THE EQUINOX
Love, and her love is one, and she hath divided the one love
into infinite loves, and each love is one, and equal with The
One, and therefore is she passed “from the assembly and the
law and the enlightenment unto the anarchy of solitude and
darkness. For ever thus must she veil the brilliance of Her
Self.”
O Babylon, Babylon, thou mighty Mother, that ridest
upon the crownéd beast, let me be drunken upon the wine of
thy fornications; let thy kisses wanton me unto death, that
even I, thy cup-bearer, may understand.
Now, through the ruddy glow of the cup, I may perceive
far above, and infinitely great, the vision of Babylon. And
the Beast whereon she rideth is the Lord of the City of the
Pyramids, that I beheld in the fourteenth Aethyr.
Now that is gone in the glow of the cup, and the Angel
saith: Not as yet mayest thou understand the mystery of the
Beast, for it pertaineth not unto the mystery of this Aire,
and few that are new-born unto Understanding are capable
thereof.
The cup glows ever brighter and fierier. All my sense is
unsteady, being smitten with ecstasy.
And the Angel sayeth: Blessed are the saints, that their
blood is mingled in the cup, and can never be separate any
more. For Babylon the Beautiful, the Mother of abomina-
tions, hath sworn by her holy cteis, whereof every point is a
pang, that she will not rest from her adulteries until the blood
of everything that liveth is gathered therein, and the wine
thereof laid up and matured and consecrated, and worthy to
gladden the heart of my Father. For my Father is weary
with the stress of eld, and cometh not to her bed. Yet shall
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