I will eat the black sweat of niggers
And flagellate them with whips.
I shall be enormously myself,
Incarnate Chin.”
The anguish of thinking ill of oneself
(St. Paul’s religion, poignant beyond words)
Turns ere you know it to faint minor thirds
Before the ritualistic pomps of the world—
The glass-grey silver of rivers, silken skies unfurled,
Urim and Thummim of dawn and sun-setting,