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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7838-8.txt b/7838-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9460197 --- /dev/null +++ b/7838-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2705 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifty-one Tales, by +Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fifty-one Tales + +Author: Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +Posting Date: October 19, 2012 [EBook #7838] +Release Date: April, 2005 +First Posted: May 21, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY-ONE TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +FIFTY-ONE TALES + + + +by Lord Dunsany + +1915 + + + +CONTENTS + + +The Assignation + +Charon + +The Death of Pan + +The Sphinx at Giza + +The Hen + +Wind and Fog + +The Raft-Builders + +The Workman + +The Guest + +Death and Odysseus + +Death and the Orange + +The Prayer of the Flower + +Time and the Tradesman + +The Little City + +The Unpasturable Fields + +The Worm and the Angel + +The Songless Country + +The Latest Thing + +The Demagogue and the Demi-monde + +The Giant Poppy + +Roses + +The Man With the Golden Ear-rings + +The Dream of King Karna-Vootra + +The Storm + +A Mistaken Identity + +The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise + +Alone the Immortals + +A Moral Little Tale + +The Return of Song + +Spring In Town + +How the Enemy Came to Thlunrana + +A Losing Game + +Taking Up Picadilly + +After the Fire + +The City + +The Food of Death + +The Lonely Idol + +The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts) + +The Reward + +The Trouble in Leafy Green Street + +The Mist + +Furrow-Maker + +Lobster Salad + +The Return of the Exiles + +Nature and Time + +The Song of the Blackbird + +The Messengers + +The Three Tall Sons + +Compromise + +What We Have Come To + +The Tomb of Pan + + + + +THE ASSIGNATION + + +Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with sordid +adventurers, passed the poet by. + +And still the poet made for her little chaplets of song, to deck her +forehead in the courts of Time: and still she wore instead the worthless +garlands, that boisterous citizens flung to her in the ways, made out of +perishable things. + +And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet came to her +with his chaplets of song; and still she laughed at him and wore the +worthless wreaths, though they always died at evening. + +And one day in his bitterness the poet rebuked her, and said to her: +"Lovely Fame, even in the highways and the byways you have not +foreborne to laugh and shout and jest with worthless men, and I have +toiled for you and dreamed of you and you mock me and pass me by." + +And Fame turned her back on him and walked away, but in departing +she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him as she had not smiled +before, and, almost speaking in a whisper, said: + +"I will meet you in the graveyard at the back of the Workhouse in a +hundred years." + + + + +CHARON + + +Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his +weariness. + +It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide +floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had +become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was +of a piece with Eternity. + +If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided +all time in his memory into two equal slabs. + +So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance +lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen +perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it. + +It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. +They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It +was neither Charon's duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why +these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed. + +Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send +no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best. + +Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a +lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: +the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on +beside the little, silent, shivering ghost. + +And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the +beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like +the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old +as time and the pain in Charon's arms. + +Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of +Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and +Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the +little shadow spoke, that had been a man. + +"I am the last," he said. + +No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever +made him weep. + + + + +THE DEATH OF PAN + + +When the travellers from London entered Arcady they lamented one to +another the death of Pan. + +And anon they saw him lying stiff and still. + +Horned Pan was still and the dew was on his fur; he had not the look +of a live animal. And then they said, "It is true that Pan is dead." + +And, standing melancholy by that huge prone body, they looked for +long at memorable Pan. + +And evening came and a small star appeared. + +And presently from a hamlet of some Arcadian valley, with a sound +of idle song, Arcadian maidens came. + +And, when they saw there, suddenly in the twilight, that old recumbent +god, they stopped in their running and whispered among themselves. +"How silly he looks," they said, and thereat they laughed a little. + +And at the sound of their laughter Pan leaped up and the gravel flew +from his hooves. + +And, for as long as the travellers stood and listened, the crags and +the hill-tops of Arcady rang with the sounds of pursuit. + + + + +THE SPHINX AT GIZEH + + +I saw the other day the Sphinx's painted face. + +She had painted her face in order to ogle Time. + +And he has spared no other painted face in all the world but hers. + +Delilah was younger than she, and Delilah is dust. Time hath loved +nothing but this worthless painted face. + +I do not care that she is ugly, nor that she has painted her face, so +that she only lure his secret from Time. + +Time dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting cities. + +Time never wearies of her silly smile. + +There are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil. + +I saw an old man go by, and Time never touched him. + +Time that has carried away the seven gates of Thebes! + +She has tried to bind him with ropes of eternal sand, she had hoped +to oppress him with the Pyramids. + +He lies there in the sand with his foolish hair all spread about her paws. + +If she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes, so that he shall +find no more our beautiful things--there are lovely gates in Florence +that I fear he will carry away. + +We have tried to bind him with song and with old customs, but they +only held him for a little while, and he has always smitten us and +mocked us. + +When he is blind he shall dance to us and make sport. + +Great clumsy time shall stumble and dance, who liked to kill little +children, and can hurt even the daisies no longer. + +Then shall our children laugh at him who slew Babylon's winged bulls, +and smote great numbers of the gods and fairies--when he is shorn +of his hours and his years. + +We will shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber +where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we +give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work. + +We will kiss they painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to us Time. + +And yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold blindly +of the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him the +House of Man. + + + + +THE HEN + + +All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering +uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only of +Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North wind +waiting. + +And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. And everyone +spoke of the swallows and the South. + +"I think I shall go South myself next year," said a hen. + +And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the year +wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry discussed +the departure of the hen. + +And very early one morning, the wind being from the North, the +swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings; and a +strength came upon them and a strange old knowledge and a more +than human faith, and flying high they left the smoke of our cities and +small remembered eaves, and saw at last the huge and homeless sea, +and steering by grey sea-currents went southward with the wind. And +going South they went by glittering fog-banks and saw old islands lifting +their heads above them; they saw the slow quests of the wandering +ships, and divers seeking pearls, and lands at war, till there came in +view the mountains that they sought and the sight of the peaks they +knew; and they descended into an austral valley, and saw Summer +sometimes sleeping and sometimes singing song. + +"I think the wind is about right," said the hen; and she spread her +wings and ran out of the poultry-yard. And she ran fluttering out on +to the road and some way down it until she came to a garden. + +At evening she came back panting. + +And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had gone South +as far as the high road, and saw the great world's traffic going by, +and came to lands where the potato grew, and saw the stubble upon +which men live, and at the end of the road had found a garden, and +there were roses in it--beautiful roses!--and the gardener himself was +there with his braces on. + +"How extremely interesting," the poultry said, "and what a really +beautiful description!" + +And the Winter wore away, and the bitter months went by, and the +Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came again. + +"We have been to the South," they said, "and the valleys beyond +the sea." + +But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in the South: +"You should hear our hen," they said. + + + + +WIND AND FOG + + +"Way for us," said the North Wind as he came down the sea on an +errand of old Winter. + +And he saw before him the grey silent fog that lay along the tides. + +"Way for us," said the North Wind, "O ineffectual fog, for I am +Winter's leader in his age-old war with the ships. I overwhelm +them suddenly in my strength, or drive upon them the huge seafaring +bergs. I cross an ocean while you move a mile. There is mourning in +inland places when I have met the ships. I drive them upon the rocks +and feed the sea. Wherever I appear they bow to our lord the Winter." + +And to his arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose up +slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, +took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was +still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I heard him +telling infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A +hundred and fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went +from Tyre, eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of the line, twelve +warships under sail, with their carronades, three hundred and +eighty-seven river-craft, forty-two merchantmen that carried spice, +four quinquiremes, ten triremes, thirty yachts, twenty-one battleships +of the modern time, nine thousand admirals...." he mumbled and chuckled +on, till I suddenly arose and fled from his fearful contamination. + + + + +THE RAFT-BUILDERS + + +All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon +doomed ships. + +When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity +with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile +upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our +names and a phrase or two and little else. + +They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like +sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract +their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to pieces +before the ship breaks up. + +See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquility deadlier +than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it. Time in its deeps +swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale, feeds on the littlest +things--small tunes and little unskilled songs of the olden, golden +evenings--and anon turneth whale-like to overthrow whole ships. + +See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something there +that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in the +deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the sodden +bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis. + +For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-floor +strewn with crowns. + +Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first. + +There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen. + + + + +THE WORKMAN + + +I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of +some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife +and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and +do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I +could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not +only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the +very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had +time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood. + +Then I went home for I had work to do. And all that evening I thought +of the man's folly, till the thought hindered me from serious work. + +And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the workman +floated through my wall and stood before me laughing. + +I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey +diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter. + +I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the ghost +spoke. It said: "I'm a laughin' at you sittin' and workin' there." + +"And why," I asked, "do you laugh at serious work?" + +"Why, yer bloomin' life 'ull go by like a wind," he said, "and yer 'ole +silly civilization 'ull be tidied up in a few centuries." + +Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laughing +still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity from +which he had come. + + + + +THE GUEST + + +A young man came into an ornate restaurant at eight o'clock in +London. + +He was alone, but two places had been laid at the table which was +reserved for him. He had chosen the dinner very carefully, by letter +a week before. + +A waiter asked him about the other guest. + +"You probably won't see him till the coffee comes," the young man +told him; so he was served alone. + +Those at adjacent tables might have noticed the young man continually +addressing the empty chair and carrying on a monologue with it +throughout his elaborate dinner. + +"I think you knew my father," he said to it over the soup. + +"I sent for you this evening," he continued, "because I want you to +do me a good turn; in fact I must insist on it." + +There was nothing eccentric about the man except for this habit of +addressing an empty chair, certainly he was eating as good a dinner +as any sane man could wish for. + +After the Burgundy had been served he became more voluble in his +monologue, not that he spoiled his wine by drinking excessively. + +"We have several acquaintances in common," he said. "I met King Seti +a year ago in Thebes. I think he has altered very little since you knew +him. I thought his forehead a little low for a king's. Cheops has left the +house that he built for your reception, he must have prepared for you +for years and years. I suppose you have seldom been entertained like +that. I ordered this dinner over a week ago. I thought then that a lady +might have come with me, but as she wouldn't I've asked you. She may +not after all be as lovely as Helen of Troy. Was Helen very lovely? Not +when you knew her, perhaps. You were lucky in Cleopatra, you must +have known her when she was in her prime. + +"You never knew the mermaids nor the fairies nor the lovely goddesses +of long ago, that's where we have the best of you." + +He was silent when the waiters came to his table, but rambled merrily +on as soon as they left, still turned to the empty chair. + +"You know I saw you here in London only the other day. You were +on a motor bus going down Ludgate Hill. It was going much too fast. +London is a good place. But I shall be glad enough to leave it. It was +in London that I met the lady I that was speaking about. If it hadn't +been for London I probably shouldn't have met her, and if it hadn't +been for London she probably wouldn't have had so much besides +me to amuse her. It cuts both ways." + +He paused once to order coffee, gazing earnestly at the waiter and +putting a sovereign in his hand. "Don't let it be chicory," said he. + +The waiter brought the coffee, and the young man dropped a tabloid +of some sort into his cup. + +"I don't suppose you come here very often," he went on. "Well, you +probably want to be going. I haven't taken you much out of your way, +there is plenty for you to do in London." + +Then having drunk his coffee he fell on to the floor by a foot of the +empty chair, and a doctor who was dining in the room bent over +him and announced to the anxious manager the visible presence of +the young man's guest. + + + + +DEATH AND ODYSSEUS + + +In the Olympian courts Love laughed at Death, because he was +unsightly, and because She couldn't help it, and because he never +did anything worth doing, and because She would. + +And Death hated being laughed at, and used to brood apart thinking +only of his wrongs and of what he could do to end this intolerable +treatment. + +But one day Death appeared in the courts with an air and They all +noticed it. "What are you up to now?" said Love. And Death with +some solemnity said to Her: "I am going to frighten Odysseus"; and +drawing about him his grey traveller's cloak went out through the +windy door with his jowl turned earthwards. + +And he came soon to Ithaca and the hall that Athene knew, and +opened the door and saw there famous Odysseus, with his white +locks bending close over the fire, trying to warm his hands. + +And the wind through the open door blew bitterly on Odysseus. + +And Death came up behind him, and suddenly shouted. + +And Odysseus went on warming his pale hands. + +Then Death came close and began to mouth at him. And after a +while Odysseus turned and spoke. And "Well, old servant," he said, +"have your masters been kind to you since I made you work for me +round Ilion?" + +And Death for some while stood mute, for he thought of the laughter +of Love. + +Then "Come now," said Odysseus, "lend me your shoulder," and he +leaning heavily on that bony joint, they went together through the open +door. + + + + +DEATH AND THE ORANGE + + +Two dark young men in a foreign southern land sat at a restaurant +table with one woman. + +And on the woman's plate was a small orange which had an evil +laughter in its heart. + +And both of the men would be looking at the woman all the time, and +they ate little and they drank much. + +And the woman was smiling equally at each. + +Then the small orange that had the laughter in its heart rolled +slowly off the plate on to the floor. And the dark young men both +sought for it at once, and they met suddenly beneath the table, and +soon they were speaking swift words to one another, and a horror +and an impotence came over the Reason of each as she sat helpless +at the back of the mind, and the heart of the orange laughed and the +woman went on smiling; and Death, who was sitting at another table, +tête-à-tête with an old man, rose and came over to listen to the quarrel. + + + + +THE PRAYER OF THE FLOWERS + + +It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the +old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going +Greecewards. + +"The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love +us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over +the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the +land. + +"The cancrous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their lairs +continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night. + +"The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou art +far, O Pan, and far away." + +I was standing by night between two railway embankments on the +edge of a Midland city. On one of them I saw the trains go by, once +in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by twice in +every five. + +Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them wore +the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever. + +The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and +thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beating +musically up wind, the voice of Pan reproving them from Arcady-- + +"Be patient a little, these things are not for long." + + + + +TIME AND THE TRADESMAN + + +Once Time as he prowled the world, his hair grey not with weakness +but with dust of the ruin of cities, came to a furniture shop and entered +the Antique department. And there he saw a man darkening the wood +of a chair with dye and beating it with chains and making imitation +wormholes in it. + +And when Time saw another doing his work he stood by him awhile +and looked on critically. + +And at last he said: "That is not how I work," and he turned the man's +hair white and bent his back and put some furrows in his little cunning +face; then turned and strode away, for a mighty city that was weary +and sick and too long had troubled the fields was sore in need of him. + + + + +THE LITTLE CITY + + +I was in the pre-destined 11.8 from Goraghwood to Drogheda, when +I suddenly saw the city. It was a little city in a valley, and only seemed +to have a little smoke, and the sun caught the smoke and turned it +golden, so that it looked like an old Italian picture where angels walk +in the foreground and the rest is a blaze of gold. And beyond, as one +could tell by the lie of land although one could not see through the +golden smoke, I knew that there lay the paths of the roving ships. + +All round there lay a patchwork of small fields all over the slopes of +the hills, and the snow had come upon them tentatively, but already +the birds of the waste had moved to the sheltered places for every +omen boded more to fall. Far away some little hills blazed like an +aureate bulwark broken off by age and fallen from the earthward +rampart of Paradise. And aloof and dark the mountains stared +unconcernedly seawards. + +And when I saw those grey and watchful mountains sitting where +they sat while the cities of the civilization of Araby and Asia arose +like crocuses, and like crocuses fell, I wondered for how long there +would be smoke in the valley and little fields on the hills. + + + + +THE UNPASTURABLE FIELDS + + +Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones, the +grey ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall break +his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now, +hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the +bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done. + +"Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities until +they grow old and leave us to go among the myths. + +"We are the most imperishable mountains." + +And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag on +crag and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of Caucasus upon +Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon the backs of storms and +looked down idly from their golden heights upon the crests of the +mountains. + +"Ye pass away," said the mountains. + +And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied, + +"We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable +fields Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon +song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial +fields. His hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though our +fields were of silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils, +with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands and +stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees far-future +wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds of the togas that +cover the knees of the gods." + + + + +THE WORM AND THE ANGEL + + +As he crawled from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an angel. + +And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths +and maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men heavy in +their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far +wars and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and wickedness, and +the pomp of kings, and the people of all the lands that the sunlight knew. + +And the worm spake to the angel saying: "Behold my food." + +"Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes," murmured the +angel, for they walked by the sea, "and can you destroy that too?" + +And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for for +three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its +melody was ringing in his head. + + + + +THE SONGLESS COUNTRY + + +The poet came unto a great country in which there were no songs. +And he lamented gently for the nation that had not any little foolish +songs to sing to itself at evening. + +And at last he said: "I will make for them myself some little foolish +songs so that they may be merry in the lanes and happy by the +fireside." And for some