Your fate is of your choosing: have your choice!

Wander the world,—God has some end to serve,

Ere he suppress you! He waits: I endure,

But interpose no finger-tip, forsooth,

To stop your passage to the pit. Enough

That I am stable, uninvolved by you

In the rush downwards: free I gaze and fixed;

Your smiles, your tears, prayers, curses move alike

My crowned contempt. You kneel? Prostrate yourself!

To earth, and would the whole world saw you there!"