Your obstinate coldness pierces me to the heart.
Does it not suffice that you have bled my veins
till I faint? Does ichor taste better than blood?
What greater proofs do you need? Shall I say:
“I will strangle hate, old age, and mortality,
all in your name?” Shall it be said of me:
“He hated death so much that death came to be?”
Can I survive the taint? Can you save me?
Yet one last proof will I give you before your
indifference freezes my free-flowing heart.
It is this: that one day (and you shall name it)—
I will have each of them on their knees,
a rolling sea of filth wrapped in silk and fur
half an inch from my feet, salivating mouths
contorted with a request more precious
than the “yes” I would squeeze from your lips,
the choicest of my rubies: “Give me Versailles,
or let life and light be taken from me!”
I will give them Versailles. I will give them
my golden Versailles, my all-encompassing
Versailles, the most glorious mausoleum
they can ask for. Kings will offer me their lives,
their wives, the nonexistent weight of their coffers,
all to step on my threshold, kiss my feet, and sleep
the sweet, lover-like, everlasting sleep that God
knows, parbleu, will never suffice for me.