days he made for them aimless songs such +as maidens sing on the hills in the older happier countries. + +Then he went to some of that nation as they sat weary with the +work of the day and said to them: "I have made you some aimless +songs out of the small unreasonable legends, that are somewhat akin +to the wind in the vales of my childhood; and you may care to sing +them in your disconsolate evenings." + +And they said to him: + +"If you think we have time for that sort of nonsense nowadays +you cannot know much of the progress of modern commerce." + +And then the poet wept for he said: "Alas! They are damned." + + + + +THE LATEST THING + + +I saw an unclean-feeder by the banks of the river of Time. He crouched +by orchards numerous with apples in a happy land of flowers; colossal +barns stood near which the ancients had stored with grain, and the sun +was golden on serene far hills behind the level lands. But his back was +to all these things. He crouched and watched the river. And whatever +the river chanced to send him down the unclean-feeder clutched at +greedily with his arms, wading out into the water. + +Now there were in those days, and indeed still are, certain uncleanly +cities upon the river of Time; and from them fearfully nameless things +came floating shapelessly by. And whenever the odor of these came +down the river before them the unclean-feeder plunged into the dirty +water and stood far out, expectant. And if he opened his mouth one +saw these things on his lips. + +Indeed from the upper reaches there came down sometimes the +fallen rhododendron's petal, sometimes a rose; but they were useless +to the unclean-feeder, and when he saw them he growled. + +A poet walked beside the river's bank; his head was lifted and his +look was afar; I think he saw the sea, and the hills of Fate from which +the river ran. I saw the unclean-feeder standing voracious, up to his +waist in that evil-smelling river. + +"Look," I said to the poet. + +"The current will sweep him away," the poet said. + +"But those cities that poison the river," I said to him. + +He answered: "Whenever the centuries melt on the hills of Fate the +river terribly floods." + + + + +THE DEMAGOGUE AND THE DEMI-MONDE + + +A demagogue and a demi-mondaine chanced to arrive together at +the gate of Paradise. And the Saint looked sorrowfully at them both. + +"Why were you a demagogue?" he said to the first. + +"Because," said the demagogue, "I stood for those principles that +have made us what we are and have endeared our Party to the great +heart of the people. In a word I stood unflinchingly on the plank of +popular representation." + +"And you?" said the Saint to her of the demi-monde. + +"I wanted money," said the demi-mondaine. + +And after some moments' thought the Saint said: "Well, come in; +though you don't deserve to." + +But to the demagogue he said: "We genuinely regret that the limited +space at our disposal and our unfortunate lack of interest in those +Questions that you have gone so far to inculate and have so ably +upheld in the past, prevent us from giving you the support for which +you seek." + +And he shut the golden door. + + + + +THE GIANT POPPY + + +I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear day +you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There +used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them +where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies +danced. + +But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant +glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved +in the wind, and as it waved it hummed "Remember not." And by its +oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an +ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed +that way or anything olden. + +He said: "The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and +fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it +of its beautiful strength." And I asked him why he sat on the hills I +knew, playing an olden tune. + +And he answered: "Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which +would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood +of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray +over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have +saved Agamemnon." + +Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the +poppy's sleepy petals murmured "Remember not. Remember not." + + + + +ROSES + + +I know a roadside where the wild rose blooms with a strange +abundance. There is a beauty in the blossoms too of an almost +exotic kind, a taint of deeper pink that shocks the Puritan flowers. +Two hundred generations ago (generations, I mean, of roses) this +was a village street; there was a floral decadence when they left their +simple life and the roses came from the wilderness to clamber round +houses of men. + +Of all the memories of that little village, of all the cottages that stood +there, of all the men and women whose homes they were, nothing +remains but a more beautiful blush on the faces of the roses. + +I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated fields +come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war, they may +find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; because we have loved +a little that swart old city. + + + + +THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN EAR-RINGS + + +It may be that I dreamed this. So much at least is certain--that I +turned one day from the traffic of a city, and came to its docks and +saw its slimy wharves going down green and steep into the water, and +saw the huge grey river slipping by and the lost things that went with it +turning over and over, and I thought of the nations and unpitying Time, +and saw and marvelled at the queenly ships come newly from the sea. + +It was then, if I mistake not, that I saw leaning against a wall, with his +face to the ships, a man with golden ear-rings. His skin had the dark +tint of the southern men: the deep black hairs of his moustache were +whitened a little with salt; he wore a dark blue jacket such as sailors +wear, and the long boots of seafarers, but the look in his eyes was +further afield than the ships, he seemed to be beholding the farthest +things. + +Even when I spoke to him he did not call home that look, but +answered me dreamily with that same fixed stare as though his +thoughts were heaving on far and lonely seas. I asked him what ship +he had come by, for there were many there. The sailing ships were +there with their sails all furled and their masts straight and still like a +wintry forest; the steamers were there, and great liners, puffing up idle +smoke into the twilight. He answered he had come by none of them. +I asked him what line he worked on, for he was clearly a sailor; I +mentioned well-known lines, but he did not know them. Then I asked +him where he worked and what he was. And he said: "I work in the +Sargasso Sea, and I am the last of the pirates, the last left alive." And +I shook him by the hand I do not know how many times. I said: "We +feared you were dead. We feared you were dead." And he answered +sadly: "No. No. I have sinned too deeply on the Spanish seas: I am +not allowed to die." + + + + +THE DREAM OF KING KARNA-VOOTRA + + +King Karna-Vootra sitting on his throne commanding all things said: +"I very clearly saw last night the queenly Vava-Nyria. Though partly +she was hidden by great clouds that swept continually by her, rolling +over and over, yet her face was unhidden and shone, being full of +moonlight. + +"I said to her: + +"'Walk with me by the great pools in many-gardened, beautiful +Istrakhan where the lilies float that give delectable dreams; or, +drawing aside the curtain of hanging orchids, pass with me thence +from the pools by a secret path through the else impassable jungle +that fills the only way between the mountains that shut in Istrakhan. +They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and at evening when +the pools are strange with light, till in their gladness sometimes there +melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely heights the mountaineer. +They have valleys among them older than the wrinkles in the moon. + +"'Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we shall +come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only speak +of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely that +even the butterflies that float about it when they see their images +flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each night +we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing the stars +to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with tidings +of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Séndara and men +shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Séndara the +rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of Zoth, +till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing; +but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to +Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their +lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in +distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma +as they sit telling careless tales to lure men to their wares. + +"'And the heralds passing thence shall come even to Ingra, to +Ingra where they dance. And there they shall tell of thee, so that +thy name long hence shall be sung in that joyous city. And there they +shall borrow camels and pass over the sands and go by desert ways +to distant Nirid to tell of thee to the lonely men in the mountain +monasteries. + +"'Come with me even now for it is Spring.'" + +"And as I said this she faintly yet perceptibly shook her head. And it +was only then I remembered my youth was gone, and she dead forty +years." + + + + +THE STORM + + +They saw a little ship that was far at sea and that went by the name +of the _Petite Espérance_. And because of its uncouth rig and its +lonely air and the look that it had of coming from strangers' lands they +said: "It is neither a ship to greet nor desire, nor yet to succor when in +the hands of the sea." + +And the sea rose up as is the wont of the sea and the little ship from +afar was in his hands, and frailer than ever seemed its feeble masts +with their sails of fantastic cut and their alien flags. And the sea made +a great and very triumphing voice, as the sea doth. And then there +arose a wave that was very strong, even the ninth-born son of the +hurricane and the tide, and hid the little ship and hid the whole of the +far parts of the sea. Thereat said those who stood on the good dry +land: + +"'Twas but a little, worthless alien ship and it is sunk at sea, and it is +good and right that the storm have spoil." And they turned and watched +the course of the merchant-men, laden with silver and appeasing spice; +year after year they cheered them into port and praised their goods and +their familiar sails. And many years went by. + +And at last with decks and bulwarks covered with cloth of gold; with +age-old parrots that had known the troubadours, singing illustrious +songs and preening their feathers of gold; with a hold full of emeralds +and rubies; all silken with Indian loot; furling as it came in its way-worn +alien sails, a galleon glided into port, shutting the sunlight from the +merchantmen: and lo! it loomed the equal of the cliffs. + +"Who are you?" they asked, "far-travelled wonderful ship?" + +And they said: "The _Petite Espérance_." + +"O," said the people on shore. "We thought you were sunk at sea." + +"Sunk at sea?" sang the sailors. "We could not be sunk at sea--we +had the gods on board." + + + + +A MISTAKEN IDENTITY + + +Fame as she walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of +Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her +in the dirt of the road. + +"Who are you?" Fame said to her. + +"I am Fame," said Notoriety. + +Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone. + +And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose and +followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her native Pit. + + + + +THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE + + +For a long time there was doubt with acrimony among the beasts as +to whether the Hare or the Tortoise could run the swifter. Some said +the Hare was the swifter of the two because he had such long ears, +and others said the Tortoise was the swifter because anyone whose +shell was so hard as that should be able to run hard too. And lo, the +forces of estrangement and disorder perpetually postponed a decisive +contest. + +But when there was nearly war among the beasts, at last an +arrangement was come to and it was decided that the Hare and the +Tortoise should run a race of five hundred yards so that all should +see who was right. + +"Ridiculous nonsense!" said the Hare, and it was all his backers could +do to get him to run. + +"The contest is most welcome to me," said the Tortoise, "I shall not +shirk it." + +O, how his backers cheered. + +Feeling ran high on the day of the race; the goose rushed at the fox +and nearly pecked him. Both sides spoke loudly of the approaching +victory up to the very moment of the race. + +"I am absolutely confident of success," said the Tortoise. But +the Hare said nothing, he looked bored and cross. Some of his +supporters deserted him then and went to the other side, who were +loudly cheering the Tortoise's inspiriting words. But many remained +with the Hare. "We shall not be disappointed in him," they said. "A +beast with such long ears is bound to win." + +"Run hard," said the supporters of the Tortoise. + +And "run hard" became a kind of catch-phrase which everybody +repeated to one another. "Hard shell and hard living. That's what +the country wants. Run hard," they said. And these words were +never uttered but multitudes cheered from their hearts. + +Then they were off, and suddenly there was a hush. + +The Hare dashed off for about a hundred yards, then he looked +round to see where his rival was. + +"It is rather absurd," he said, "to race with a Tortoise." And he sat +down and scratched himself. "Run hard! Run hard!" shouted some. + +"Let him rest," shouted others. And "let him rest" became a +catch-phrase too. + +And after a while his rival drew near to him. + +"There comes that damned Tortoise," said the Hare, and he got up +and ran as hard as could be so that he should not let the Tortoise +beat him. + +"Those ears will win," said his friends. "Those ears will win; and +establish upon an incontestable footing the truth of what we have +said." And some of them turned to the backers of the Tortoise and +said: "What about your beast now?" + +"Run hard," they replied. "Run hard." + +The Hare ran on for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as far +as the winning-post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool he looked +running races with a Tortoise who was nowhere in sight, and he sat +down again and scratched. + +"Run hard. Run hard," said the crowd, and "Let him rest." + +"Whatever is the use of it?" said the Hare, and this time he stopped +for good. Some say he slept. + +There was desperate excitement for an hour or two, and then the +Tortoise won. + +"Run hard. Run hard," shouted his backers. "Hard shell and hard +living: that's what has done it." And then they asked the Tortoise what +his achievement signified, and he went and asked the Turtle. And the +Turtle said, "It is a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness." And +then the Tortoise repeated it to his friends. And all the beasts said +nothing else for years. And even to this day, "a glorious victory for +the forces of swiftness" is a catch-phrase in the house of the snail. + +And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known is +that very few of those that witnessed it survived the great forest-fire +that happened shortly after. It came up over the weald by night with +a great wind. The Hare and the Tortoise and a very few of the beasts +saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge of the trees, and +they hurriedly called a meeting to decide what messenger they should +send to warn the beasts in the forest. + +They sent the Tortoise. + + + + +ALONE THE IMMORTALS + + +I heard it said that far away from here, on the wrong side of the +deserts of Cathay and in a country dedicate to winter, are all the years +that are dead. And there a certain valley shuts them in and hides them, +as rumor has it, from the world, but not from the sight of the moon nor +from those that dream in his rays. + +And I said: I will go from here by ways of dream and I will come to +that valley and enter in and mourn there for the good years that are +dead. And I said: I will take a wreath, a wreath of mourning, and lay +it at their feet in token of my sorrow for their dooms. + +And when I sought about among the flowers, among the flowers for +my wreath of mourning, the lily looked too large and the laurel looked +too solemn and I found nothing frail enough nor slender to serve as an +offering to the years that were dead. And at last I made a slender +wreath of daisies in the manner that I had seen them made in one of +the years that is dead. + +"This," said I, "is scarce less fragile or less frail than one of those +delicate forgotten years." Then I took my wreath in my hand and +went from here. And when I had come by paths of mystery to that +romantic land, where the valley that rumour told of lies close to the +mountainous moon, I searched among the grass for those poor slight +years for whom I bought my sorrow and my wreath. And when I found +there nothing in the grass I said: "Time has shattered them and swept +them away and left not even any faint remains." + +But looking upwards in the blaze of the moon I suddenly saw colossi +sitting near, and towering up and blotting out the stars and filling the +night with blackness; and at those idols' feet I saw praying and making +obeisance kings and the days that are and all times and all cities and all +nations and all their gods. Neither the smoke of incense nor of the +sacrifice burning reached those colossal heads, they sat there not to +be measured, not to be over-thrown, not to be worn away. + +I said: "Who are those?" + +One answered: "Alone the Immortals." + +And I said sadly: "I came not to see dread gods, but I came to shed +my tears and to offer flowers at the feet of certain little years that are +dead and may not come again." + +He answered me: "These _are_ the years that are dead, alone the +immortals; all years to be are Their children--They fashioned their +smiles and their laughter; all earthly kings They have crowned, all +gods They have created; all the events to be flow down from their +feet like a river, the worlds are flying pebbles that They have already +thrown, and Time and all his centuries behind him kneel there with +bended crests in token of vassalage at Their potent feet." + +And when I heard this I turned away with my wreath, and went back +to my own land comforted. + + + + +A MORAL LITTLE TALE + + +There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance. And +for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And there +loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that loved the +dance respected him too; they said "He is a pure, good man and acts +according to his lights." + +He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several +Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but +not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very young. +He always dressed in black. + +He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and there +grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his flowing +pure-white beard. + +One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said "Well done." + +"Avaunt," said that earnest man. + +"No, no, friend," said the Devil. + +"Dare not to call me 'friend,'" he answered bravely. + +"Come, come, friend," said the Devil. "Have you not done my work? Have +you not put apart the couples that would dance? Have you not checked +their laughter and their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery +of black? O friend, friend, you do not know what a detestable thing +it is to sit in hell and hear people being happy, and singing in +theatres and singing in the fields, and whispering after dances under +the moon," and he fell to cursing fearfully. + +"It is you," said the Puritan, "that put into their hearts the evil desire +to dance; and black is God's own livery, not yours." + +And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke. + +"He only made the silly colors," he said, "and useless dawns on +hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along them as soon +as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to dance, and +the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that pernicious influence +Love." + +And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man +sat up in bed and shouted "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" + +"It's true," said the Devil. "It isn't I that send the village fools +muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the +harvest moon is high, it's as much as I can bear even to see them +dancing." + +"Then," said the man, "I have mistaken right for wrong; but as soon +as I wake I will fight you yet." + +"O, no you don't," said the Devil. "You don't wake up out of this sleep." + +And somewhere far away Hell's black steel doors were opened, and +arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut behind +them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and further into +the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan's punishment to know that +those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he had done. + + + + +THE RETURN OF SONG + + +"The swans are singing again," said to one another the gods. And +looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair and +far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly larger +than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from it looking +larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable swans, singing +and singing and singing, till it seemed as though even the gods were +wild ships swimming in music. + +"What is it?" I said to one that was humble among the gods. + +"Only a world has ended," he said to me, "and the swans are coming +back to the gods returning the gift of song." + +"A whole world dead!" I said. + +"Dead," said he that was humble among the gods. "The worlds are +not for ever; only song is immortal." + +"Look! Look!" he said. "There will be a new one soon." + +And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods. + + + + +SPRING IN TOWN + + +At a street corner sat, and played with a wind, Winter disconsolate. + +Still tingled the fingers of the passers-by and still their breath was +visible, and still they huddled their chins into their coats when turning +a corner they met with a new wind, still windows lighted early sent out +into the street the thought of romantic comfort by evening fires; these +things still were, yet the throne of Winter tottered, and every breeze +brought tidings of further fortresses lost on lakes or boreal hill-slopes. +And not any longer as a king did Winter appear in those streets, as when +the city was decked with gleaming white to greet him as a conqueror and +he rode in with his glittering icicles and haughty retinue of prancing +winds, but he sat there with a little wind at the corner of the street like +some old blind beggar with his hungry dog. And as to some old blind +beggar Death approaches, and the alert ears of the sightless man +prophetically hear his far-off footfall, so there came suddenly to +Winter's ears the sound, from some neighbouring garden, of Spring +approaching as she walked on daisies. And Spring approaching looked +at huddled inglorious Winter. + +"Begone," said Spring. + +"There is nothing for you to do here," said Winter to her. Nevertheless +he drew about him his grey and battered cloak and rose and called to +his little bitter wind and up a side street that led northward strode away. + +Pieces of paper and tall clouds of dust went with him as far as the city's +outer gate. He turned then and called to Spring: "You can do nothing +in this city," he said; then he marched homeward over plains and sea +and heard his old winds howling as he marched. The ice broke up +behind him and foundered like navies. To left and to right of him flew +the flocks of the sea-birds, and far before him the geese's triumphant +cry went like a clarion. Greater and greater grew his stature as he went +northwards and ever more kingly his mien. Now he took baronies at +a stride and now counties and came again to the snow-white frozen +lands where the wolves came out to meet him and, draping himself +anew with old grey clouds, strode through the gates of his invincible +home, two old ice barriers swinging on pillars of ice that had never +known the sun. + +So the town was left to Spring. And she peered about to see +what she could do with it. Presently she saw a dejected dog coming +prowling down the road, so she sang to him and he gambolled. I saw +him next day strutting by with something of an air. Where there were +trees she went to them and whispered, and they sang the arboreal +song that only trees can hear, and the green buds came peeping out as +stars while yet it is twilight, secretly one by one. She went to gardens +and awaked from dreaming the warm maternal earth. In little patches +bare and desolate she called up like a flame the golden crocus, or