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- CHAPTER LXIV.
Concentric, Inward, With Mardi’s Reef, They Leave Their Wake Around The
World
West, West! West, West! Whitherward point Hope and prophet-fingers;
whitherward, at sun-set, kneel all worshipers of fire; whitherward in
mid-ocean, the great whales turn to die; whitherward face all the
Moslem dead in Persia; whitherward lie Heaven and Hell!—West, West!
Whitherward mankind and empires—flocks, caravans, armies, navies;
worlds, suns, and stars all wend!—West, West!—Oh boundless boundary!
Eternal goal! Whitherward rush, in thousand worlds, ten thousand
thousand keels! Beacon, by which the universe is steered!—Like the
north-star, attracting all needles! Unattainable forever; but forever
leading to great things this side thyself!—Hive of all sunsets!—
Gabriel’s pinions may not overtake thee!
Over balmy waves, still westward sailing! From dawn till eve, the
bright, bright days sped on, chased by the gloomy nights; and, in glory
dying, lent their luster to the starry skies. So, long the radiant
dolphins fly before the sable sharks but seized, and torn in
flames—die, burning:—their last splendor left, in sparkling scales that
float along the sea.
Cymbals, drums and psalteries! the air beats like a pulse with music!
—High land! high land! and moving lights, and painted lanterns!—What
grand shore is this?
“Reverence we render thee, Old Orienda!” cried Media, with bared brow,
“Original of all empires and emperors!—a crowned king salutes thee!”
“Mardi’s father-land!” cried Mohi, “grandsire of the nations,—hail!”
“All hail!” cried Yoomy. “Kings and sages hither coming, should come
like palmers,—scrip and staff! Oh Orienda! thou wert our East, where
first dawned song and science, with Mardi’s primal mornings! But now,
how changed! the dawn of light become a darkness, which we kindle with
the gleam of spears! On the world’s ancestral hearth, we spill our
brothers’ blood!”
“Herein,” said Babbalanja, “have many distant tribes proved parricidal.
In times gone by, Luzianna hither sent her prom; Franko, her scores of
captains; and the Dykemen, their peddler hosts, with yard-stick spears!
But thou, oh Bello! lord of the empire lineage! Noah of the moderns.
Sire of the long line of nations yet in germ!— thou, Bello, and thy
locust armies, are the present curse of Orienda. Down ancient streams,
from holy plains, in rafts thy murdered float! The pestilence that
thins thy armies here, is bred of corpses, made by thee. Maramma’s
priests, thy pious heralds, loud proclaim that of all pagans, Orienda’s
most resist the truth!—ay! vain all pious voices, that speak from
clouds of war! The march of conquest through wild provinces, may be the
march of Mind; but not the march of Love.”
“Thou, Bello!” cried Yoomy, “would’st wrest the crook from Alma’s hand,
and place in it a spear. But vain to make a conqueror of him, who put
off the purple when he came to Mardi; and declining gilded miters,
entered the nations meekly on an ass.”
“Oh curse of commerce!” cried Babbalanja, “that it barters souls for
gold. Bello! with opium, thou wouldst drug this land, and murder it in
sleep!—And what boot thy conquests here? Seed sown by spears but seldom
springs; and harvests reaped thereby, are poisoned by the sickle’s
edge.”
Yet on, and on we coasted; counting not the days.
“Oh, folds and flocks of nations! dusky tribes innumerable!” cried
Yoomy, “camped on plains and steppes; on thousand mountains, worshiping
the stars; in thousand valleys, offering up first-fruits, till all the
forests seem in flames;—where, in fire, the widow’s spirit mounts to
meet her lord!—Oh, Orienda, in thee ’tis vain to seek our Yillah!”
“How dark as death the night!” said Mohi, shaking the dew from his
braids, “the Heavens blaze not here with stars, as over Dominora’s
land, and broad Vivenza.”
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