Today's story is Creatures of Light and Darkness. I went back and forth on the poem for this one, almost landing on Darkness, by Lord Byron. It's a lovely bit of writing (I mean, obviously) and matching them would be a little on the nose, but I've never let that stop me before. (Ahem)
However, I found what I feel is a better representation. The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats. It's been a while since I've read the book, and the thing that strikes me about it now isn't the assorted deities (Anubis, Osiris, Thoth and Set) or the vast collection of mythical weirdos (Dargoth, Typhon, The Red Witch of the Loggia, Madrak, Vramin, the Norns, The Thing That Cries In The Night) but the overwhelming ache of loss that informs the whole thing.
“Pity, poor Angel of the Seventh Station.” “That title perished with the Station.” “In exile, the aristocracy always tends to preserve small items pertaining to rank.”
and
“Hail,” says Anubis, softly, “Master of the House of Fire—which is no more.”
Anomie is typically understood to be synonymous with "normlessness", but Emile Durkheim never used it that way. However, he occasionally employed the phrase, "the malady of the infinite", which seems perfect for these demigods who wander without purpose.
(Also, sorry if you were expecting Comus or A Divine Image for this one. They serve as great epigraphs and I think Divine Image is wonderful for the Steel General in particular but Second Coming is better for the story as a whole.)
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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