its +purple brother like an emperor's ghost. She gladdened the graceless +backs of untidy houses, here with a weed, there with a little grass. +She said to the air, "Be joyous." + +Children began to know that daisies blew in unfrequented corners. +Buttonholes began to appear in the coats of the young men. The work +of Spring was accomplished. + + + + +HOW THE ENEMY CAME TO THLUNRANA + + +It had been prophesied of old and foreseen from the ancient days that +its enemy would come upon Thlunrana. And the date of its doom was +known and the gate by which it would enter, yet none had prophesied +of the enemy who he was save that he was of the gods though he dwelt +with men. Meanwhile Thlunrana, that secret lamaserai, that chief +cathedral of wizardry, was the terror of the valley in which it stood +and of all lands round about it. So narrow and high were the windows +and so strange when lighted at night that they seemed to regard men +with the demoniac leer of something that had a secret in the dark. Who +were the magicians and the deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard +of that furtive place nobody knew, for they went veiled and hooded and +cloaked completely in black. + +Though her doom was close upon her and the enemy of prophecy +should come that very night through the open, southward door that +was named the Gate of the Doom, yet that rocky edifice Thlunrana +remained mysterious still, venerable, terrible, dark, and dreadfully +crowned with her doom. It was not often that anyone dared wander +near to Thlunrana by night when the moan of the magicians invoking +we know not Whom rose faintly from inner chambers, scaring the +drifting bats: but on the last night of all the man from the black-thatched +cottage by the five pine-trees came, because he would see Thlunrana +once again before the enemy that was divine, but that dwelt with men, +should come against it and it should be no more. Up the dark valley he +went like a bold man, but his fears were thick upon him; his bravery +bore their weight but stooped a little beneath them. He went in at the +southward gate that is named the Gate of the Doom. He came into a +dark hall, and up a marble stairway passed to see the last of Thlunrana. +At the top a curtain of black velvet hung and he passed into a chamber +heavily hung with curtains, with a gloom in it that was blacker than +anything they could account for. In a sombre chamber beyond, seen +through a vacant archway, magicians with lighted tapers plied their +wizardry and whispered incantations. All the rats in the place were +passing away, going whimpering down the stairway. The man from +the black-thatched cottage passed through that second chamber: the +magicians did not look at him and did not cease to whisper. He passed +from them through heavy curtains still of black velvet and came into a +chamber of black marble where nothing stirred. Only one taper burned +in the third chamber; there were no windows. On the smooth floor and +under the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood with its curtains drawn close +together: this was the holy of holies of that ominous place, its inner +mystery. One on each side of it dark figures crouched, either of men +or women or cloaked stone, or of beasts trained to be silent. When +the awful stillness of the mystery was more than he could bear the +man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees went up +to the silk pavilion, and with a bold and nervous clutch of the hand +drew one of the curtains aside, and saw the inner mystery, and laughed. +And the prophecy was fulfilled, and Thlunrana was never more a terror +to the valley, but the magicians passed away from their terrific halls and +fled through the open fields wailing and beating their breasts, for +laughter was the enemy that was doomed to come against Thlunrana +through her southward gate (that was named the Gate of the Doom), +and it is of the gods but dwells with man. + + + + +A LOSING GAME + + +Once in a tavern Man met face to skull with Death. Man entered +gaily but Death gave no greeting, he sat with his jowl morosely over +an ominous wine. + +"Come, come," said Man, "we have been antagonists long, and if I +were losing yet I should not be surly." + +But Death remained unfriendly watching his bowl of wine and gave +no word in answer. + +Then Man solicitously moved nearer to him and, speaking cheerily +still, "Come, come," he said again, "you must not resent defeat." + +And still Death was gloomy and cross and sipped at his infamous +wine and would not look up at Man and would not be companionable. + +But Man hated gloom either in beast or god, and it made him +unhappy to see his adversary's discomfort, all the more because he +was the cause, and still he tried to cheer him. + +"Have you not slain the Dinatherium?" he said. "Have you not put out +the Moon? Why! you will beat me yet." + +And with a dry and barking sound Death wept and nothing said; and +presently Man arose and went wondering away; for he knew not if +Death wept out of pity for his opponent, or because he knew that he +should not have such sport again when the old game was over and +Man was gone, or whether because perhaps, for some hidden reason, +he could never repeat on Earth his triumph over the Moon. + + + + +TAKING UP PICADILLY + + +Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, +if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off--or +so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their hands and wore corduroy +trousers and that little leather band below the knee that goes by the +astonishing name of "York-to-London." + +They seemed to be working with peculiar vehemence, so that I +stopped and asked one what they were doing. + +"We are taking up Picadilly," he said to me. + +"But at this time of year?" I said. "Is it usual in June?" + +"We are not what we seem," said he. + +"Oh, I see," I said, "you are doing it for a joke." + +"Well, not exactly that," he answered me. + +"For a bet?" I said. + +"Not precisely," said he. + +And then I looked at the bit that they had already picked, and +though it was broad daylight over my head it was darkness down +there, all full of the southern stars. + +"It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it," said he that wore +corduroy trousers. "We are not what we appear." + +They were taking up Picadilly altogether. + + + + +AFTER THE FIRE + + +When that happened which had been so long in happening and the +world hit a black, uncharted star, certain tremendous creatures out +of some other world came peering among the cinders to see if there +were anything there that it were worth while to remember. They +spoke of the great things that the world was known to have had; +they mentioned the mammoth. And presently they saw man's temples, +silent and windowless, staring like empty skulls. + +"Some great thing has been here," one said, "in these huge places." +"It was the mammoth," said one. "Something greater than he," said +another. + +And then they found that the greatest thing in the world had been +the dreams of man. + + + + +THE CITY + + +In time as well as space my fancy roams far from here. It led me +once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and red and rose +up out of a desert: a little way off in the desert there was a city. It +was evening, and I sat and watched the city. + +Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly stealing out +of that city's gate to the number of about twenty. I heard the hum +of men's voices speaking at evening. + +"It is well they are gone," they said. "It is well they are gone. We +can do business now. It is well they are gone." And the men that +had left the city sped away over the sand and so passed into the +twilight. + +"Who are these men?" I said to my glittering leader. + +"The poets," my fancy answered. "The poets and artists." + +"Why do they steal away?" I said to him. "And why are the people +glad that they have gone?" + +He said: "It must be some doom that is going to fall on the city, +something has warned them and they have stolen away. Nothing +may warn the people." + +I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up from +the city. And then I also departed, for there was an ominous look +on the face of the sky. + +And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was +nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city. + + + + +THE FOOD OF DEATH + + +Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern bakers +make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chicago, with a +pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried him into the +dining-room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere Death breathed +more freely), and there they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They +brought him a bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death +drank it up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent +medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for invalids, +and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper. They gave him some +milk and borax, such as children drink in England. + +Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities. + + + + +THE LONELY IDOL + + +I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced idol +to whom no one prayed. + +And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged at +receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the years had broken +(and no one heeded the scourge and no one prayed and no one +came with squealing sacrifice; and he had been a god), then I took +pity on the little forgotten thing and prayed to it as perhaps they prayed +long since, before the coming of the strange dark ships, and humbled +myself and said: + +"O idol, idol of the hard pale stone, invincible to the years, O +scourge-holder, give ear for behold I pray. + +"O little pale-green image whose wanderings are from far, know +thou that here in Europe and in other lands near by, too soon there +pass from us the sweets and song and the lion strength of youth: +too soon do their cheeks fade, their hair grow grey and our beloved +die; too brittle is beauty, too far off is fame and the years are gathered +too soon; there are leaves, leaves falling, everywhere falling; there is +autumn among men, autumn and reaping; failure there is, struggle, +dying and weeping, and all that is beautiful hath not remained but is +even as the glory of morning upon the water. + +"Even our memories are gathered too with the sound of the ancient +voices, the pleasant ancient voices that come to our ears no more; +the very gardens of our childhood fade, and there dims with the speed +of the years even the mind's own eye. + +"O be not any more the friend of Time, for the silent hurry of his +malevolent feet have trodden down what's fairest; I almost hear the +whimper of the years running behind him hound-like, and it takes few +to tear us. + +"All that is beautiful he crushes down as a big man tramples daises, +all that is fairest. How very fair are the little children of men. It is +autumn with all the world, and the stars weep to see it. + +"Therefore no longer be the friend of Time, who will not let us be, +and be not good to him but pity us, and let lovely things live on for +the sake of our tears." + +Thus prayed I out of compassion one windy day to the snout-faced +idol to whom no one kneeled. + + + + +THE SPHINX IN THEBES (MASSACHUSETTS) + + +There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money +could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and +she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx. + +So she besought them to bring her a live sphinx; and therefore they +went to the menageries, and then to the forests and the desert places, +and yet could find no sphinx. + +And she would have been content with a little lion but that one was +already owned by a woman she knew; so they had to search the +world again for a sphinx. + +And still there was none. + +But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found +a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods +she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. +And they cast chains on her, who was still with an ominous stillness, +and took her westwards with them and brought her home. + +And so the sphinx came to the steel-built city. + +And the woman was very glad that she owned a sphinx: but the +sphinx stared long into her eyes one day, and softly asked a riddle +of the woman. + +And the woman could not answer, and she died. + +And the sphinx is silent again and none knows what she will do. + + + + +THE REWARD + + +One's spirit goes further in dreams than it does by day. Wandering +once by night from a factory city I came to the edge of Hell. + +The place was foul with cinders and cast-off things, and jagged, +half-buried things with shapeless edges, and there was a huge angel +with a hammer building in plaster and steel. I wondered what he did +in that dreadful place. I hesitated, then asked him what he was +building. "We are adding to Hell," he said, "to keep pace with the +times." "Don't be too hard on them," I said, for I had just come out +of a compromising age and a weakening country. The angel did not +answer. "It won't be as bad as the old hell, will it?" I said. "Worse," +said the angel. + +"How can you reconcile it with your conscience as a Minister of +Grace," I said, "to inflict such a punishment?" (They talked like this +in the city whence I had come and I could not avoid the habit of it.) + +"They have invented a new cheap yeast," said the angel. + +I looked at the legend on the walls of the hell that the angel was +building, the words were written in flame, every fifteen seconds they +changed their color, "Yeasto, the great new yeast, it builds up body +and brain, and something more." + +"They shall look at it for ever," the angel said. + +"But they drove a perfectly legitimate trade," I said, "the law allowed +it." + +The angel went on hammering into place the huge steel uprights. + +"You are very revengeful," I said. "Do you never rest from doing +this terrible work?" + +"I rested one Christmas Day," the angel said, "and looked and +saw little children dying of cancer. I shall go on now until the fires +are lit." + +"It is very hard to prove," I said, "that the yeast is as bad as you +think." + +"After all," I said, "they must live." + +And the angel made no answer but went on building his hell. + + + + +THE TROUBLE IN LEAFY GREEN STREET + + +She went to the idol-shop in Moleshill Street, where the old man +mumbles, and said: "I want a god to worship when it is wet." + +The old man reminded her of the heavy penalties that rightly attach +to idolatry and, when he had enumerated all, she answered him as +was meet: "Give me a god to worship when it is wet." + +And he went to the back places of his shop and sought out and +brought her a god. The same was carved of grey stone and wore a +propitious look and was named, as the old man mumbled, The God +of Rainy Cheerfulness. + +Now it may be that long confinement to the house affects adversely +the liver, or these things may be of the soul, but certain it is that on +a rainy day her spirits so far descended that those cheerful creatures +came within sight of the Pit, and, having tried cigarettes to no good +end, she bethought her of Moleshill Street and the mumbling man. + +He brought the grey idol forth and mumbled of guarantees, although +he put nothing on paper, and she paid him there and then his +preposterous price and took the idol away. + +And on the next wet day that there ever was she prayed to the +grey-stone idol that she had bought, the God of Rainy Cheerfulness +(who knows with what ceremony or what lack of it?), and so +brought down on her in Leafy Green Street, in the preposterous +house at the corner, that doom of which all men speak. + + + + +THE MIST + + +The mist said unto the mist: "Let us go up into the Downs." And +the mist came up weeping. + +And the mist went into the high places and the hollows. + +And clumps of trees in the distance stood ghostly in the haze. + +But I went to a prophet, one who loved the Downs, and I said to +him: "Why does the mist come up weeping into the Downs when it +goes into the high places and the hollows?" + +And he answered: "The mist is the company of a multitude of souls +who never saw the Downs, and now are dead. Therefore they come +up weeping into the Downs, who are dead and never saw them." + + + + +FURROW-MAKER + + +He was all in black, but his friend was dressed in brown, members +of two old families. + +"Is there any change in the way you build your houses?" said he in +black. + +"No change," said the other. "And you?" + +"We change not," he said. + +A man went by in the distance riding a bicycle. + +"He is always changing," said the one in black, "of late almost every +century. He is uneasy. Always changing." + +"He changes the way he builds his house, does he not?" said the +brown one. + +"So my family say," said the other. "They say he has changed of late." + +"They say he takes much to cities?" the brown one said. + +"My cousin who lives in belfries tells me so," said the black one. +"He says he is much in cities." + +"And there he grows lean?" said the brown one. + +"Yes, he grows lean." + +"Is it true what they say?" said the brown one. + +"Caw," said the black one. + +"Is it true that he cannot live many centuries?" + +"No, no," said the black one. "Furrow-maker will not die. We must +not lose furrow-maker. He has been foolish of late, he has played +with smoke and is sick. His engines have wearied him and his cities +are evil. Yes, he is very sick. But in a few centuries he will forget +his folly and we shall not lose furrow-maker. Time out of mind he +has delved and my family have got their food from the raw earth +behind him. He will not die." + +"But they say, do they not?" said the brown one, "his cities are +noisome, and that he grows sick in them and can run no longer, and +that it is with him as it is with us when we grow too many, and the +grass has the bitter taste in the rainy season, and our young grow +bloated and die." + +"Who says it?" replied the black one. + +"Pigeon," the brown one answered. "He came back all dirty. +And Hare went down to the edge of the cities once. He says it +too. Man was too sick to chase him. He thinks that Man will die, +and his wicked friend Dog with him. Dog, he will die. That nasty +fellow Dog. He will die too, the dirty fellow!" + +"Pigeon and Hare!" said the black one. "We shall not lose +furrow-maker." + +"Who told you he will not die?" his brown friend said. + +"Who told me!" the black one said. "My family and his have +understood each other times out of mind. We know what follies +will kill each other and what each may survive, and I say that +furrow-maker will not die." + +"He will die," said the brown one. + +"Caw," said the other. + +And Man said in his heart: "Just one invention more. There is +something I want to do with petrol yet, and then I will give it all +up and go back to the woods." + + + + +LOBSTER SALAD + + +I was climbing round the perilous outside of the Palace of +Colquonhombros. So far below me that in the tranquil twilight +and clear air of those lands I could only barely see them lay the +craggy tops of the mountains. + +It was along no battlements or terrace edge I was climbing, but +on the sheer face of the wall itself, getting what foothold I could +where the boulders joined. + +Had my feet been bare I was done, but though I was in my +night-shirt I had on stout leather boots, and their edges somehow +held in those narrow cracks. My fingers and wrists were aching. + +Had it been possible to stop for a moment I might have been lured +to give a second look at the fearful peaks of the mountains down +there in the twilight, and this must have been fatal. + +That the thing was all a dream is beside the point. We have fallen +in dreams before, but it is well known that if in one of those falls +you ever hit the ground--you die: I had looked at those menacing +mountaintops and knew well that such a fall as the one I feared +must have such a termination. Then I went on. + +It is strange what different sensations there can be in different +boulders--every one gleaming with the same white light and every +one chosen to match the rest by minions of ancient kings--when +your life depends on the edges of every one you come to. Those +edges seemed strangely different. It was of no avail to overcome +the terror of one, for the next would give you a hold in quite a +different way or hand you over to death in a different manner. +Some were too sharp to hold and some too flush with the wall, +those whose hold was the best crumbled the soonest; each rock +had its different terror: and then there were those things that followed +behind me. + +And at last I came to a breach made long ago by earthquake, +lightning or war: I should have had to go down a thousand feet +to get round it and they would come up with me while I was doing +that, for certain sable apes that I have not mentioned as yet, things +that had tigerish teeth and were born and bred on that wall, had +pursued me all the evening. In any case I could have gone no +farther, nor did I know what the king would do along whose wall +I was climbing. It was time to drop and be done with it or stop and +await those apes. + +And then it was that I remembered a pin, thrown carelessly down +out of an evening-tie in another world to the one where grew that +glittering wall, and lying now if no evil chance had removed it on a +chest of drawers by my bed. The apes were very close, and hurrying, +for they knew my fingers were slipping, and the cruel peaks of those +infernal mountains seemed surer of me than the apes. I reached out +with a desperate effort of will towards where the pin lay on the chest +of drawers. I groped about. I found it! I ran it into my arm. Saved! + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE EXILES + + +The old man with a hammer and the one-eyed man with a spear were +seated by the roadside talking as I came up the hill. + +"It isn't as though they hadn't asked us," the one with the hammer said. + +"There ain't no more than twenty as knows about it," said the other. + +"Twenty's twenty," said the first. + +"After all these years," said the one-eyed man with the spear. "After +all these years. We might go back just once." + +"O' course we might," said the other. + +Their clothes were old even for laborers, the one with the hammer +had a leather apron full of holes and blackened, and their hands +looked like leather. But whatever they were they were English, and +this was pleasant to see after all the motors that had passed me that +day with their burden of mixed and doubtful nationalities. + +When they saw me the one with the hammer touched his greasy cap. + +"Might we make so bold, sir," he said, "as the ask the way to +Stonehenge?" + +"We never ought to go," mumbled the other plaintively. "There's +not more than twenty as knows, but...." + +I was bicycling there myself to see the place so I pointed out the +way and rode on at once, for there was something so utterly servile +about them both that I did not care for their company. They seemed +by their wretched mien to have been persecuted or utterly neglected +for many years, I thought that very likely they had done long terms +of penal servitude. + +When I came to Stonehenge I saw a group of about a score of men +standing among the stones. They asked me with some solemnity if +I was expecting anyone, and when I said No they spoke to me no +more. It was three miles back where I left those strange old men, +but I had not been in the stone circle long when they appeared, +coming with great strides along the road. When they saw them all +the people took off their hats and acted very strangely, and I saw +that they had a goat which they led up then to the old altar stone. +And the two old men came up with their hammer and spear and +began apologizing plaintively for the liberty they had taken in coming +back to that place, and all the people knelt on the grass before them. +And then still kneeling they killed the goat by the altar, and when the +two old men saw this they came up with many excuses and eagerly +sniffed the blood. And at first this made them happy. But soon the +one with the spear began to whimper. "It used to be men," he +lamented. "It used to be men." + +And the twenty men began looking uneasily at each other, and the +plaint of the one-eyed man went on in that tearful voice, and all of +a sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old men +were or what any of them were doing, but there are moments when +it is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And just as I +got up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the one with the +hammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in coming back to +Stonehenge. + +"But after all these years," I heard him crying, "After all these +years...." + +And the one with the spear said: "Yes, after three thousand years...." + + + + +NATURE AND TIME + + +Through the streets of Coventry one winter's night strode a +triumphant spirit. Behind him stooping, unkempt, utterly ragged, +wearing the clothes and look that outcasts have, whining, weeping, +reproaching, an ill-used spirit tried to keep pace with him. Continually +she plucked him by the sleeve and cried out to him as she panted +after and he strode resolute on. + +It was a bitter night, yet it did not seem to be the cold that she feared, +ill-clad though she was, but the trams and