“If you seek aught save the kingdom of the spirit then it were better for you to leave me here, and go down to the caves of your dead, where the crownèd heads of yore hold court in their tombs and may still be bestowing honours upon the bones of your forefathers.
“Dare you tempt me with a crown of dross, when my forehead seeks the Pleiades, or else your thorns?
“Were it not for a dream dreamed by a forgotten race I would not suffer your sun to rise upon my patience, nor your moon to throw my shadow across your path.
“Were it not for a mother’s desire I would have stripped me of the swaddling-clothes and escaped back to space.
“And were it not for sorrow in all of you I would not have stayed to weep.
“Who are you and what are you, Judas Iscariot? And why do you tempt me?
“Have you in truth weighed me in the scale and found me one to lead legions of pygmies, and to direct chariots of the shapeless against an enemy that encamps only in your hatred and marches nowhere but in your fear?
“Too many are the worms that crawl about my feet, and I will give them no battle. I am weary of the jest, and weary of pitying the creepers who deem me coward because I will not move among their guarded walls and towers.
“Pity it is that I must needs pity to the very end. Would that I could turn my steps towards a larger world where larger men dwell. But how shall I?
“Your priest and your emperor would have my blood. They shall be satisfied ere I go hence. I would not change the course of the law. And I would not govern folly.