Oh How I Hate People!

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

Years On End, And Swords On End - Where Will It End, If Our Ears Unbend - What Shall I Spend On A Wrinkled Friend In A Pair Of Tights Like A Bunch Of Lights?

Through Her, In Microcosm, The Wide Earth Sobbed. The Starglobe Sank In Her; The Colours Faded. The Death-dew Rose And The Wild Birds In Her Breast Climbed To Her Throat And Gathered Songless, Hovering, All Tumult, Wing To Wing, So Ardent For Those Climes Where All Things End.

The Crumbling Castle, Looming Among The Mists, Exhaled The Season, And Every Cold Stone Breathed It Out. The Tortured Trees By The Dark Lake Burned And Dripped, Their Leaves Snatched By The Wind Were Whirled In Wild Circles Through The Towers. The Clouds Mouldered As They Lay Coiled, Or Shifted Themselves Uneasily Upon The Stone Skyfield, Sending Up Wreathes That Drifted Through The Turrets And Swarmed Up Hidden Walls.

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.