the ugly shops and the glare +of the factories, from which she continually winced as she hobbled on, +and the pavement hurt her feet. + +He that strode on in front seemed to care for nothing, it might be hot +or cold, silent or noisy, pavement or open fields, he merely had the +air of striding on. + +And she caught up and clutched him by the elbow. I heard her +speak in her unhappy voice, you scarcely heard it for the noise of +the traffic. + +"You have forgotten me," she complained to him. "You have forsaken +me here." + +She pointed to Coventry with a wide wave of her arm and seemed +to indicate other cities beyond. And he gruffly told her to keep +pace with him and that he did not forsake her. And she went on +with her pitiful lamentation. + +"My anemones are dead for miles," she said, "all my woods are +fallen and still the cities grow. My child Man is unhappy and my other +children are dying, and still the cities grow and you have forgotten me!" + +And then he turned angrily on her, almost stopping in that stride of +his that began when the stars were made. + +"When have I ever forgotten you?" he said, "or when forsaken you +ever? Did I not throw down Babylon for you? And is not Nineveh +gone? Where is Persepolis that troubled you? Where Tarshish and +Tyre? And you have said I forget you." + +And at this she seemed to take a little comfort. I heard her speak +once more, looking wistfully at her companion. "When will the fields +come back and the grass for my children?" + +"Soon, soon," he said: then they were silent. And he strode away, +she limping along behind him, and all the clocks in the towers chimed +as he passed. + + + + +THE SONG OF THE BLACKBIRD + + +As the poet passed the thorn-tree the blackbird sang. + +"How ever do you do it?" the poet said, for he knew bird language. + +"It was like this," said the blackbird. "It really was the most +extraordinary thing. I made that song last Spring, it came to me +all of a sudden. There was the most beautiful she-blackbird that +the world has ever seen. Her eyes were blacker than lakes are at +night, her feathers were blacker than the night itself, and nothing was +as yellow as her beak; she could fly much faster than the lightning. +She was not an ordinary she-blackbird, there has never been any +other like her at all. I did not dare go near her because she was so +wonderful. One day last Spring when it got warm again--it had been +cold, we ate berries, things were quite different then, but Spring came +and it got warm--one day I was thinking how wonderful she was and +it seemed so extraordinary to think that I should ever have seen her, +the only really wonderful she-blackbird in the world, that I opened +my beak to give a shout, and then this song came, and there had +never been anything like it before, and luckily I remembered it, the +very song that I sang just now. But what is so extraordinary, the most +amazing occurence of that marvellous day, was that no sooner had I +sung the song than that very bird, the most wonderful she-blackbird +in the world, flew right up to me and sat quite close to me on the same +tree. I never remember such wonderful times as those. + +"Yes, the song came in a moment, and as I was saying...." + +And an old wanderer walking with a stick came by and the blackbird +flew away, and the poet told the old man the blackbird's wonderful +story. + +"That song new?" said the wanderer. "Not a bit of it. God made it +years ago. All the blackbirds used to sing it when I was young. It +was new then." + + + + +THE MESSENGERS + + +One wandering nigh Parnassus chasing hares heard the high Muses. + +"Take us a message to the Golden Town." + +Thus sang the Muses. + +But the man said: "They do not call to me. Not to such as me speak +the Muses." + +And the Muses called him by name. + +"Take us a message," they said, "to the Golden Town." + +And the man was downcast for he would have chased hares. + +And the Muses called again. + +And when whether in valleys or on high crags of the hills he still +heard the Muses he went at last to them and heard their message, +though he would fain have left it to other men and chased the fleet +hares still in happy valleys. + +And they gave him a wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds as +only the Muses can carve. "By this," they said, "they shall know that +you come from the Muses." + +And the man went from that place and dressed in scarlet silks +as befitted one that came from the high Muses. And through the +gateway of the Golden Town he ran and cried his message, and his +cloak floated behind him. All silent sat the wise men and the aged, +they of the Golden Town; cross-legged they sat before their houses +reading from parchments a message of the Muses that they sent long +before. + +And the young man cried his message from the Muses. + +And they rose up and said: "Thou art not from the Muses. Otherwise +spake they." And they stoned him and he died. + +And afterwards they carved his message upon gold; and read it in +their temples on holy days. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? They sent +another messenger to the Golden Town. And they gave him a +wand of ivory to carry in his hand with all the beautiful stories of +the world wondrously carved thereon. And only the Muses could +have carved it. "By this," they said, "they shall know that you come +from the Muses." + +And he came through the gateway of the Golden Town with the +message he had for its people. And they rose up at once in the +Golden street, they rose from reading the message that they had +carved upon gold. "The last who came," they said, "came with a +wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds, as only the Muses can +carve. You are not from the Muses." And even as they had stoned +the last so also they stoned him. And afterwards they carved his +message on gold and laid it up in their temples. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? Even yet once +again they sent a messenger under the gateway into the Golden +Town. And for all that he wore a garland of gold that the high Muses +gave him, a garland of kingcups soft and yellow on his head, yet +fashioned of pure gold and by whom but the Muses, yet did they +stone him in the Golden Town. But they had the message, and what +care the Muses? + +And yet they will not rest, for some while since I heard them call to me. + +"Go take our message," they said, "unto the Golden Town." + +But I would not go. And they spake a second time. "Go take our +message," they said. + +And still I would not go, and they cried out a third time: "Go take +our message." + +And though they cried a third time I would not go. But morning and +night they cried and through long evenings. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? And when they +would not cease to call to me I went to them and I said: "The +Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their +pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins +out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, +there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are +gone." + +"Go take our message," they cried. + +And I said to the high Muses: "You do not understand. You have +no message for the Golden Town, the holy city no longer." + +"Go take our message," they cried. + +"What is your message?" I said to the high Muses. + +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 death of Pan. + +But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow +softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifty-one Tales, by +Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY-ONE TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 7838-8.txt or 7838-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/8/3/7838/ + +Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fifty-one Tales + +Author: Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +Posting Date: October 19, 2012 [EBook #7838] +Release Date: April, 2005 +First Posted: May 21, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY-ONE TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +FIFTY-ONE TALES + + + +by Lord Dunsany + +1915 + + + +CONTENTS + + +The Assignation + +Charon + +The Death of Pan + +The Sphinx at Giza + +The Hen + +Wind and Fog + +The Raft-Builders + +The Workman + +The Guest + +Death and Odysseus + +Death and the Orange + +The Prayer of the Flower + +Time and the Tradesman + +The Little City + +The Unpasturable Fields + +The Worm and the Angel + +The Songless Country + +The Latest Thing + +The Demagogue and the Demi-monde + +The Giant Poppy + +Roses + +The Man With the Golden Ear-rings + +The Dream of King Karna-Vootra + +The Storm + +A Mistaken Identity + +The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise + +Alone the Immortals + +A Moral Little Tale + +The Return of Song + +Spring In Town + +How the Enemy Came to Thlunrana + +A Losing Game + +Taking Up Picadilly + +After the Fire + +The City + +The Food of Death + +The Lonely Idol + +The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts) + +The Reward + +The Trouble in Leafy Green Street + +The Mist + +Furrow-Maker + +Lobster Salad + +The Return of the Exiles + +Nature and Time + +The Song of the Blackbird + +The Messengers + +The Three Tall Sons + +Compromise + +What We Have Come To + +The Tomb of Pan + + + + +THE ASSIGNATION + + +Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with sordid +adventurers, passed the poet by. + +And still the poet made for her little chaplets of song, to deck her +forehead in the courts of Time: and still she wore instead the worthless +garlands, that boisterous citizens flung to her in the ways, made out of +perishable things. + +And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet came to her +with his chaplets of song; and still she laughed at him and wore the +worthless wreaths, though they always died at evening. + +And one day in his bitterness the poet rebuked her, and said to her: +"Lovely Fame, even in the highways and the byways you have not +foreborne to laugh and shout and jest with worthless men, and I have +toiled for you and dreamed of you and you mock me and pass me by." + +And Fame turned her back on him and walked away, but in departing +she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him as she had not smiled +before, and, almost speaking in a whisper, said: + +"I will meet you in the graveyard at the back of the Workhouse in a +hundred years." + + + + +CHARON + + +Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his +weariness. + +It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide +floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had +become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was +of a piece with Eternity. + +If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided +all time in his memory into two equal slabs. + +So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance +lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen +perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it. + +It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. +They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It +was neither Charon's duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why +these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed. + +Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send +no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best. + +Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a +lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: +the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on +beside the little, silent, shivering ghost. + +And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the +beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like +the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old +as time and the pain in Charon's arms. + +Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of +Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and +Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the +little shadow spoke, that had been a man. + +"I am the last," he said. + +No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever +made him weep. + + + + +THE DEATH OF PAN + + +When the travellers from London entered Arcady they lamented one to +another the death of Pan. + +And anon they saw him lying stiff and still. + +Horned Pan was still and the dew was on his fur; he had not the look +of a live animal. And then they said, "It is true that Pan is dead." + +And, standing melancholy by that huge prone body, they looked for +long at memorable Pan. + +And evening came and a small star appeared. + +And presently from a hamlet of some Arcadian valley, with a sound +of idle song, Arcadian maidens came. + +And, when they saw there, suddenly in the twilight, that old recumbent +god, they stopped in their running and whispered among themselves. +"How silly he looks," they said, and thereat they laughed a little. + +And at the sound of their laughter Pan leaped up and the gravel flew +from his hooves. + +And, for as long as the travellers stood and listened, the crags and +the hill-tops of Arcady rang with the sounds of pursuit. + + + + +THE SPHINX AT GIZEH + + +I saw the other day the Sphinx's painted face. + +She had painted her face in order to ogle Time. + +And he has spared no other painted face in all the world but hers. + +Delilah was younger than she, and Delilah is dust. Time hath loved +nothing but this worthless painted face. + +I do not care that she is ugly, nor that she has painted her face, so +that she only lure his secret from Time. + +Time dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting cities. + +Time never wearies of her silly smile. + +There are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil. + +I saw an old man go by, and Time never touched him. + +Time that has carried away the seven gates of Thebes! + +She has tried to bind him with ropes of eternal sand, she had hoped +to oppress him with the Pyramids. + +He lies there in the sand with his foolish hair all spread about her paws. + +If she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes, so that he shall +find no more our beautiful things--there are lovely gates in Florence +that I fear he will carry away. + +We have tried to bind him with song and with old customs, but they +only held him for a little while, and he has always smitten us and +mocked us. + +When he is blind he shall dance to us and make sport. + +Great clumsy time shall stumble and dance, who liked to kill little +children, and can hurt even the daisies no longer. + +Then shall our children laugh at him who slew Babylon's winged bulls, +and smote great numbers of the gods and fairies--when he is shorn +of his hours and his years. + +We will shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber +where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we +give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work. + +We will kiss they painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to us Time. + +And yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold blindly +of the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him the +House of Man. + + + + +THE HEN + + +All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering +uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only of +Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North wind +waiting. + +And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. And everyone +spoke of the swallows and the South. + +"I think I shall go South myself next year," said a hen. + +And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the year +wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry discussed +the departure of the hen. + +And very early one morning, the wind being from the North, the +swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings; and a +strength came upon them and a strange old knowledge and a more +than human faith, and flying high they left the smoke of our cities and +small remembered eaves, and saw at last the huge and homeless sea, +and steering by grey sea-currents went southward with the wind. And +going South they went by glittering fog-banks and saw old islands lifting +their heads above them; they saw the slow quests of the wandering +ships, and divers seeking pearls, and lands at war, till there came in +view the mountains that they sought and the sight of the peaks they +knew; and they descended into an austral valley, and saw Summer +sometimes sleeping and sometimes singing song. + +"I think the wind is about right," said the hen; and she spread her +wings and ran out of the poultry-yard. And she ran fluttering out on +to the road and some way down it until she came to a garden. + +At evening she came back panting. + +And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had gone South +as far as the high road, and saw the great world's traffic going by, +and came to lands where the potato grew, and saw the stubble upon +which men live, and at the end of the road had found a garden, and +there were roses in it--beautiful roses!--and the gardener himself was +there with his braces on. + +"How extremely interesting," the poultry said, "and what a really +beautiful description!" + +And the Winter wore away, and the bitter months went by, and the +Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came again. + +"We have been to the South," they said, "and the valleys beyond +the sea." + +But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in the South: +"You should hear our hen," they said. + + + + +WIND AND FOG + + +"Way for us," said the North Wind as he came down the sea on an +errand of old Winter. + +And he saw before him the grey silent fog that lay along the tides. + +"Way for us," said the North Wind, "O ineffectual fog, for I am +Winter's leader in his age-old war with the ships. I overwhelm +them suddenly in my strength, or drive upon them the huge seafaring +bergs. I cross an ocean while you move a mile. There is mourning in +inland places when I have met the ships. I drive them upon the rocks +and feed the sea. Wherever I appear they bow to our lord the Winter." + +And to his arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose up +slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, +took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was +still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I heard him +telling infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A +hundred and fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went +from Tyre, eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of the line, twelve +warships under sail, with their carronades, three hundred and +eighty-seven river-craft, forty-two merchantmen that carried spice, +four quinquiremes, ten triremes, thirty yachts, twenty-one battleships +of the modern time, nine thousand admirals...." he mumbled and chuckled +on, till I suddenly arose and fled from his fearful contamination. + + + + +THE RAFT-BUILDERS + + +All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon +doomed ships. + +When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity +with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile +upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our +names and a phrase or two and little else. + +They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like +sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract +their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to pieces +before the ship breaks up. + +See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquility deadlier +than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it. Time in its deeps +swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale, feeds on the littlest +things--small tunes and little unskilled songs of the olden, golden +evenings--and anon turneth whale-like to overthrow whole ships. + +See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something there +that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in the +deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the sodden +bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis. + +For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-floor +strewn with crowns. + +Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first. + +There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen. + + + + +THE WORKMAN + + +I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of +some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife +and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and +do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I +could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not +only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the +very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had +time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood. + +Then I went home for I had work to do. And all that evening I thought +of the man's folly, till the thought hindered me from serious work. + +And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the workman +floated through my wall and stood before me laughing. + +I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey +diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter. + +I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the ghost +spoke. It said: "I'm a laughin' at you sittin' and workin' there." + +"And why," I asked, "do you laugh at serious work?" + +"Why, yer bloomin' life 'ull go by like a wind," he said, "and yer 'ole +silly civilization 'ull be tidied up in a few centuries." + +Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laughing +still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity from +which he had come. + + + + +THE GUEST + + +A young man came into an ornate restaurant at eight o'clock in +London. + +He was alone, but two places had been laid at the table which was +reserved for him. He had chosen the dinner very carefully, by letter +a week before. + +A waiter asked him about the other guest. + +"You probably won't see him till the coffee comes," the young man +told him; so he was served alone. + +Those at adjacent tables might have noticed the young man continually +addressing the empty chair and carrying on a monologue with it +throughout his elaborate dinner. + +"I think you knew my father," he said to it over the soup. + +"I sent for you this evening," he continued, "because I want you to +do me a good turn; in fact I must insist on it." + +There was nothing eccentric about the man except for this habit of +addressing an empty chair, certainly he was eating as good a dinner +as any sane man could wish for. + +After the Burgundy had been served he became more voluble in his +monologue, not that he spoiled his wine by drinking excessively. + +"We have several acquaintances in common," he said. "I met King Seti +a year ago in Thebes. I think he has altered very little since you knew +him. I thought his forehead a little low for a king's. Cheops has left the +house that he built for your reception, he must have prepared for you +for years and years. I suppose you have seldom been entertained like +that. I ordered this dinner over a week ago. I thought then that a lady +might have come with me, but as she wouldn't I've asked you. She may +not after all be as lovely as Helen of Troy. Was Helen very lovely? Not +when you knew her, perhaps. You were lucky in Cleopatra, you must +have known her when she was in her prime. + +"You never knew the mermaids nor the fairies nor the lovely goddesses +of long ago, that's where we have the best of you." + +He was silent when the waiters came to his table, but rambled merrily +on as soon as they left, still turned to the empty chair. + +"You know I saw you here in London only the other day. You were +on a motor bus going down Ludgate Hill. It was going much too fast. +London is a good place. But I shall be glad enough to leave it. It was +in London that I met the lady I that was speaking about. If it hadn't +been for London I probably shouldn't have met her, and if it hadn't +been for London she probably wouldn't have had so much besides +me to amuse her. It cuts both ways." + +He paused once to order coffee, gazing earnestly at the waiter and +putting a sovereign in his hand. "Don't let it be chicory," said he. + +The waiter brought the coffee, and the young man dropped a tabloid +of some sort into his cup. + +"I don't suppose you come here very often," he went on. "Well, you +probably want to be going. I haven't taken you much out of your way, +there is plenty for you to do in London." + +Then having drunk his coffee he fell on to the floor by a foot of the +empty chair, and a doctor who was dining in the room bent over +him and announced to the anxious manager the visible presence of +the young man's guest. + + + + +DEATH AND ODYSSEUS + + +In the Olympian courts Love laughed at Death, because he was +unsightly, and because She couldn't help it, and because he never +did anything worth doing, and because She would. + +And Death hated being laughed at, and used to brood apart thinking +only of his wrongs and of what he could do to end this intolerable +treatment. + +But one day Death appeared in the courts with an air and They all +noticed it. "What are you up to now?" said Love. And Death with +some solemnity said to Her: "I am going to frighten Odysseus"; and +drawing about him his grey traveller's cloak went out through the +windy door with his jowl turned earthwards. + +And he came soon to Ithaca and the hall that Athene knew, and +opened the door and saw there famous Odysseus, with