Samuel R. Delany 
The Jewels of Aptor 

The waves flung up against the purple glowof double sleeplessness. Along the piersthe ships return; but sailing I would gothrough double rings of fire, double fears.So therefore let your bright vaults heave the nightabout with ropes of wind and points of light, and say, as all the rolling stars go, ‘Ihave stood my feet on rock and seen the sky.’
—These are the opening lines from The Galactica, by the one-armed poet Geo, the epic of the conflicts of Leptar and Aptor.