High in the ancient forest the magnolias burn the perfect alban lucence
of their lamps; white are their ivory cups like priestly linen, and
fragrant with the tang of foreign citrons. An esoteric, mirrored swan
slides by like Cleopatra's barge, while drums of color beaten by a
maniac blend with old tints of Leonardo's dreams, colors that God might
see if his own lightning blasted out his eyes.
This march of color chants a strange barbaric fitness of dithyrambic
chords, and moves processional across the days like some encarnadined
durbar, where a huge Ethiopian eunuch in red moon-shaped slippers and an
orange turban walks with a glittering scimetar, leading a brace of
sleepy leopards drugged and golden eyed; the caparisoned elephants swing
down a latticed street; silk shawls hang from balconies, brushing the
domed gilt of howdahs; and ruby-roped, the maharajahs sway behind the
mahout with his peavey-goad.
The stark denial of the blue-ribbed sky looks down upon this garden,
where the wantonness of earth is flaunted in the spring against the face
of heaven's void sterility.
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