his white +locks bending close over the fire, trying to warm his hands. + +And the wind through the open door blew bitterly on Odysseus. + +And Death came up behind him, and suddenly shouted. + +And Odysseus went on warming his pale hands. + +Then Death came close and began to mouth at him. And after a +while Odysseus turned and spoke. And "Well, old servant," he said, +"have your masters been kind to you since I made you work for me +round Ilion?" + +And Death for some while stood mute, for he thought of the laughter +of Love. + +Then "Come now," said Odysseus, "lend me your shoulder," and he +leaning heavily on that bony joint, they went together through the open +door. + + + + +DEATH AND THE ORANGE + + +Two dark young men in a foreign southern land sat at a restaurant +table with one woman. + +And on the woman's plate was a small orange which had an evil +laughter in its heart. + +And both of the men would be looking at the woman all the time, and +they ate little and they drank much. + +And the woman was smiling equally at each. + +Then the small orange that had the laughter in its heart rolled +slowly off the plate on to the floor. And the dark young men both +sought for it at once, and they met suddenly beneath the table, and +soon they were speaking swift words to one another, and a horror +and an impotence came over the Reason of each as she sat helpless +at the back of the mind, and the heart of the orange laughed and the +woman went on smiling; and Death, who was sitting at another table, +tete-a-tete with an old man, rose and came over to listen to the quarrel. + + + + +THE PRAYER OF THE FLOWERS + + +It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the +old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going +Greecewards. + +"The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love +us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over +the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the +land. + +"The cancrous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their lairs +continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night. + +"The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou art +far, O Pan, and far away." + +I was standing by night between two railway embankments on the +edge of a Midland city. On one of them I saw the trains go by, once +in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by twice in +every five. + +Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them wore +the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever. + +The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and +thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beating +musically up wind, the voice of Pan reproving them from Arcady-- + +"Be patient a little, these things are not for long." + + + + +TIME AND THE TRADESMAN + + +Once Time as he prowled the world, his hair grey not with weakness +but with dust of the ruin of cities, came to a furniture shop and entered +the Antique department. And there he saw a man darkening the wood +of a chair with dye and beating it with chains and making imitation +wormholes in it. + +And when Time saw another doing his work he stood by him awhile +and looked on critically. + +And at last he said: "That is not how I work," and he turned the man's +hair white and bent his back and put some furrows in his little cunning +face; then turned and strode away, for a mighty city that was weary +and sick and too long had troubled the fields was sore in need of him. + + + + +THE LITTLE CITY + + +I was in the pre-destined 11.8 from Goraghwood to Drogheda, when +I suddenly saw the city. It was a little city in a valley, and only seemed +to have a little smoke, and the sun caught the smoke and turned it +golden, so that it looked like an old Italian picture where angels walk +in the foreground and the rest is a blaze of gold. And beyond, as one +could tell by the lie of land although one could not see through the +golden smoke, I knew that there lay the paths of the roving ships. + +All round there lay a patchwork of small fields all over the slopes of +the hills, and the snow had come upon them tentatively, but already +the birds of the waste had moved to the sheltered places for every +omen boded more to fall. Far away some little hills blazed like an +aureate bulwark broken off by age and fallen from the earthward +rampart of Paradise. And aloof and dark the mountains stared +unconcernedly seawards. + +And when I saw those grey and watchful mountains sitting where +they sat while the cities of the civilization of Araby and Asia arose +like crocuses, and like crocuses fell, I wondered for how long there +would be smoke in the valley and little fields on the hills. + + + + +THE UNPASTURABLE FIELDS + + +Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones, the +grey ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall break +his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now, +hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the +bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done. + +"Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities until +they grow old and leave us to go among the myths. + +"We are the most imperishable mountains." + +And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag on +crag and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of Caucasus upon +Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon the backs of storms and +looked down idly from their golden heights upon the crests of the +mountains. + +"Ye pass away," said the mountains. + +And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied, + +"We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable +fields Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon +song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial +fields. His hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though our +fields were of silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils, +with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands and +stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees far-future +wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds of the togas that +cover the knees of the gods." + + + + +THE WORM AND THE ANGEL + + +As he crawled from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an angel. + +And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths +and maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men heavy in +their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far +wars and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and wickedness, and +the pomp of kings, and the people of all the lands that the sunlight knew. + +And the worm spake to the angel saying: "Behold my food." + +"Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes," murmured the +angel, for they walked by the sea, "and can you destroy that too?" + +And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for for +three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its +melody was ringing in his head. + + + + +THE SONGLESS COUNTRY + + +The poet came unto a great country in which there were no songs. +And he lamented gently for the nation that had not any little foolish +songs to sing to itself at evening. + +And at last he said: "I will make for them myself some little foolish +songs so that they may be merry in the lanes and happy by the +fireside." And for some days he made for them aimless songs such +as maidens sing on the hills in the older happier countries. + +Then he went to some of that nation as they sat weary with the +work of the day and said to them: "I have made you some aimless +songs out of the small unreasonable legends, that are somewhat akin +to the wind in the vales of my childhood; and you may care to sing +them in your disconsolate evenings." + +And they said to him: + +"If you think we have time for that sort of nonsense nowadays +you cannot know much of the progress of modern commerce." + +And then the poet wept for he said: "Alas! They are damned." + + + + +THE LATEST THING + + +I saw an unclean-feeder by the banks of the river of Time. He crouched +by orchards numerous with apples in a happy land of flowers; colossal +barns stood near which the ancients had stored with grain, and the sun +was golden on serene far hills behind the level lands. But his back was +to all these things. He crouched and watched the river. And whatever +the river chanced to send him down the unclean-feeder clutched at +greedily with his arms, wading out into the water. + +Now there were in those days, and indeed still are, certain uncleanly +cities upon the river of Time; and from them fearfully nameless things +came floating shapelessly by. And whenever the odor of these came +down the river before them the unclean-feeder plunged into the dirty +water and stood far out, expectant. And if he opened his mouth one +saw these things on his lips. + +Indeed from the upper reaches there came down sometimes the +fallen rhododendron's petal, sometimes a rose; but they were useless +to the unclean-feeder, and when he saw them he growled. + +A poet walked beside the river's bank; his head was lifted and his +look was afar; I think he saw the sea, and the hills of Fate from which +the river ran. I saw the unclean-feeder standing voracious, up to his +waist in that evil-smelling river. + +"Look," I said to the poet. + +"The current will sweep him away," the poet said. + +"But those cities that poison the river," I said to him. + +He answered: "Whenever the centuries melt on the hills of Fate the +river terribly floods." + + + + +THE DEMAGOGUE AND THE DEMI-MONDE + + +A demagogue and a demi-mondaine chanced to arrive together at +the gate of Paradise. And the Saint looked sorrowfully at them both. + +"Why were you a demagogue?" he said to the first. + +"Because," said the demagogue, "I stood for those principles that +have made us what we are and have endeared our Party to the great +heart of the people. In a word I stood unflinchingly on the plank of +popular representation." + +"And you?" said the Saint to her of the demi-monde. + +"I wanted money," said the demi-mondaine. + +And after some moments' thought the Saint said: "Well, come in; +though you don't deserve to." + +But to the demagogue he said: "We genuinely regret that the limited +space at our disposal and our unfortunate lack of interest in those +Questions that you have gone so far to inculate and have so ably +upheld in the past, prevent us from giving you the support for which +you seek." + +And he shut the golden door. + + + + +THE GIANT POPPY + + +I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear day +you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There +used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them +where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies +danced. + +But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant +glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved +in the wind, and as it waved it hummed "Remember not." And by its +oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an +ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed +that way or anything olden. + +He said: "The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and +fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it +of its beautiful strength." And I asked him why he sat on the hills I +knew, playing an olden tune. + +And he answered: "Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which +would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood +of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray +over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have +saved Agamemnon." + +Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the +poppy's sleepy petals murmured "Remember not. Remember not." + + + + +ROSES + + +I know a roadside where the wild rose blooms with a strange +abundance. There is a beauty in the blossoms too of an almost +exotic kind, a taint of deeper pink that shocks the Puritan flowers. +Two hundred generations ago (generations, I mean, of roses) this +was a village street; there was a floral decadence when they left their +simple life and the roses came from the wilderness to clamber round +houses of men. + +Of all the memories of that little village, of all the cottages that stood +there, of all the men and women whose homes they were, nothing +remains but a more beautiful blush on the faces of the roses. + +I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated fields +come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war, they may +find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; because we have loved +a little that swart old city. + + + + +THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN EAR-RINGS + + +It may be that I dreamed this. So much at least is certain--that I +turned one day from the traffic of a city, and came to its docks and +saw its slimy wharves going down green and steep into the water, and +saw the huge grey river slipping by and the lost things that went with it +turning over and over, and I thought of the nations and unpitying Time, +and saw and marvelled at the queenly ships come newly from the sea. + +It was then, if I mistake not, that I saw leaning against a wall, with his +face to the ships, a man with golden ear-rings. His skin had the dark +tint of the southern men: the deep black hairs of his moustache were +whitened a little with salt; he wore a dark blue jacket such as sailors +wear, and the long boots of seafarers, but the look in his eyes was +further afield than the ships, he seemed to be beholding the farthest +things. + +Even when I spoke to him he did not call home that look, but +answered me dreamily with that same fixed stare as though his +thoughts were heaving on far and lonely seas. I asked him what ship +he had come by, for there were many there. The sailing ships were +there with their sails all furled and their masts straight and still like a +wintry forest; the steamers were there, and great liners, puffing up idle +smoke into the twilight. He answered he had come by none of them. +I asked him what line he worked on, for he was clearly a sailor; I +mentioned well-known lines, but he did not know them. Then I asked +him where he worked and what he was. And he said: "I work in the +Sargasso Sea, and I am the last of the pirates, the last left alive." And +I shook him by the hand I do not know how many times. I said: "We +feared you were dead. We feared you were dead." And he answered +sadly: "No. No. I have sinned too deeply on the Spanish seas: I am +not allowed to die." + + + + +THE DREAM OF KING KARNA-VOOTRA + + +King Karna-Vootra sitting on his throne commanding all things said: +"I very clearly saw last night the queenly Vava-Nyria. Though partly +she was hidden by great clouds that swept continually by her, rolling +over and over, yet her face was unhidden and shone, being full of +moonlight. + +"I said to her: + +"'Walk with me by the great pools in many-gardened, beautiful +Istrakhan where the lilies float that give delectable dreams; or, +drawing aside the curtain of hanging orchids, pass with me thence +from the pools by a secret path through the else impassable jungle +that fills the only way between the mountains that shut in Istrakhan. +They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and at evening when +the pools are strange with light, till in their gladness sometimes there +melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely heights the mountaineer. +They have valleys among them older than the wrinkles in the moon. + +"'Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we shall +come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only speak +of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely that +even the butterflies that float about it when they see their images +flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each night +we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing the stars +to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with tidings +of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Sendara and men +shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Sendara the +rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of Zoth, +till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing; +but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to +Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their +lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in +distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma +as they sit telling careless tales to lure men to their wares. + +"'And the heralds passing thence shall come even to Ingra, to +Ingra where they dance. And there they shall tell of thee, so that +thy name long hence shall be sung in that joyous city. And there they +shall borrow camels and pass over the sands and go by desert ways +to distant Nirid to tell of thee to the lonely men in the mountain +monasteries. + +"'Come with me even now for it is Spring.'" + +"And as I said this she faintly yet perceptibly shook her head. And it +was only then I remembered my youth was gone, and she dead forty +years." + + + + +THE STORM + + +They saw a little ship that was far at sea and that went by the name +of the _Petite Esperance_. And because of its uncouth rig and its +lonely air and the look that it had of coming from strangers' lands they +said: "It is neither a ship to greet nor desire, nor yet to succor when in +the hands of the sea." + +And the sea rose up as is the wont of the sea and the little ship from +afar was in his hands, and frailer than ever seemed its feeble masts +with their sails of fantastic cut and their alien flags. And the sea made +a great and very triumphing voice, as the sea doth. And then there +arose a wave that was very strong, even the ninth-born son of the +hurricane and the tide, and hid the little ship and hid the whole of the +far parts of the sea. Thereat said those who stood on the good dry +land: + +"'Twas but a little, worthless alien ship and it is sunk at sea, and it is +good and right that the storm have spoil." And they turned and watched +the course of the merchant-men, laden with silver and appeasing spice; +year after year they cheered them into port and praised their goods and +their familiar sails. And many years went by. + +And at last with decks and bulwarks covered with cloth of gold; with +age-old parrots that had known the troubadours, singing illustrious +songs and preening their feathers of gold; with a hold full of emeralds +and rubies; all silken with Indian loot; furling as it came in its way-worn +alien sails, a galleon glided into port, shutting the sunlight from the +merchantmen: and lo! it loomed the equal of the cliffs. + +"Who are you?" they asked, "far-travelled wonderful ship?" + +And they said: "The _Petite Esperance_." + +"O," said the people on shore. "We thought you were sunk at sea." + +"Sunk at sea?" sang the sailors. "We could not be sunk at sea--we +had the gods on board." + + + + +A MISTAKEN IDENTITY + + +Fame as she walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of +Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her +in the dirt of the road. + +"Who are you?" Fame said to her. + +"I am Fame," said Notoriety. + +Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone. + +And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose and +followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her native Pit. + + + + +THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE + + +For a long time there was doubt with acrimony among the beasts as +to whether the Hare or the Tortoise could run the swifter. Some said +the Hare was the swifter of the two because he had such long ears, +and others said the Tortoise was the swifter because anyone whose +shell was so hard as that should be able to run hard too. And lo, the +forces of estrangement and disorder perpetually postponed a decisive +contest. + +But when there was nearly war among the beasts, at last an +arrangement was come to and it was decided that the Hare and the +Tortoise should run a race of five hundred yards so that all should +see who was right. + +"Ridiculous nonsense!" said the Hare, and it was all his backers could +do to get him to run. + +"The contest is most welcome to me," said the Tortoise, "I shall not +shirk it." + +O, how his backers cheered. + +Feeling ran high on the day of the race; the goose rushed at the fox +and nearly pecked him. Both sides spoke loudly of the approaching +victory up to the very moment of the race. + +"I am absolutely confident of success," said the Tortoise. But +the Hare said nothing, he looked bored and cross. Some of his +supporters deserted him then and went to the other side, who were +loudly cheering the Tortoise's inspiriting words. But many remained +with the Hare. "We shall not be disappointed in him," they said. "A +beast with such long ears is bound to win." + +"Run hard," said the supporters of the Tortoise. + +And "run hard" became a kind of catch-phrase which everybody +repeated to one another. "Hard shell and hard living. That's what +the country wants. Run hard," they said. And these words were +never uttered but multitudes cheered from their hearts. + +Then they were off, and suddenly there was a hush. + +The Hare dashed off for about a hundred yards, then he looked +round to see where his rival was. + +"It is rather absurd," he said, "to race with a Tortoise." And he sat +down and scratched himself. "Run hard! Run hard!" shouted some. + +"Let him rest," shouted others. And "let him rest" became a +catch-phrase too. + +And after a while his rival drew near to him. + +"There comes that damned Tortoise," said the Hare, and he got up +and ran as hard as could be so that he should not let the Tortoise +beat him. + +"Those ears will win," said his friends. "Those ears will win; and +establish upon an incontestable footing the truth of what we have +said." And some of them turned to the backers of the Tortoise and +said: "What about your beast now?" + +"Run hard," they replied. "Run hard." + +The Hare ran on for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as far +as the winning-post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool he looked +running races with a Tortoise who was nowhere in sight, and he sat +down again and scratched. + +"Run hard. Run hard," said the crowd, and "Let him rest." + +"Whatever is the use of it?" said the Hare, and this time he stopped +for good. Some say he slept. + +There was desperate excitement for an hour or two, and then the +Tortoise won. + +"Run hard. Run hard," shouted his backers. "Hard shell and hard +living: that's what has done it." And then they asked the Tortoise what +his achievement signified, and he went and asked the Turtle. And the +Turtle said, "It is a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness." And +then the Tortoise repeated it to his friends. And all the beasts said +nothing else for years. And even to this day, "a glorious victory for +the forces of swiftness" is a catch-phrase in the house of the snail. + +And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known is +that very few of those that witnessed it survived the great forest-fire +that happened shortly after. It came up over the weald by night with +a great wind. The Hare and the Tortoise and a very few of the beasts +saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge of the trees, and +they hurriedly called a meeting to decide what messenger they should +send to warn the beasts in the forest. + +They sent the Tortoise. + + + + +ALONE THE IMMORTALS + + +I heard it said that far away from here, on the wrong side of the +deserts of Cathay and in a country dedicate to winter, are all the years +that are dead. And there a certain valley shuts them in and hides them, +as rumor has it, from the world, but not from the sight of the moon nor +from those that dream in his rays. + +And I said: I will go from here by ways of dream and I will come to +that valley and enter in and mourn there for the good years that are +dead. And I said: I will take a wreath, a wreath of mourning, and lay +it at their feet in token of my sorrow for their dooms. + +And when I sought about among the flowers, among the flowers for +my wreath of mourning, the lily looked too large and the laurel looked +too solemn and I found nothing frail enough nor slender to serve as an +offering to the years that were dead. And at last I made a slender +wreath of daisies in the manner that I had seen them made in one of +the years that is dead. + +"This," said I, "is scarce less fragile or less frail than one of those +delicate forgotten years." Then I took my wreath in my hand and +went from here. And when I had come by paths of mystery to that +romantic land, where the valley that rumour told of lies close to the +mountainous moon, I searched among the grass for those poor slight +years for whom I bought my sorrow and my wreath. And when I found +there nothing in the grass I said: "Time has shattered them and swept +them away and left not even any faint remains." + +But looking upwards in the blaze of the moon I suddenly saw colossi +sitting near, and towering up and blotting out the stars and filling the +night with blackness; and at those idols' feet I saw praying and making +obeisance kings and the days that are and all times and all cities and all +nations and all their gods. Neither the smoke of incense nor of the +sacrifice burning reached those colossal heads, they sat there not to +be measured, not to be over-thrown, not to be worn