And when I heard their message I made excuses, dreading
to speak such things in the Golden Town; and again they bade
me go.
And I said: "I will not go. None will believe me."
And still the Muses cry to me all night long.
They do not understand. How should they know?
The Three Tall Sons
And at last Man raised on high the final glory of his
civilization, the towering edifice of the ultimate city.
Softly beneath him in the deeps of the earth purred his
machinery fulfilling all his needs, there was no more toil
for man. There he sat at ease discussing the Sex Problem.
And sometimes painfully out of forgotten fields, there
came to his outer door, came to the furthest rampart of the
final glory of Man, a poor old woman begging. And always
they turned her away. This glory of Man's achievement, this
city was not for her.
It was Nature that came thus begging in from the fields,
whom they always turned away.
And away she went again alone to her fields.
And one day she came again, and again they sent her
hence. But her three tall sons came too.
"These shall go in," she said. "Even these my sons to
your city."
And the three tall sons went in.
And these are Nature's sons, the forlorn one's terrible
children, War, Famine and Plague.
Yea and they went in there and found Man unawares in his
city still poring over his Problems, obsessed with his
civilization, and never hearing their tread as those three
came up behind.
Compromise
They built their gorgeous home, their city of glory, above
the lair of the earthquake. They built it of marble and
gold in the shining youth of the world. There they feasted
and fought and called their city immortal, and danced and
sang songs to the gods. None heeded the earthquake in all
those joyous streets. And down in the deeps of the earth,
on the black feet of the abyss, they that would conquer Man
mumbled long in the darkness, mumbled and goaded the
earthquake to try his strength with that city, to go forth
blithely at night and to gnaw its pillars like bones. And
down in those grimy deeps the earthquake answered them, and
would not do their pleasure and would not stir from thence,
for who knew who they were who danced all day where he
rumbled, and what if the lords of that city that had no fear
of his anger were haply even the gods!
And the centuries plodded by, on and on round the world,
and one day they that had danced, they that had sung in that
city, remembered the lair of the earthquake in the deeps
down under their feet, and made plans one with another and
sought to avert the danger, sought to appease the earthquake
and turn his anger away.
They sent down singing girls, and priests with oats and
wine, they sent down garlands and propitious berries, down
by dark steps to the black depths of the earth, they sent
peacocks newly slain, and boys with burning spices, and
their thin white sacred cats with collars of pearls all
newly drawn from sea, they sent huge diamonds down in
coffers of teak, and ointment and strange oriental dyes,
arrows and armor and the rings of their queen.
"Oho," said the earthquake in the coolth of the earth,
"so they are not the gods."
What We Have Come To
When the advertiser saw the cathedral spires over the downs
in the distance, he looked at them and wept.
"If only," he said, "this were an advertisement of Beefo,
so nice, so nutritious, try it in your soup, ladies like
it."
The Tomb of Pan
"Seeing," they said, "that old-time Pan is dead, let us now
make a tomb for him and a monument, that the dreadful
worship of long ago may be remembered and avoided by all."
So said the people of the enlightened lands. And they
built a white and mighty tomb of marble. Slowly it rose
under the hands of the builders and longer every evening
after sunset it gleamed with rays of the departed sun.
And many mourned for Pan while the builders built; many
reviled him. Some called the builders to cease and to weep
for Pan and others called them to leave no memorial at all
of so infamous a god. But the builders built on steadily.
And one day all was finished, and the tomb stood there
like a steep sea-cliff. And Pan was carved thereon with
humbled head and the feet of angels pressed upon his neck.
And when the tomb was finished the sun had already set, but
the afterglow was rosy on the huge bulk of Pan.
And presently all the enlightened people came, and saw
the tomb and remembered Pan who was dead, and all deplored
him and his wicked age. But a few wept apart because of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]