At night, about my sacred grove, seventy bronze cows hold vigil; a thousand gay stone-lamps glimmer. On a red lacquer throne I sit in the Holy of Holies. Above me through the entablature of sandalwood pricked out in a square stand the stars. I blink! If I should rise now, my ivory shoulders would shatter the roof; the heaven I made to be, beneath which I dammed the circling sea, whose blue bloomed myriad years because of me, would tumble and the great, dazzling, egg-shaped diamond upon my smooth, green, brazen, shallow-vaulted, bold, broad, pensive brow would thrust through the moon! Shall I ... once more ... found myself upon my ruin? Shall I ... reconstruct ... the World-Naught? ... Shall I ... annul ... the Whole that I wrought? I ... No! The fat priests may snore peacefully. I ... I shall not arise! I shall sit with my legs crossed under me, thinking of this, thinking of that, feel how the clouds travel through my brain, and mirror myself in my navel. This is a bleeding ruby in a naked belly of gold! |