Art thou not the light unto my fire? Hast thou not the sister-soul unto mine insight?
Together we have learnt everything; together we have learnt to ascend above ourselves unto ourselves and to smile cloudless—
To smile down cloudless from bright eyes and from a distance of many miles, when below us compulsion and purpose and guilt steam like rain.
And when I wandered alone,—for what did my soul hunger in nights and labyrinthine paths? And when climbing mountains,—for whom did I ever search, unless for thee, on mountains?
And all my wandering and mountain-climbing,—it was only a necessity and a make-shift of the helpless one. Flying is the only thing my will willeth, flying into thee!
And whom could I hate more than wandering clouds and all that defileth thee! And I even hated mine own hatred because it defiled thee!
I bear a grudge unto wandering clouds, those stealthy cats of prey. They take from thee and me what we have in common,—that immense, that infinite saying of Yea and Amen.
We bear a grudge unto these mediators and mixers, the wandering clouds; those half-and-half-ones who neither learnt how to bless nor curse from the bottom of their soul.
I will rather sit in the barrel, with the sky shut