away. + +I said: "Who are those?" + +One answered: "Alone the Immortals." + +And I said sadly: "I came not to see dread gods, but I came to shed +my tears and to offer flowers at the feet of certain little years that are +dead and may not come again." + +He answered me: "These _are_ the years that are dead, alone the +immortals; all years to be are Their children--They fashioned their +smiles and their laughter; all earthly kings They have crowned, all +gods They have created; all the events to be flow down from their +feet like a river, the worlds are flying pebbles that They have already +thrown, and Time and all his centuries behind him kneel there with +bended crests in token of vassalage at Their potent feet." + +And when I heard this I turned away with my wreath, and went back +to my own land comforted. + + + + +A MORAL LITTLE TALE + + +There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance. And +for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And there +loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that loved the +dance respected him too; they said "He is a pure, good man and acts +according to his lights." + +He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several +Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but +not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very young. +He always dressed in black. + +He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and there +grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his flowing +pure-white beard. + +One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said "Well done." + +"Avaunt," said that earnest man. + +"No, no, friend," said the Devil. + +"Dare not to call me 'friend,'" he answered bravely. + +"Come, come, friend," said the Devil. "Have you not done my work? Have +you not put apart the couples that would dance? Have you not checked +their laughter and their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery +of black? O friend, friend, you do not know what a detestable thing +it is to sit in hell and hear people being happy, and singing in +theatres and singing in the fields, and whispering after dances under +the moon," and he fell to cursing fearfully. + +"It is you," said the Puritan, "that put into their hearts the evil desire +to dance; and black is God's own livery, not yours." + +And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke. + +"He only made the silly colors," he said, "and useless dawns on +hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along them as soon +as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to dance, and +the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that pernicious influence +Love." + +And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man +sat up in bed and shouted "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" + +"It's true," said the Devil. "It isn't I that send the village fools +muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the +harvest moon is high, it's as much as I can bear even to see them +dancing." + +"Then," said the man, "I have mistaken right for wrong; but as soon +as I wake I will fight you yet." + +"O, no you don't," said the Devil. "You don't wake up out of this sleep." + +And somewhere far away Hell's black steel doors were opened, and +arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut behind +them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and further into +the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan's punishment to know that +those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he had done. + + + + +THE RETURN OF SONG + + +"The swans are singing again," said to one another the gods. And +looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair and +far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly larger +than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from it looking +larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable swans, singing +and singing and singing, till it seemed as though even the gods were +wild ships swimming in music. + +"What is it?" I said to one that was humble among the gods. + +"Only a world has ended," he said to me, "and the swans are coming +back to the gods returning the gift of song." + +"A whole world dead!" I said. + +"Dead," said he that was humble among the gods. "The worlds are +not for ever; only song is immortal." + +"Look! Look!" he said. "There will be a new one soon." + +And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods. + + + + +SPRING IN TOWN + + +At a street corner sat, and played with a wind, Winter disconsolate. + +Still tingled the fingers of the passers-by and still their breath was +visible, and still they huddled their chins into their coats when turning +a corner they met with a new wind, still windows lighted early sent out +into the street the thought of romantic comfort by evening fires; these +things still were, yet the throne of Winter tottered, and every breeze +brought tidings of further fortresses lost on lakes or boreal hill-slopes. +And not any longer as a king did Winter appear in those streets, as when +the city was decked with gleaming white to greet him as a conqueror and +he rode in with his glittering icicles and haughty retinue of prancing +winds, but he sat there with a little wind at the corner of the street like +some old blind beggar with his hungry dog. And as to some old blind +beggar Death approaches, and the alert ears of the sightless man +prophetically hear his far-off footfall, so there came suddenly to +Winter's ears the sound, from some neighbouring garden, of Spring +approaching as she walked on daisies. And Spring approaching looked +at huddled inglorious Winter. + +"Begone," said Spring. + +"There is nothing for you to do here," said Winter to her. Nevertheless +he drew about him his grey and battered cloak and rose and called to +his little bitter wind and up a side street that led northward strode away. + +Pieces of paper and tall clouds of dust went with him as far as the city's +outer gate. He turned then and called to Spring: "You can do nothing +in this city," he said; then he marched homeward over plains and sea +and heard his old winds howling as he marched. The ice broke up +behind him and foundered like navies. To left and to right of him flew +the flocks of the sea-birds, and far before him the geese's triumphant +cry went like a clarion. Greater and greater grew his stature as he went +northwards and ever more kingly his mien. Now he took baronies at +a stride and now counties and came again to the snow-white frozen +lands where the wolves came out to meet him and, draping himself +anew with old grey clouds, strode through the gates of his invincible +home, two old ice barriers swinging on pillars of ice that had never +known the sun. + +So the town was left to Spring. And she peered about to see +what she could do with it. Presently she saw a dejected dog coming +prowling down the road, so she sang to him and he gambolled. I saw +him next day strutting by with something of an air. Where there were +trees she went to them and whispered, and they sang the arboreal +song that only trees can hear, and the green buds came peeping out as +stars while yet it is twilight, secretly one by one. She went to gardens +and awaked from dreaming the warm maternal earth. In little patches +bare and desolate she called up like a flame the golden crocus, or its +purple brother like an emperor's ghost. She gladdened the graceless +backs of untidy houses, here with a weed, there with a little grass. +She said to the air, "Be joyous." + +Children began to know that daisies blew in unfrequented corners. +Buttonholes began to appear in the coats of the young men. The work +of Spring was accomplished. + + + + +HOW THE ENEMY CAME TO THLUNRANA + + +It had been prophesied of old and foreseen from the ancient days that +its enemy would come upon Thlunrana. And the date of its doom was +known and the gate by which it would enter, yet none had prophesied +of the enemy who he was save that he was of the gods though he dwelt +with men. Meanwhile Thlunrana, that secret lamaserai, that chief +cathedral of wizardry, was the terror of the valley in which it stood +and of all lands round about it. So narrow and high were the windows +and so strange when lighted at night that they seemed to regard men +with the demoniac leer of something that had a secret in the dark. Who +were the magicians and the deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard +of that furtive place nobody knew, for they went veiled and hooded and +cloaked completely in black. + +Though her doom was close upon her and the enemy of prophecy +should come that very night through the open, southward door that +was named the Gate of the Doom, yet that rocky edifice Thlunrana +remained mysterious still, venerable, terrible, dark, and dreadfully +crowned with her doom. It was not often that anyone dared wander +near to Thlunrana by night when the moan of the magicians invoking +we know not Whom rose faintly from inner chambers, scaring the +drifting bats: but on the last night of all the man from the black-thatched +cottage by the five pine-trees came, because he would see Thlunrana +once again before the enemy that was divine, but that dwelt with men, +should come against it and it should be no more. Up the dark valley he +went like a bold man, but his fears were thick upon him; his bravery +bore their weight but stooped a little beneath them. He went in at the +southward gate that is named the Gate of the Doom. He came into a +dark hall, and up a marble stairway passed to see the last of Thlunrana. +At the top a curtain of black velvet hung and he passed into a chamber +heavily hung with curtains, with a gloom in it that was blacker than +anything they could account for. In a sombre chamber beyond, seen +through a vacant archway, magicians with lighted tapers plied their +wizardry and whispered incantations. All the rats in the place were +passing away, going whimpering down the stairway. The man from +the black-thatched cottage passed through that second chamber: the +magicians did not look at him and did not cease to whisper. He passed +from them through heavy curtains still of black velvet and came into a +chamber of black marble where nothing stirred. Only one taper burned +in the third chamber; there were no windows. On the smooth floor and +under the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood with its curtains drawn close +together: this was the holy of holies of that ominous place, its inner +mystery. One on each side of it dark figures crouched, either of men +or women or cloaked stone, or of beasts trained to be silent. When +the awful stillness of the mystery was more than he could bear the +man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees went up +to the silk pavilion, and with a bold and nervous clutch of the hand +drew one of the curtains aside, and saw the inner mystery, and laughed. +And the prophecy was fulfilled, and Thlunrana was never more a terror +to the valley, but the magicians passed away from their terrific halls and +fled through the open fields wailing and beating their breasts, for +laughter was the enemy that was doomed to come against Thlunrana +through her southward gate (that was named the Gate of the Doom), +and it is of the gods but dwells with man. + + + + +A LOSING GAME + + +Once in a tavern Man met face to skull with Death. Man entered +gaily but Death gave no greeting, he sat with his jowl morosely over +an ominous wine. + +"Come, come," said Man, "we have been antagonists long, and if I +were losing yet I should not be surly." + +But Death remained unfriendly watching his bowl of wine and gave +no word in answer. + +Then Man solicitously moved nearer to him and, speaking cheerily +still, "Come, come," he said again, "you must not resent defeat." + +And still Death was gloomy and cross and sipped at his infamous +wine and would not look up at Man and would not be companionable. + +But Man hated gloom either in beast or god, and it made him +unhappy to see his adversary's discomfort, all the more because he +was the cause, and still he tried to cheer him. + +"Have you not slain the Dinatherium?" he said. "Have you not put out +the Moon? Why! you will beat me yet." + +And with a dry and barking sound Death wept and nothing said; and +presently Man arose and went wondering away; for he knew not if +Death wept out of pity for his opponent, or because he knew that he +should not have such sport again when the old game was over and +Man was gone, or whether because perhaps, for some hidden reason, +he could never repeat on Earth his triumph over the Moon. + + + + +TAKING UP PICADILLY + + +Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, +if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off--or +so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their hands and wore corduroy +trousers and that little leather band below the knee that goes by the +astonishing name of "York-to-London." + +They seemed to be working with peculiar vehemence, so that I +stopped and asked one what they were doing. + +"We are taking up Picadilly," he said to me. + +"But at this time of year?" I said. "Is it usual in June?" + +"We are not what we seem," said he. + +"Oh, I see," I said, "you are doing it for a joke." + +"Well, not exactly that," he answered me. + +"For a bet?" I said. + +"Not precisely," said he. + +And then I looked at the bit that they had already picked, and +though it was broad daylight over my head it was darkness down +there, all full of the southern stars. + +"It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it," said he that wore +corduroy trousers. "We are not what we appear." + +They were taking up Picadilly altogether. + + + + +AFTER THE FIRE + + +When that happened which had been so long in happening and the +world hit a black, uncharted star, certain tremendous creatures out +of some other world came peering among the cinders to see if there +were anything there that it were worth while to remember. They +spoke of the great things that the world was known to have had; +they mentioned the mammoth. And presently they saw man's temples, +silent and windowless, staring like empty skulls. + +"Some great thing has been here," one said, "in these huge places." +"It was the mammoth," said one. "Something greater than he," said +another. + +And then they found that the greatest thing in the world had been +the dreams of man. + + + + +THE CITY + + +In time as well as space my fancy roams far from here. It led me +once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and red and rose +up out of a desert: a little way off in the desert there was a city. It +was evening, and I sat and watched the city. + +Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly stealing out +of that city's gate to the number of about twenty. I heard the hum +of men's voices speaking at evening. + +"It is well they are gone," they said. "It is well they are gone. We +can do business now. It is well they are gone." And the men that +had left the city sped away over the sand and so passed into the +twilight. + +"Who are these men?" I said to my glittering leader. + +"The poets," my fancy answered. "The poets and artists." + +"Why do they steal away?" I said to him. "And why are the people +glad that they have gone?" + +He said: "It must be some doom that is going to fall on the city, +something has warned them and they have stolen away. Nothing +may warn the people." + +I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up from +the city. And then I also departed, for there was an ominous look +on the face of the sky. + +And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was +nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city. + + + + +THE FOOD OF DEATH + + +Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern bakers +make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chicago, with a +pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried him into the +dining-room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere Death breathed +more freely), and there they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They +brought him a bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death +drank it up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent +medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for invalids, +and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper. They gave him some +milk and borax, such as children drink in England. + +Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities. + + + + +THE LONELY IDOL + + +I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced idol +to whom no one prayed. + +And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged at +receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the years had broken +(and no one heeded the scourge and no one prayed and no one +came with squealing sacrifice; and he had been a god), then I took +pity on the little forgotten thing and prayed to it as perhaps they prayed +long since, before the coming of the strange dark ships, and humbled +myself and said: + +"O idol, idol of the hard pale stone, invincible to the years, O +scourge-holder, give ear for behold I pray. + +"O little pale-green image whose wanderings are from far, know +thou that here in Europe and in other lands near by, too soon there +pass from us the sweets and song and the lion strength of youth: +too soon do their cheeks fade, their hair grow grey and our beloved +die; too brittle is beauty, too far off is fame and the years are gathered +too soon; there are leaves, leaves falling, everywhere falling; there is +autumn among men, autumn and reaping; failure there is, struggle, +dying and weeping, and all that is beautiful hath not remained but is +even as the glory of morning upon the water. + +"Even our memories are gathered too with the sound of the ancient +voices, the pleasant ancient voices that come to our ears no more; +the very gardens of our childhood fade, and there dims with the speed +of the years even the mind's own eye. + +"O be not any more the friend of Time, for the silent hurry of his +malevolent feet have trodden down what's fairest; I almost hear the +whimper of the years running behind him hound-like, and it takes few +to tear us. + +"All that is beautiful he crushes down as a big man tramples daises, +all that is fairest. How very fair are the little children of men. It is +autumn with all the world, and the stars weep to see it. + +"Therefore no longer be the friend of Time, who will not let us be, +and be not good to him but pity us, and let lovely things live on for +the sake of our tears." + +Thus prayed I out of compassion one windy day to the snout-faced +idol to whom no one kneeled. + + + + +THE SPHINX IN THEBES (MASSACHUSETTS) + + +There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money +could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and +she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx. + +So she besought them to bring her a live sphinx; and therefore they +went to the menageries, and then to the forests and the desert places, +and yet could find no sphinx. + +And she would have been content with a little lion but that one was +already owned by a woman she knew; so they had to search the +world again for a sphinx. + +And still there was none. + +But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found +a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods +she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. +And they cast chains on her, who was still with an ominous stillness, +and took her westwards with them and brought her home. + +And so the sphinx came to the steel-built city. + +And the woman was very glad that she owned a sphinx: but the +sphinx stared long into her eyes one day, and softly asked a riddle +of the woman. + +And the woman could not answer, and she died. + +And the sphinx is silent again and none knows what she will do. + + + + +THE REWARD + + +One's spirit goes further in dreams than it does by day. Wandering +once by night from a factory city I came to the edge of Hell. + +The place was foul with cinders and cast-off things, and jagged, +half-buried things with shapeless edges, and there was a huge angel +with a hammer building in plaster and steel. I wondered what he did +in that dreadful place. I hesitated, then asked him what he was +building. "We are adding to Hell," he said, "to keep pace with the +times." "Don't be too hard on them," I said, for I had just come out +of a compromising age and a weakening country. The angel did not +answer. "It won't be as bad as the old hell, will it?" I said. "Worse," +said the angel. + +"How can you reconcile it with your conscience as a Minister of +Grace," I said, "to inflict such a punishment?" (They talked like this +in the city whence I had come and I could not avoid the habit of it.) + +"They have invented a new cheap yeast," said the angel. + +I looked at the legend on the walls of the hell that the angel was +building, the words were written in flame, every fifteen seconds they +changed their color, "Yeasto, the great new yeast, it builds up body +and brain, and something more." + +"They shall look at it for ever," the angel said. + +"But they drove a perfectly legitimate trade," I said, "the law allowed +it." + +The angel went on hammering into place the huge steel uprights. + +"You are very revengeful," I said. "Do you never rest from doing +this terrible work?" + +"I rested one Christmas Day," the angel said, "and looked and +saw little children dying of cancer. I shall go on now until the fires +are lit." + +"It is very hard to prove," I said, "that the yeast is as bad as you +think." + +"After all," I said, "they must live." + +And the angel made no answer but went on building his hell. + + + + +THE TROUBLE IN LEAFY GREEN STREET + + +She went to the idol-shop in Moleshill Street, where the old man +mumbles, and said: "I want a god to worship when it is wet." + +The old man reminded her of the heavy penalties that rightly attach +to idolatry and, when he had enumerated all, she answered him as +was meet: "Give me a god to worship when it is wet." + +And he went to the back places of his shop and sought out and +brought her a god. The same was carved of grey stone and wore a +propitious look and was named, as the old man mumbled, The God +of Rainy Cheerfulness. + +Now it may be that long confinement to the house affects adversely +the liver, or these things may be of the soul, but certain it is that on +a rainy day her spirits so far descended that those cheerful creatures +came within sight of the Pit, and, having tried cigarettes to no good +end, she bethought her of Moleshill Street and the mumbling man. + +He brought the grey idol forth and mumbled of guarantees, although +he put nothing on paper, and she paid him there and then his +preposterous price and took the idol away. + +And on the next wet day that there ever was she prayed to the +grey-stone idol that she had bought, the God of Rainy Cheerfulness +(who knows with what ceremony or what lack of it?), and so +brought down on her in Leafy Green Street, in the preposterous +house at the corner, that doom of which all men speak. + + + + +THE MIST + + +The mist said unto the mist: "Let us go up into the Downs." And +the mist came up weeping. + +And the mist went into the high places and the hollows. + +And clumps of trees in the distance stood ghostly in the haze. + +But I went to a prophet, one who loved the Downs, and I said to +him: "Why does the mist come up weeping into the Downs when it +goes into the high places and the hollows?" + +And he answered: "The mist is the company of a multitude of souls +who never saw the Downs, and now are dead. Therefore they come +up weeping into the Downs, who are dead and never saw them." + + + + +FURROW-MAKER + + +He was all in black, but his friend was dressed in brown, members +of two old families. + +"Is there any change in the way you build your houses?" said he in +black. + +"No change," said the other. "And you?" + +"We change not," he said. + +A man went by in the distance riding a bicycle. + +"He is always changing," said the one in black, "of late almost every +century. He is uneasy. Always changing." + +"He changes the way he builds his house, does he not?" said the +brown one. + +"So my family say," said the other. "They say he has changed of late." + +"They say he takes much to cities?" the brown one said. + +"My cousin who lives in belfries tells me so," said the black one. +"He says he is much in cities." + +"And there he grows lean?" said the brown one. + +"Yes, he grows lean." + +"Is it true what they say?" said the brown one. + +"Caw," said the black one. + +"Is it true that he cannot live many centuries?" + +"No, no," said the black one. "Furrow-maker will not die. We must +not lose furrow-maker. He has been foolish of late, he has played +with smoke and is sick. His engines have wearied him and his cities +are evil. Yes, he is very sick. But in a few centuries he will forget +his folly and we shall not lose furrow-maker. Time out of mind he +has delved and my family have got their food from the raw earth +behind him. He will not die." + +"But they say, do they not?" said the brown one, "his cities are +noisome, and that he grows sick in them and can run no longer, and +that it is with him as it is with us when we grow too many, and the +grass has the bitter taste in the rainy season, and our young grow +bloated and die." + +"Who says it?" replied the black one. + +"Pigeon," the