the midday sun
CEYLON , 1912 I A SPOILED CHILD _ A bow to the mystical evening dance of the Rider on the Mouse , -LSB- 6 -RSB- who whirling round his elephant trunk , smeared with wet vermilion , suddenly shoots it straight up into the purple sky , and stands for a single instant still , poised in the yellow twilight , as if to make a coral handle for the white umbrella of the laughing Moon . _ -LSB- Footnote 6 : Ganesha . -RSB- There is , in the western quarter , a land of lonely desolation , that resembles a very sea , but of sand instead of brine , and rightly named Marusthali , being a very home of death , sending back to the midday sun rays hotter than his own , and challenging the midnight sky , with silent ashy laughter , as though to say : What am I but the rival and reflection of thyself , with bones instead of stars , and tracks of wasted skeletons instead of a Milky Way . And there , upon a day , it came about that Maheshwara was roaming with Párwatí in his arms . And as they floated swiftly on , over the dusty waste , they watched their own huge shadows sweeping like the forms of clouds across the burning sand , exactly underneath , for it was noon : and the surface of the desert shook and quivered in the stillness , as if the wind , asleep , had , like a tired traveller , sought refuge from the fury of the sun above their heads . And all at once , the Daughter of the Snow exclaimed : See , there is the mirage !