The Poet's Heart - scene IV

(Eliza puts down the whisky and soda, then goes and stokes the fire. John, lying back in front of it, stares abstractedly up out of the window.)
John (more to himself) : They're so damned pretty when the sky's still pale. They do sparkling without effort, without haste. A million million miles high. A million million years old.
The implacable indifference of infinity: serene and above all impersonal.
The only beauty is impersonal.
All that serenity must have been hung there to make us prickle with shame!
Look at it, Princess.
(Reflecting his mood, she looks and, after a moment, nods, still looking.)
After life's fitful fever, eh? After the petty, anxious stupidities of Brixton Gaol! After the petty cleverness and poor little pomposities of a magistrate's court! After the pitiful myopic self-importance of a pair of lovers with their scrappy little yearnings and fears and demands and manoeuvres! How does it all look a million million miles away? And yet, and yet, Princess, the Lord God isn't there, but here in our tiny breasts. You'd think he could find a more confortable habitation, a house that he wouldn't have to squeeze in and share with self-seeking and fear and love, and be chivied and bullied and elbowed by them. (...) But he's tough, Princess: he can stand a lot of elbowing. He's still there.

B. W. L.