THE ELECTRIC SILENCE
[This parable is a synopsis of The Temple of Solomon the King, with which
it may be collated—Eu].
I WAITED for news that my heart beat.
The severing night
was between me and my love.
There was no god of sleep;
sleep were traitor.
I sought to praise my love, and to lament
the hours that divided us;
and I could not.
Therefore I
wrote down the story of my life.
And it is this:
*
*
*
3
*
Gilded and painted to hide its worm—eaten planks, my
pleasure—boat was foundering.
I cursed the treachery of the
workmen, and resolved to trust myself to my own arms rather
than to abide any longer therein.
No sooner had I taken off my clothes and plunged into
the river than I perceived that it was now become dark.
On
the one hand glowed a star, curious indeed, but of no great
brightness,
and promising but little; while on the other
was a sombre and fantastic lamp, whose fascination was
its horror.
If I swam lazily towards either of these, it was because
their light, confused and difficult on the one part, and tenebrous
on the other, was yet light in comparison with that aimless
and abiding gloom which had now settled upon the bosom of
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