THE KOH-I-NOOR

THE KOH-I-NOOR

THE KOH-I-NOOR

Here, in this tower,
Bound by gold clamps to thin walls of gold,
 
I, who am pure mineral, neither mortal nor ghost,
Remain doomed to abide.
 
Of those who are sent here only the living escape.
 
I endure the doom of rock,
Inhabited by light and never at home –
 
No, never, never for a minute
Since I was taken from the stomach of this earth,
 
Except, perhaps, through the week I dreamed unguarded,
Unpraised and unpossessed,
 
In the waistcoat pocket of a British lieutenant
Who thought me worthless.
 
Most men who held me beheld only what I showed them,
And I saw much that their pride could not begin to see,
 
Though monarch and vassal alike,
Minion and minister, eunuch and page,
 
Cupbearer, concubine, courtesan and queen,
Only rarely guessed that I was watching.
 
I have seen too many blindings,
 
Too many trembling of oil lamps
In mirrored paternal halls usurped by the young:
 
The banishment of music,
And the nervous weaving of recalcitrant cotton,
 
Where fountains had leaped and the peacock once danced;
 
Too many orgies, too much opium, and too much penitence,
 
Too many depraved flailings in the courtyards of mosques,
 
And self-assured mastectomies of prurient goddesses,
By incensed, believing hands,
 
To be moved or repulsed, intrigued or deceived.
 
These things I have seen, and seen myself too often now,
In the sculpted faces of mute attendants,
 
While ailing emperors fondled me in slumber,
 
Then woke before death,
Envious of my transparence, but unaware of my gaze,
 
Staring right through me with opiate eyes
Or eyes vermilion with wine.
 
I, who have never cared to be a seer,
Have seen these things
 
And ask only now,
To be sheltered from the light that can never be mine.
 
Return me to the mines,
Carry me back to the dark that scorned me.