I Am Clever Enough To

The Earth Swirls Down Through The Ominous Moons Of Preconsidered Generations.

The Moon Slid Inexorably Into Its Zenith, The Shadows Shrivelling To The Feet Of All That Cast Them, And As Rantel Approached The Hollow At The Hem Of The Twisted Woods He Was Treading In A Pool Of His Own Midnight.

There Is A Kind Of Laughter That Sickens The Soul. Laughter When It Is Out Of Control: When It Screams And Stamps Its Feet, And Sets The Bells Jangling In The Next Town. Laughter In All Its Ignorance And Cruelty. Laughter With The Seed Of Satan In It. It Tramples Upon Shrines; The Belly-roarer. It Roars, It Yells, It Is Delirious: And Yet It Is As Cold As Ice. It Has No Humor. It Is Naked Noise And Naked Malice.

Countless Candles Dribbled With Hot Wax, And Their Flames, Like Little Flags, Fluttered In The Unchartered Currents Of Air. Thousands Of Lamps, Naked, Or Shuttered Behind Coloured Glass, Burned With Their Glows Of Purple, Amber, Grass-green, Blue, Blood Red And Even Grey. The Walls Of Gormenghast Were Like The Walls Of Paradise Or Like The Walls Of An Inferno. The Colours Were Devilish Or Angelical According To The Colour Of The Mind That Watched Them. They Swam, Those Walls, With The Hues Of Hell, With The Tints Of Zion. The Breasts Of The Plumaged Seraphim; The Scales Of Satan.

He Saw In Happiness The Seeds Of Independence, And In Independence The Seeds Of Revolt.