XVII – The Star
The daughter of the Firmament
The dweller between the waters
NUIT, OUR LADY OF THE STARS!
EVENT IS ALL THY PLAY, SUBLIME EXPERIMENT!
I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith,
while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy;
nor do I demand aught in sacrifice.
But to love me is better than all things:
if under the night stars in the desert thou presently burnest
mine incense before me, invoking me with a
pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein,
thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom.
I love you! I yearn to you!
Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and
drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you.
Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you:
come unto me!
I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset;
I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.
Nuit
(Liber AL vel Legis)
Nuit cries: “I love you,” like a lover; when even John reached only to the cold impersonal proposition “God is love.” She woos like a mistress; whispers “To me !” in every ear; Jesus, with needless verb, appeals vehemently to them “that labour and are heavy laden.” Yet he can promise in the present, says: “I give unimaginable joys on earth,” making life worth while; “certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death,” the electric light Knowledge for the churchyard corpsecandle Faith, making life fear-free, and death itself worth while: “peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy,” making mind and body at ease that soul may be free to transcend them when It will.
–
(“The equinox of the Gods” – Remarks on Liber AL vel Legis)
Aleister Crowley
