The God-Eater

16 o’ the time !—cold, logical to a fault !—Ay ! and a crime, acrime at which the stars shake in the heaven ; men might think. Yet the stars, I will wager, are indifferent. True, the news has not reached them : true, that star I see is not a star; it was so six, ten, twenty thousand years ago— logical, I say !—and I will drink, for parenthetical is a poor substitute— [Drinks.] Why, how thou fir’st me! with that icy fire Of adamant thought. It well befits this hour If I recoil the chain whose last smooth link Slides o’er Time’s cogwheel. In the beginning then The vastness of the heavens and the earth Created the idea of God. So Levi once Sarcastic in apostasy ; @ rebourse. So Miller, mythopoeic in his mood Of the unmasking mythopoeia. Now Profounder science, Spencer’s amplitude, Allen’s too shallow erudition, Frazer’s Research, find men have made—since men made aught— Their Gods, and slain, and eaten. Surface ! I, Criosda of the Mist, see truth in all Rather than truth in none. Below the rite The sight ! Beyond the priest, the power! Above The sense, the soul ! So men who made their gods Did make in very deed : so I will make In uttermost truth a new god, since the old Are dead, or drunk with wine, and soma-juice And hemp and opium ! Maurya, thou shalt be ! So for long years I have dared. First the twin death