I gained it; I
confronted the spectre monarchs in their sepulchre; and the same hand
that grasped their shadowy rule hath seized the diadem of the mighty
caliphs by the broad rushing of their imperial river.
'The world is mine: and shall I yield the prize, the universal and
heroic prize, to realise the dull tradition of some dreaming priest,
and consecrate a legend? He conquered Asia, and he built the temple. Are
these my annals? Shall this quick blaze of empire sink to a glimmering
and a twilight sway over some petty province, the decent patriarch of a
pastoral horde? Is the Lord of Hosts so slight a God, that we must place
a barrier to His sovereignty, and fix the boundaries of Omnipotence
between the Jordan and the Lebanon? It is not thus written; and were it
so, I'll pit my inspiration against the prescience of my ancestors.
I also am a prophet, and Bagdad shall be my Zion. The daughter of
the Voice! Well, I am clearly summoned. I am the Lord's servant, not
Jabaster's. Let me make His worship universal as His power; and where's
the priest shall dare impugn my faith, because His altars smoke on other
hills than those of Judah?
'I must see Honain. That man has a great mind. He alone can comprehend
my purpose.
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