Towards democracy

18 Towards Democracy

Now underneath the earth on which you walk I sport in the fire of Hell ;

Satan is my friend and vicious blood-spilling lusts and © clenched teeth push the way for me to destruction. I dance in the flames and will claw every one in: take care how you cross me!

Your talk of goodness I despise. To every conceivable sin I hold out my hand. My touch blackens you. I crawl © forth out of slime and worms and blink at the sun. I press my way madly through the gallows-crowd to him who bears my reprieve held up on high.

This is the Cross; these are the eyes of Christ—and of the crossing-sweeper ;

This is the Divine love which encloses and redeems all evil. Ah! here is peace!

Flat curtains hang round me in every direction (as they hang round you), and behind them the live people go dancing and laughing: but we are not going to be baffled.

Sex still goes first, and hands eyes mouth brain follow; from the midst of belly and thighs radiate the knowledge ‘of self, religion, and immortality. .

XII The clods press suffocating closer and closer—grit and filth accumulate in the eyes and mouth, I can neither see nor speak—the devil and the worms dance around.