o. 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? 77