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- 11815
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.931Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 11751
- text
- your graves, while ye may? Time to die, when death comes, without dying
by inches. ’Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it. I,
a demi-god, fear death not.”
“But when the jackals howl round you?” said Babbalanja.
“Drive them off! Die the demi-god’s death! On his last couch of crossed
spears, my brave old sire cried, ‘Wine, wine; strike up, conch and
cymbal; let the king die to martial melodies!’”
“More valiant dying, than dead,” said Babbalanja. “Our end of the
winding procession resounds with music and flaunts with banners with
brave devices: ‘Cheer up!’ ‘Fear not!’ ‘Millions have died before!’—
but in the endless van, not a pennon streams; all there, is silent and
solemn. The last wisdom is dumb.”
Silence ensued; during which, each dip of the paddles in the now calm
water, fell full and long upon the ear.
Anon, lifting his head, Babbalanja thus:—“Yillah still eludes us. And
in all this tour of Mardi, how little have we found to fill the heart
with peace: how much to slaughter all our yearnings.”
“Croak no more, raven!” cried Media. “Mardi is full of spring-time
sights, and jubilee sounds. I never was sad in my life.”
“But for thy one laugh, my lord, how many groans! Were all happy, or
all miserable,—more tolerable then, than as it is. But happiness and
misery are so broadly marked, that this Mardi may be the retributive
future of some forgotten past.—Yet vain our surmises. Still vainer to
say, that all Mardi is but a means to an end; that this life is a state
of probation: that evil is but permitted for a term; that for specified
ages a rebel angel is viceroy.—Nay, nay. Oro delegates his scepter to
none; in his everlasting reign there are no interregnums; and Time is
Eternity; and we live in Eternity now. Yet, some tell of a hereafter,
where all the mysteries of life will be over; and the sufferings of the
virtuous recompensed. Oro is just, they say.—Then always,—now, and
evermore. But to make restitution implies a wrong; and Oro can do no
wrong. Yet what seems evil to us, may be good to him. If he fears not,
nor hopes,—he has no other passion; no ends, no purposes. He lives
content; all ends are compassed in Him; He has no past, no future; He
is the everlasting now; which is an everlasting calm; and things that
are, have been,— will be. This gloom’s enough. But hoot! hoot! the
night-owl ranges through the woodlands of Maramma; its dismal notes
pervade our lives; and when we would fain depart in peace, that bird
flies on before:— cloud-like, eclipsing our setting suns, and filling
the air with dolor.”
“Too true!” cried Yoomy. “Our calms must come by storms. Like helmless
vessels, tempest-tossed, our only anchorage is when we founder.”
“Our beginnings,” murmured Mohi, “are lost in clouds; we live in
darkness all our days, and perish without an end.”
“Croak on, cowards!” cried Media, “and fly before the hideous phantoms
that pursue ye.”
“No coward he, who hunted, turns and finds no foe to fight,” said
Babbalanja. “Like the stag, whose brow is beat with wings of hawks,
perched in his heavenward antlers; so I, blinded, goaded, headlong,
rush! this way and that; nor knowing whither; one forest wide around!”
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