brown one answered. "He came back all dirty. +And Hare went down to the edge of the cities once. He says it +too. Man was too sick to chase him. He thinks that Man will die, +and his wicked friend Dog with him. Dog, he will die. That nasty +fellow Dog. He will die too, the dirty fellow!" + +"Pigeon and Hare!" said the black one. "We shall not lose +furrow-maker." + +"Who told you he will not die?" his brown friend said. + +"Who told me!" the black one said. "My family and his have +understood each other times out of mind. We know what follies +will kill each other and what each may survive, and I say that +furrow-maker will not die." + +"He will die," said the brown one. + +"Caw," said the other. + +And Man said in his heart: "Just one invention more. There is +something I want to do with petrol yet, and then I will give it all +up and go back to the woods." + + + + +LOBSTER SALAD + + +I was climbing round the perilous outside of the Palace of +Colquonhombros. So far below me that in the tranquil twilight +and clear air of those lands I could only barely see them lay the +craggy tops of the mountains. + +It was along no battlements or terrace edge I was climbing, but +on the sheer face of the wall itself, getting what foothold I could +where the boulders joined. + +Had my feet been bare I was done, but though I was in my +night-shirt I had on stout leather boots, and their edges somehow +held in those narrow cracks. My fingers and wrists were aching. + +Had it been possible to stop for a moment I might have been lured +to give a second look at the fearful peaks of the mountains down +there in the twilight, and this must have been fatal. + +That the thing was all a dream is beside the point. We have fallen +in dreams before, but it is well known that if in one of those falls +you ever hit the ground--you die: I had looked at those menacing +mountaintops and knew well that such a fall as the one I feared +must have such a termination. Then I went on. + +It is strange what different sensations there can be in different +boulders--every one gleaming with the same white light and every +one chosen to match the rest by minions of ancient kings--when +your life depends on the edges of every one you come to. Those +edges seemed strangely different. It was of no avail to overcome +the terror of one, for the next would give you a hold in quite a +different way or hand you over to death in a different manner. +Some were too sharp to hold and some too flush with the wall, +those whose hold was the best crumbled the soonest; each rock +had its different terror: and then there were those things that followed +behind me. + +And at last I came to a breach made long ago by earthquake, +lightning or war: I should have had to go down a thousand feet +to get round it and they would come up with me while I was doing +that, for certain sable apes that I have not mentioned as yet, things +that had tigerish teeth and were born and bred on that wall, had +pursued me all the evening. In any case I could have gone no +farther, nor did I know what the king would do along whose wall +I was climbing. It was time to drop and be done with it or stop and +await those apes. + +And then it was that I remembered a pin, thrown carelessly down +out of an evening-tie in another world to the one where grew that +glittering wall, and lying now if no evil chance had removed it on a +chest of drawers by my bed. The apes were very close, and hurrying, +for they knew my fingers were slipping, and the cruel peaks of those +infernal mountains seemed surer of me than the apes. I reached out +with a desperate effort of will towards where the pin lay on the chest +of drawers. I groped about. I found it! I ran it into my arm. Saved! + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE EXILES + + +The old man with a hammer and the one-eyed man with a spear were +seated by the roadside talking as I came up the hill. + +"It isn't as though they hadn't asked us," the one with the hammer said. + +"There ain't no more than twenty as knows about it," said the other. + +"Twenty's twenty," said the first. + +"After all these years," said the one-eyed man with the spear. "After +all these years. We might go back just once." + +"O' course we might," said the other. + +Their clothes were old even for laborers, the one with the hammer +had a leather apron full of holes and blackened, and their hands +looked like leather. But whatever they were they were English, and +this was pleasant to see after all the motors that had passed me that +day with their burden of mixed and doubtful nationalities. + +When they saw me the one with the hammer touched his greasy cap. + +"Might we make so bold, sir," he said, "as the ask the way to +Stonehenge?" + +"We never ought to go," mumbled the other plaintively. "There's +not more than twenty as knows, but...." + +I was bicycling there myself to see the place so I pointed out the +way and rode on at once, for there was something so utterly servile +about them both that I did not care for their company. They seemed +by their wretched mien to have been persecuted or utterly neglected +for many years, I thought that very likely they had done long terms +of penal servitude. + +When I came to Stonehenge I saw a group of about a score of men +standing among the stones. They asked me with some solemnity if +I was expecting anyone, and when I said No they spoke to me no +more. It was three miles back where I left those strange old men, +but I had not been in the stone circle long when they appeared, +coming with great strides along the road. When they saw them all +the people took off their hats and acted very strangely, and I saw +that they had a goat which they led up then to the old altar stone. +And the two old men came up with their hammer and spear and +began apologizing plaintively for the liberty they had taken in coming +back to that place, and all the people knelt on the grass before them. +And then still kneeling they killed the goat by the altar, and when the +two old men saw this they came up with many excuses and eagerly +sniffed the blood. And at first this made them happy. But soon the +one with the spear began to whimper. "It used to be men," he +lamented. "It used to be men." + +And the twenty men began looking uneasily at each other, and the +plaint of the one-eyed man went on in that tearful voice, and all of +a sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old men +were or what any of them were doing, but there are moments when +it is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And just as I +got up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the one with the +hammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in coming back to +Stonehenge. + +"But after all these years," I heard him crying, "After all these +years...." + +And the one with the spear said: "Yes, after three thousand years...." + + + + +NATURE AND TIME + + +Through the streets of Coventry one winter's night strode a +triumphant spirit. Behind him stooping, unkempt, utterly ragged, +wearing the clothes and look that outcasts have, whining, weeping, +reproaching, an ill-used spirit tried to keep pace with him. Continually +she plucked him by the sleeve and cried out to him as she panted +after and he strode resolute on. + +It was a bitter night, yet it did not seem to be the cold that she feared, +ill-clad though she was, but the trams and the ugly shops and the glare +of the factories, from which she continually winced as she hobbled on, +and the pavement hurt her feet. + +He that strode on in front seemed to care for nothing, it might be hot +or cold, silent or noisy, pavement or open fields, he merely had the +air of striding on. + +And she caught up and clutched him by the elbow. I heard her +speak in her unhappy voice, you scarcely heard it for the noise of +the traffic. + +"You have forgotten me," she complained to him. "You have forsaken +me here." + +She pointed to Coventry with a wide wave of her arm and seemed +to indicate other cities beyond. And he gruffly told her to keep +pace with him and that he did not forsake her. And she went on +with her pitiful lamentation. + +"My anemones are dead for miles," she said, "all my woods are +fallen and still the cities grow. My child Man is unhappy and my other +children are dying, and still the cities grow and you have forgotten me!" + +And then he turned angrily on her, almost stopping in that stride of +his that began when the stars were made. + +"When have I ever forgotten you?" he said, "or when forsaken you +ever? Did I not throw down Babylon for you? And is not Nineveh +gone? Where is Persepolis that troubled you? Where Tarshish and +Tyre? And you have said I forget you." + +And at this she seemed to take a little comfort. I heard her speak +once more, looking wistfully at her companion. "When will the fields +come back and the grass for my children?" + +"Soon, soon," he said: then they were silent. And he strode away, +she limping along behind him, and all the clocks in the towers chimed +as he passed. + + + + +THE SONG OF THE BLACKBIRD + + +As the poet passed the thorn-tree the blackbird sang. + +"How ever do you do it?" the poet said, for he knew bird language. + +"It was like this," said the blackbird. "It really was the most +extraordinary thing. I made that song last Spring, it came to me +all of a sudden. There was the most beautiful she-blackbird that +the world has ever seen. Her eyes were blacker than lakes are at +night, her feathers were blacker than the night itself, and nothing was +as yellow as her beak; she could fly much faster than the lightning. +She was not an ordinary she-blackbird, there has never been any +other like her at all. I did not dare go near her because she was so +wonderful. One day last Spring when it got warm again--it had been +cold, we ate berries, things were quite different then, but Spring came +and it got warm--one day I was thinking how wonderful she was and +it seemed so extraordinary to think that I should ever have seen her, +the only really wonderful she-blackbird in the world, that I opened +my beak to give a shout, and then this song came, and there had +never been anything like it before, and luckily I remembered it, the +very song that I sang just now. But what is so extraordinary, the most +amazing occurence of that marvellous day, was that no sooner had I +sung the song than that very bird, the most wonderful she-blackbird +in the world, flew right up to me and sat quite close to me on the same +tree. I never remember such wonderful times as those. + +"Yes, the song came in a moment, and as I was saying...." + +And an old wanderer walking with a stick came by and the blackbird +flew away, and the poet told the old man the blackbird's wonderful +story. + +"That song new?" said the wanderer. "Not a bit of it. God made it +years ago. All the blackbirds used to sing it when I was young. It +was new then." + + + + +THE MESSENGERS + + +One wandering nigh Parnassus chasing hares heard the high Muses. + +"Take us a message to the Golden Town." + +Thus sang the Muses. + +But the man said: "They do not call to me. Not to such as me speak +the Muses." + +And the Muses called him by name. + +"Take us a message," they said, "to the Golden Town." + +And the man was downcast for he would have chased hares. + +And the Muses called again. + +And when whether in valleys or on high crags of the hills he still +heard the Muses he went at last to them and heard their message, +though he would fain have left it to other men and chased the fleet +hares still in happy valleys. + +And they gave him a wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds as +only the Muses can carve. "By this," they said, "they shall know that +you come from the Muses." + +And the man went from that place and dressed in scarlet silks +as befitted one that came from the high Muses. And through the +gateway of the Golden Town he ran and cried his message, and his +cloak floated behind him. All silent sat the wise men and the aged, +they of the Golden Town; cross-legged they sat before their houses +reading from parchments a message of the Muses that they sent long +before. + +And the young man cried his message from the Muses. + +And they rose up and said: "Thou art not from the Muses. Otherwise +spake they." And they stoned him and he died. + +And afterwards they carved his message upon gold; and read it in +their temples on holy days. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? They sent +another messenger to the Golden Town. And they gave him a +wand of ivory to carry in his hand with all the beautiful stories of +the world wondrously carved thereon. And only the Muses could +have carved it. "By this," they said, "they shall know that you come +from the Muses." + +And he came through the gateway of the Golden Town with the +message he had for its people. And they rose up at once in the +Golden street, they rose from reading the message that they had +carved upon gold. "The last who came," they said, "came with a +wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds, as only the Muses can +carve. You are not from the Muses." And even as they had stoned +the last so also they stoned him. And afterwards they carved his +message on gold and laid it up in their temples. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? Even yet once +again they sent a messenger under the gateway into the Golden +Town. And for all that he wore a garland of gold that the high Muses +gave him, a garland of kingcups soft and yellow on his head, yet +fashioned of pure gold and by whom but the Muses, yet did they +stone him in the Golden Town. But they had the message, and what +care the Muses? + +And yet they will not rest, for some while since I heard them call to me. + +"Go take our message," they said, "unto the Golden Town." + +But I would not go. And they spake a second time. "Go take our +message," they said. + +And still I would not go, and they cried out a third time: "Go take +our message." + +And though they cried a third time I would not go. But morning and +night they cried and through long evenings. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? And when they +would not cease to call to me I went to them and I said: "The +Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their +pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins +out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, +there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are +gone." + +"Go take our message," they cried. + +And I said to the high Muses: "You do not understand. You have +no message for the Golden Town, the holy city no longer." + +"Go take our message," they cried. + +"What is your message?" I said to the high Muses. + +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 death of Pan. + +But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow +softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifty-one Tales, by +Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY-ONE TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 7838.txt or 7838.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/8/3/7838/ + +Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Fifty-One Tales + +Author: Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7838] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 21, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY-ONE TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + +FIFTY-ONE TALES + + + +by Lord Dunsany + +1915 + + + +CONTENTS + + +The Assignation + +Charon + +The Death of Pan + +The Sphinx at Giza + +The Hen + +Wind and Fog + +The Raft-Builders + +The Workman + +The Guest + +Death and Odysseus + +Death and the Orange + +The Prayer of the Flower + +Time and the Tradesman + +The Little City + +The Unpasturable Fields + +The Worm and the Angel + +The Songless Country + +The Latest Thing + +The Demagogue and the Demi-monde + +The Giant Poppy + +Roses + +The Man With the Golden Ear-rings + +The Dream of King Karna-Vootra + +The Storm + +A Mistaken Identity + +The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise + +Alone the Immortals + +A Moral Little Tale + +The Return of Song + +Spring In Town + +How the Enemy Came to Thlunrana + +A Losing Game + +Taking Up Picadilly + +After the Fire + +The City + +The Food of Death + +The Lonely Idol + +The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts) + +The Reward + +The Trouble in Leafy Green Street + +The Mist + +Furrow-Maker + +Lobster Salad + +The Return of the Exiles + +Nature and Time + +The Song of the Blackbird + +The Messengers + +The Three Tall Sons + +Compromise + +What We Have Come To + +The Tomb of Pan + + + + +THE ASSIGNATION + + +Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with sordid +adventurers, passed the poet by. + +And still the poet made for her little chaplets of song, to deck her +forehead in the courts of Time: and still she wore instead the worthless +garlands, that boisterous citizens flung to her in the ways, made out of +perishable things. + +And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet came to her +with his chaplets of song; and still she laughed at him and wore the +worthless wreaths, though they always died at evening. + +And one day in his bitterness the poet rebuked her, and said to her: +"Lovely Fame, even in the highways and the byways you have not +foreborne to laugh and shout and jest with worthless men, and I have +toiled for you and dreamed of you and you mock me and pass me by." + +And Fame turned her back on him and walked away, but in departing +she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him as she had not smiled +before, and, almost speaking in a whisper, said: + +"I will meet you in the graveyard at the back of the Workhouse in a +hundred years." + + + + +CHARON + + +Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his +weariness. + +It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide +floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had +become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was +of a piece with Eternity. + +If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided +all time in his memory into two equal slabs. + +So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance +lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen +perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it. + +It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. +They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It +was neither Charon's duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why +these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed. + +Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send +no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best. + +Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a +lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: +the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on +beside the little, silent, shivering ghost. + +And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the +beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like +the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old +as time and the pain in Charon's arms. + +Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of +Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and +Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the +little shadow spoke, that had been a man. + +"I am the last," he said. + +No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever +made him weep. + + + + +THE DEATH OF PAN + + +When travellers from London entered Arcady they lamented one to +another the death of Pan. + +And anon they saw him lying stiff and still. + +Horned Pan was still and the dew was on his fur; he had not the look +of a live animal. And then they said, "It is true that Pan is dead." + +And, standing melancholy by that huge prone body, they looked for +long at memorable Pan. + +And evening came and a small star appeared. + +And presently from a hamlet of some Arcadian valley, with a sound +of idle song, Arcadian maidens came. + +And, when they saw there, suddenly in the twilight, that old recumbent +god, they stopped in their running and whispered among themselves. +"How silly he looks," they said, and thereat they laughed a little. + +And at the sound of their laughter Pan leaped up and the gravel flew +from his hooves. + +And, for as long as the travellers stood and listened, the crags and +the hill-tops of Arcady rang with the sounds of pursuit. + + + + +THE SPHINX AT GIZEH + + +I saw the other day the Sphinx's painted face. + +She had painted her face in order to ogle Time. + +And he has spared no other painted face in all the world but hers. + +Delilah was younger than she, and Delilah is dust. Time hath loved +nothing but this worthless painted face. + +I do not care that she is ugly, nor that she has painted her face, so +that she only lure his secret from Time. + +Time dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting cities. + +Time never wearies of her silly smile. + +There are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil. + +I saw an old man go by, and Time never touched him. + +Time that has carried away the seven gates of Thebes! + +She has tried to bind him with ropes of eternal sand, she had hoped +to oppress him with the Pyramids. + +He lies there in the sand with his foolish hair all spread about her paws. + +If she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes, so that he shall +find no more our beautiful things--there are lovely gates in Florence +that I fear he will carry away. + +We have tried to bind him with song and with old customs, but they +only held him for a little while, and he has always smitten us and +mocked us. + +When he is blind he shall dance to us and make sport. + +Great clumsy time shall stumble and dance, who liked to kill little +children, and can hurt even the daisies no longer. + +Then shall our children laugh at him who slew Babylon's winged bulls, +and smote great numbers of the gods and fairies--when he is shorn +of his hours and his years. + +We will shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber +where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we +give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work. + +We will kiss they painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to us Time. + +And yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold blindly +of the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him the +House of Man. + + + + +THE HEN + + +All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering +uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only of +Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North wind +waiting. + +And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. And everyone +spoke of the swallows and the South. + +"I think I shall go South myself next year," said a hen. + +And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the year +wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry discussed +the departure of the hen. + +And very early one morning, the wind being from the North, the +swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings; and a +strength came upon them and a strange old knowledge and a more +than human faith, and flying high they left the smoke of our cities and +small remembered eaves, and saw at last the huge and homeless sea, +and steering by grey sea-currents went southward with the wind. And +going South they went by glittering fog-banks and saw old islands lifting +their heads above them; they saw the slow quests of the wandering +ships, and divers seeking pearls, and lands at war, till there came in +view the mountains that they sought and the sight of the peaks they +knew; and they descended into an austral valley, and saw Summer +sometimes sleeping and sometimes singing song. + +"I think the wind is about right," said the hen; and she spread her +wings and ran out of the poultry-yard. And she ran fluttering out on +to the road and some way down it until she came to a garden. + +At evening she came back panting. + +And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had gone South +as far as the high road, and saw the great world's traffic going by, +and came to lands where the potato grew, and saw the stubble upon +which men live, and at the end of the road had found a garden, and +there were roses in it--beautiful roses!