Advances in a godlike wreath
Of its own wrath. Chilled by such fragile reeling
A hundred blows of a boot-heel
Shall not quell, the dreamer wakes and hungers.
Percussive pulses, drum or gong,
Build in his skull their loud entrancement,
Volutions of a Hindu dance.
His hands move clumsily in the first conventional
Gestures of assent.
He is willing to undergo the volition and fervor
Of many fleshlike arms, observe
These in their holiness of indirection
Destroy, adore, evolve, reject—
Till on glass rigid with his own seizure
At length the sucking jewels freeze.
Here is yet another reference to Shiva’s dance of death and rebirth – evolution following destruction. It alludes to the dynamic and chaotic turbulence of the universe, in which the human soul is tossed, as if in an epileptic seizure (referenced in the next line).
The Octopus