( me / via )

Estrella.

"Doubtless, he would soon be on his feet again, but to what end? Merely to resume the old persecuted life, still achieving, still pursuing, that strictly congruous penalty which waits upon the man whose life is one protracted challenge to a world wherein no person except the systematic and successful hypocrite has too many friends, or too good a character." --Furphy

God's Incarnation.

"Castilian

Velasquez took a pliant knife
   And scraped his palette clean;
He said, 'I lead a dog's own life
   Painting a king and queen.'

He cleaned his palette with oily rags
   And oakum from Seville wharves;
'I am sick of painting painted hags
   And bad ambiguous dwarves.

'The sky is silver, the clouds are pearl,
   Their locks are looped with rain.
I will not paint Maria's girl
   For all the money in Spain.'

He washed his face in water cold,
   His hands in turpentine;
He squeezed out colour like coins of gold
   And colour like drops of wine.

Each colour lay like a little pool
   On the polished cedar wood;
Clear and pale and ivory-cool
   Or dark as solitude.

He burnt the rags in the fireplace
   And leaned from the window high;
He said, 'I like that gentleman's face
   Who wears his cap awry.'

This is the gentleman, there he stands,
   Castilian, sombre-caped,
With arrogant eyes, and narrow hands
   Miraculously shaped."

--Elinor Wylie

Orion.