The Equinox (Volume I, Number V)

THE RITE OF LUNA But—God ! I was not content With the blasphemous secret ofyears ; The veil is hardly rent While the eyes rain stones for tears So I clung to the lips and laughed As the storms of death abated, The storms of the grievous graft By the swing of her soul unsatedi Wherefore reborn as I am By a stream profane and foul, In the reign of a Tortured Lamb, In the realm ofa sexless Owl, I am set apart from the rest By meed ofthe mystic rune That reads in peril and pest The ambrosial moon—the moon ! For under the tawny star That shines in the Bull above I can rein the riotous car Of galloping, galloping Love ; And straight to the steady ray Of the Lion-heart Lord I career, Pointing my flaming way With the spasm of night for a spear! Ο moon! O secret sweet! chalcedony clouds of caresses About the flame of our feet, The night of our terrible tresses ! Is it a wonder, then, If the people are mad with blindness, And nothing is stranger to men Than silence, and wisdom, and kindness? Nay! let him fashion an arrow Whose heart is sober and stout ! Let him pierce his God to the marrow! Let the soul of his God flow out! 117