The Vision and the Voice

THE EQUINOX Glory be unto thee, who didst set thy feet in the North; whose forehead is pierced with the sharp points of the diamonds in thy crown; whose heart is pierced with the spear of thine own fecundity. Thou art an egg of blackness, and a worm of poison. But thou hast formulated thy father, and made fertile thy mother. Thou art the basilisk whose gaze turns men to stone, and the cockatrice at the breast of an harlot that giveth death for milk. Thou art the asp that has stolen into the cradle of the babe. Glory unto thee, who art twined about the world as the vine that clingeth to the bare body of a bacchanal. Also, though I be planted so firmly upon the earth, yet is my blood wine and my breath fire of madness. With these wings, though they be but little, I lift myself above the crown of the yod, and being without fins I yet swim in the inviolate fountain. I disport myself in the ruins of Eden, even as Leviathan in the false sea, being whole as the rose at the crown of the cross. Come ye unto me, my children, and be glad. At the end of labour is the power of labour. And in my stability is concentrated eternal change. For the whirlings of the universe are but the course of the blood in my heart. And the unspeakable variety thereof is but my divers hairs, and plumes, and gems in my tall crown. The change which ye lament is the life of my rejoicing, and the sorrow that blackeneth your hearts is the myriad deaths by which I am renewed. And the instability which maketh ye to fear, is the little waverings of balance by which I am assured. And now the veil of silver tissue-stuff closes over him, and above that, a purple veil, and above that, a golden veil, 30