Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/195
And far down the muzzle of the fight
You shall find me, who am neither increase
Nor destruction, different quite.
The horizons of love and strife.
Like a star, like a pond
That washes the lords of life.”
“Listen!” said Ramón, in the stillness. “We will be masters among men, and lords among men. But lords of men, and masters of men we will not be. Listen! We are lords of the night. Lords of the day and night. Sons of the Morning Star, sons of the Evening Star. Men of the Morning and the Evening Star.
“We are not lords of men: how can men make us lords? Nor are we masters of men, for men are not worth it.
“But I am the Morning and the Evening and lord of the day and the night. By the power that is put in my left hand, and the power that I grasp in my right, I am lord of two ways.
“And my flower on earth is the jasmine flower, in heaven the flower Hesperus.
“I will not command you, nor serve you, for the goes crooked to his own house,
“Yet I will be with you, so you depart from yourselves.
“There is no giving, and no taking. When the fingers that give touch the fingers that receive, the Morning Star shines at once, from the contact, and the jasmine gleams between the hands. And thus there is neither giving nor taking, nor hand that proffers nor hand that receives, but the star between them is all, and the dark hand and the light hand are invisible on each side. The jasmine takes the giving and the receiving in her cup, and the scent of the oneness is fragrant on the air.
“Think neither to give nor to receive, only let the jasmine flower.
“Let nothing spill you in excess, let nothing be reived from you.
“And reive nothing away. Not even the scent from the