--and the gardener himself was +there with his braces on. + +"How extremely interesting," the poultry said, "and what a really +beautiful description!" + +And the Winter wore away, and the bitter months went by, and the +Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came again. + +"We have been to the South," they said, "and the valleys beyond +the sea." + +But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in the South: +"You should hear our hen," they said. + + + + +WIND AND FOG + + +"Way for us," said the North Wind as he came down the sea on an +errand of old Winter. + +And he saw before him the grey silent fog that lay along the tides. + +"Way for us," said the North Wind, "O ineffectual fog, for I am +Winter's leader in his age-old war with the ships. I overwhelm +them suddenly in my strength, or drive upon them the huge seafaring +bergs. I cross an ocean while you move a mile. There is mourning in +inland places when I have met the ships. I drive them upon the rocks +and feed the sea. Wherever I appear they bow to our lord the Winter." + +And to his arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose up +slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, +took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was +still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I hear him telling +infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A hundred and +fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went from Tyre, +eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of the line, twelve warships under +sail, with their carronades, three hundred and eighty-seven river-craft, +forty-two merchantmen that carried spice, thirty yachts, twenty-one +battleships of the modern time, nine thousand admirals...." he mumbled +and chuckled on, till I suddenly rose and fled from his fearful +contamination. + + + + +THE RAFT-BUILDERS + + +All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon +doomed ships. + +When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity +with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile +upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our +names and a phrase or two and little else. + +They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like +sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract +their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to pieces +before the ship breaks up. + +See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquility deadlier +than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it. Time in its deeps +swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale, feeds on the littlest +things--small tunes and little unskilled songs of the olden, golden +evenings--and anon turneth whale-like to overthrow whole ships. + +See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something there +that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in the +deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the sodden +bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis. + +For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-floor +strewn with crowns. + +Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first. + +There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen. + + + + +THE WORKMAN + + +I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of +some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife +and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and +do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I +could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not +only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the +very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had +time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood. + +Then I went home for I had work to do. And all that evening I thought +of the man's folly, till the thought hindered me from serious work. + +And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the workman +floated through my wall and stood before me laughing. + +I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey +diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter. + +I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the ghost +spoke. It said: "I'm a laughin' at you sittin' and workin' there." + +"And why," I asked, "do you laugh at serious work?" + +"Why, yer bloomin' life 'ull go by like a wind," he said, "and yer 'ole +silly civilization 'ull be tidied up in a few centuries." + +Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laughing +still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity from +which he had come. + + + + +THE GUEST + + +A young man came into an ornate restaurant at eight o'clock in +London. + +He was alone, but two places had been laid at the table which was +reserved for him. He had chosen the dinner very carefully, by letter +a week before. + +A waiter asked him about the other guest. + +"You probably won't see him till the coffee comes," the young man +told him; so he was served alone. + +Those at adjacent tables might have noticed the young man continually +addressing the empty chair and carrying on a monologue with it +throughout his elaborate dinner. + +"I think you knew my father," he said to it over the soup. + +"I sent for you this evening," he continued, "because I want you to +do me a good turn; in fact I must insist on it." + +There was nothing eccentric about the man except for this habit of +addressing an empty chair, certainly he was eating as good a dinner +as any sane man could wish for. + +After the Burgundy had been served he became more voluble in his +monologue, not that he spoiled his wine by drinking excessively. + +"We have several acquaintances in common," he said. "I met King Seti +a year ago in Thebes. I think he has altered very little since you knew +him. I thought his forehead a little low for a king's. Cheops has left the +house that he built for your reception, he must have prepared for you +for years and years. I suppose you have seldom been entertained like +that. I ordered this dinner over a week ago. I thought then that a lady +might have come with me, but as she wouldn't I've asked you. She may +not after all be as lovely as Helen of Troy. Was Helen very lovely? Not +when you knew her, perhaps. You were lucky in Cleopatra, you must +have known her when she was in her prime. + +"You never knew the mermaids nor the fairies nor the lovely goddesses +of long ago, that's where we have the best of you." + +He was silent when the waiters came to his table, but rambled merrily +on as soon as they left, still turned to the empty chair. + +"You know I saw you here in London only the other day. You were +on a motor bus going down Ludgate Hill. It was going much too fast. +London is a good place. But I shall be glad enough to leave it. It was +in London that I met the lady I that was speaking about. If it hadn't +been for London I probably shouldn't have met her, and if it hadn't +been for London she probably wouldn't have had so much besides +me to amuse her. It cuts both ways." + +He paused once to order coffee, gazing earnestly at the waiter and +putting a sovereign in his hand. "Don't let it be chicory," said he. + +The waiter brought the coffee, and the young man dropped a tabloid +of some sort into his cup. + +"I don't suppose you come here very often," he went on. "Well, you +probably want to be going. I haven't taken you much out of your way, +there is plenty for you to do in London." + +Then having drunk his coffee he fell on the floor by a foot of the +empty chair, and a doctor who was dining in the room bent over +him and announced to the anxious manager the visible presence of +the young man's guest. + + + + +DEATH AND ODYSSEUS + + +In the Olympian courts Love laughed at Death, because he was +unsightly, and because She couldn't help it, and because he never +did anything worth doing, and because She would. + +And Death hated being laughed at, and used to brood apart thinking +only of his wrongs and of what he could do to end this intolerable +treatment. + +But one day Death appeared in the courts with an air and They all +noticed it. "What are you up to now?" said Love. And Death with +some solemnity said to Her: "I am going to frighten Odysseus"; and +drawing about him his grey traveller's cloak went out through the +windy door with his jowl turned earthwards. + +And he came soon to Ithaca and the hall that Athene knew, and +opened the door and saw there famous Odysseus, with his white +locks bending close over the fire, trying to warm his hands. + +And the wind through the open door blew bitterly on Odysseus. + +And Death came up behind him, and suddenly shouted. + +And Odysseus went on warming his pale hands. + +Then Death came close and began to mouth at him. And after a +while Odysseus turned and spoke. And "Well, old servant," he said, +"have your masters been kind to you since I made you work for me +round Ilion?" + +And Death for some while stood mute, for the thought of the laughter +of Love. + +Then "Come now," said Odysseus, "lend me your shoulder," and he +leaning heavily on that bony joint, they went together through the open +door. + + + + +DEATH AND THE ORANGE + + +Two dark young men in a foreign southern land sat at a restaurant +table with one woman. + +And on the woman's plate was a small orange which had an evil +laughter in its heart. + +And both of the men would be looking at the woman all the time, and +they ate little and they drank much. + +And the woman was smiling equally at each. + +Then the small orange that had the laughter in its heart rolled +slowly off the plate on to the floor. And the dark young men both +sought for it at once, and they met suddenly beneath the table, and +soon they were speaking swift words to one another, and a horror +and an impotence came over the Reason of each as she sat helpless +at the back of the mind, and the heart of the orange laughed and the +woman went on smiling; and Death, who was sitting at another table, +tete-a-tete with an old man, rose and came over to listen to the quarrel. + + + + +THE PRAYER OF THE FLOWERS + + +It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the +old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going +Greecewards. + +"The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love +us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over +the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the +land. + +"The cancrous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their lairs +continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night. + +"The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou art +far, O Pan, and far away." + +I was standing by night between two railway embankments on the +edge of a Midland city. On one of them I saw the trains go by, once +in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by twice in +every five. + +Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them wore +the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever. + +The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and +thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beating +musically up wind, the voice of Pan reproving them from Arcady-- + +"Be patient a little, these things are not for long." + + + + +TIME AND THE TRADESMAN + + +Once Time as he prowled the world, his hair grey not with weakness +but with dust of the ruin of cities, came to a furniture shop and entered +the Antique department. And there he saw a man darkening the wood +of a chair with dye and beating it with chains and making imitation +wormholes in it. + +And when Time saw another doing his work he stood by him awhile +and looked on critically. + +And at last he said: "That is not how I work," and he turned the man's +hair white and bent his back and put some furrows in his little cunning +face; then turned and strode away, for a mighty city that was weary +and sick and too long had troubled the fields was sore in need of him. + + + + +THE LITTLE CITY + + +I was in the pre-destined 11.8 from Goraghwood to Drogheda, when +I suddenly saw the city. It was a little city in a valley, and only seemed +to have a little smoke, and the sun caught the smoke and turned it +golden, so that it looked like an old Italian picture where angels walk +in the foreground and the rest is a blaze of gold. And beyond, as one +could tell by the lie of land although one could not see through the +golden smoke, I knew that there lay the paths of the roving ships. + +All round there lay a patchwork of small fields all over the slopes of +the hills, and the snow had come upon them tentatively, but already +the birds of the waste had moved to the sheltered places for every +omen boded more to fall. Far away some little hills blazed like an +aureate bulwark broken off by age and fallen from the earthward +rampart of Paradise. And aloof and dark the mountains stared +unconcernedly seawards. + +And when I saw those grey and watchful mountains sitting where +they sat while the cities of the civilization of Araby and Asia arose +like crocuses, and like crocuses fell, I wondered for how long there +would be smoke in the valley and little fields on the hills. + + + + +THE UNPASTURABLE FIELDS + + +Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones, the +grey ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall break +his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now, +hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the +bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done. + +"Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities until +they grow old and leave us to go among the myths. + +"We are the most imperishable mountains." + +And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag on +crag and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of Caucasus upon +Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon the backs of storms and +looked down idly from their golden heights upon the crests of the +mountains. + +"Ye pass away," said the mountains. + +And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied, + +"We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable +fields Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon +song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial +fields. His hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though our +fields were of silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils, +with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands and +stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees far-future +wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds of the togas that +cover the knees of the gods." + + + + +THE WORM AND THE ANGEL + + +As he crawled from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an angel. + +And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths +and maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men heavy in +their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far +wars and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and wickedness, and +the pomp of kings, and the people of all the lands that the sunlight knew. + +And the worm spake to the angel saying: "Behold my food." + +"Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes," murmured the +angel, for they walked by the sea, "and can you destroy that too?" + +And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for for +three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its +melody was ringing in _his head_. + + + + +THE SONGLESS COUNTRY + + +The poet came unto a great country in which there were no songs. +And he lamented gently for the nation that had not any little foolish +songs to sing to itself at evening. + +And at last he said: "I will make for them myself some little foolish +songs so that they may be merry in the lanes and happy by the +fireside." And for some days he made for them aimless songs such +as maidens sing on the hills in the older happier countries. + +Then he went to some of that nation as they sat weary with the +work of the day and said to them: "I have made you some aimless +songs out of the small unreasonable legends, that are somewhat akin +to the wind in the vales of my childhood; and you may care to sing +them in your disconsolate evenings." + +And they said to him: + +"If you think we have time for that sort of nonsense nowadays +you cannot know much of the progress of modern commerce." + +And the poet wept for he said: "Alas! They are damned." + + + + +THE LATEST THING + + +I saw an unclean-feeder by the banks of the river of Time. He crouched +by orchards numerous with apples in a happy land of flowers; colossal +barns stood near which the ancients had stored with grain, and the sun +was golden on serene far hills behind the level lands. But his back was +to all these things. He crouched and watched the river. And whatever +the river chanced to send him down the unclean-feeder clutched at +greedily with his arms, wading out into the water. + +Now there were in those days, and indeed still are, certain uncleanly +cities upon the river of Time; and from them fearfully nameless things +came floating shapelessly by. And whenever the odor of these came +down the river before them the unclean-feeder plunged into the dirty +water and stood far out, expectant. And if he opened his mouth one +saw these things on his lips. + +Indeed from the upper reaches there came down sometimes the +fallen rhododendron's petal, sometimes a rose; but they were useless +to the unclean-feeder, and when he saw them he growled. + +A poet walked beside the river's bank; his head was lifted and his +look was afar; I think he saw the sea, and the hills of Fate from which +the river ran. I saw the unclean-feeder standing voracious, up to his +waist in that evil-smelling river. + +"Look," I said to the poet. + +"The current will sweep him away," the poet said. + +"But those cities that poison the river," I said to him. + +He answered: "Whenever the centuries melt on the hills of Fate the +river terribly floods." + + + + +THE DEMAGOGUE AND THE DEMI-MONDE + + +A demagogue and a demi-mondaine chanced to arrive together at +the gate of Paradise. And the Saint looked sorrowfully at them both. + +"Why were you a demagogue?" he said to the first. + +"Because," said the demagogue, "I stood for those principles that +have made us what we are and have endeared our Party to the great +heart of the people. In a word I stood unflinchingly on the plank of +popular representation." + +"And you?" said the Saint to her of the demi-monde. + +"I wanted money," said the demi-mondaine. + +And after some moments' thought the Saint said: "Well, come in; +though you don't deserve to." + +But to the demagogue he said: "We genuinely regret that the limited +space at our disposal and our unfortunate lack of interest in those +Questions that you have gone so far to inculate and have so ably +upheld in the past, prevent us from giving you the support for which +you seek." + +And he shut the golden door. + + + + +THE GIANT POPPY + + +I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear day +you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There +used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them +where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies +danced. + +But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant +glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved +in the wind, and as it waved it hummed "Remember not." And by its +oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an +ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed +that way or anything olden. + +He said: "The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and +fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it +of its beautiful strength." And I asked him why he sat on the hills I +knew, playing an olden tune. + +And he answered: "Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which +would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood +of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray +over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have +saved Agamemnon." + +Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the +poppy's sleepy petals murmured "Remember not. Remember not." + + + + +ROSES + + +I know a roadside where the wild rose blooms with a strange +abundance. There is a beauty in the blossoms too of an almost +exotic kind, a taint of deeper pink that shocks the Puritan flowers. +Two hundred generations ago (generations, I mean, of roses) this +was a village street; there was a floral decadence when they left their +simple life and the roses came from the wilderness to clamber round +houses of men. + +Of all the memories of that little village, of all the cottages that stood +there, of all the men and women whose homes they were, nothing +remains but a more beautiful blush on the faces of the roses. + +I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated fields +come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war, they may +find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; because we have loved +a little that swart old city. + + + + +THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN EAR-RINGS + + +It may be that I dreamed this. So much at least is certain--that I +turned one day from the traffic of a city, and came to its docks and +saw its slimy wharves going down green and steep into the water, and +saw the huge grey river slipping by and the lost things that went with it +turning over and over, and I thought of the nations and unpitying Time, +and saw and marvelled at the queenly ships come newly from the sea. + +It was then, if I mistake not, that I saw leaning against a wall, with his +face to the ships, a man with golden ear-rings. His skin had the dark +tint of the southern men: the deep black hairs of his moustache were +whitened a little with salt; he wore a dark blue jacket such as sailors +wear, and the long boots of seafarers, but the look in his eyes was +further afield than the ships, he seemed to be beholding the farthest +things. + +Even when I spoke to him he did not call home that look, but +answered me dreamily with that same fixed stare as though his +thoughts were heaving on far and lonely seas. I asked him what ship +he had come by, for there were many there. The sailing ships were +there with their sails all furled and their masts straight and still like a +wintry forest; the steamers were there, and great liners, puffing up idle +smoke into the twilight. He answered he had come by none of them. +I asked him what line he worked on, for he was clearly a sailor; I +mentioned well-known lines, but he did not know them. Then I asked +him where he worked and what he was. And he said: "I work in the +Sargasso Sea, and I am the last of the pirates, the last left alive." And +I shook him by the hand I do not know how many times. I said: "We +feared you were dead. We feared you were dead." And he answered +sadly: "No. No. I have sinned too deeply on the Spanish seas: I am +not allowed to die." + + + + +THE DREAM OF KING KARNA-VOOTRA + + +King Karna-Vootra sitting on his throne commanding all things said: +"I very clearly saw last night the queenly Vava-Nyria. Though partly +she was hidden by great clouds that swept continually by her, rolling +over and over, yet her face was unhidden and shone, being full of +moonlight. + +"I said to her: + +"'Walk with me by the great pools in many-gardened, beautiful +Istrakhan where the lilies float that give delectable dreams; or, +drawing aside the curtain of hanging orchids, pass with me thence +from the pools by a secret path through the else impassable jungle +that fills the only way between the mountains that shut in Istrakhan. +They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and at evening when +the pools are strange with light, till in their gladness sometimes there +melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely heights the mountaineer. +They have valleys among them older than the wrinkles in the moon. + +"'Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we shall +come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only speak +of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely that +even the butterflies that float about it when they see their images +flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each night +we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing the stars +to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with tidings +of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Sendara and men +shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Sendara the +rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of Zoth, +till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing; +but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to +Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their +lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in +distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma +as they sit telling careless tales to lure men to their wares. + +"'And the heralds passing thence shall come even to Ingra, to +Ingra where they dance. And there they shall tell of thee, so that +thy name long hence shall be sung in that joyous city. And there they +shall borrow camels and pass over the sands and go by desert ways +to distant Nirid to tell of thee to the lonely men in the mountain +monasteries. + +"'Come with me even now for it is Spring.'" + +"And as I said this she faintly yet perceptibly shook her head. And it +was only then I remembered my youth was gone, and she dead forty +years." + + + + +THE STORM + + +They saw a little ship that was far at sea and that went by the name +of the _Petite Esperance_. And because of its uncouth rig and its +lonely air and the look that it had of coming from strangers' lands they +said: "It is neither a ship to greet nor desire, nor yet to succor when in +the hands of the sea." + +And the sea rose up as is the wont of the sea and the little ship from +afar was in his hands, and frailer than ever seemed its feeble masts +with their sails of fantastic cut and their alien flags. And the sea made +a great and very triumphing voice, as the sea doth. And then there +arose a wave that was very strong, even the ninth-born son of the +hurricane and the tide, and hid the little ship and hid the whole of the +far parts of the sea. Thereat said those who stood on the good dry +land: + +"'Twas but a little, worthless alien ship and it is sunk at sea, and it is +good and right that the storm have spoil." And they turned and watched +the course of the merchant-men, laden with silver and appeasing spice; +year after year they cheered them into port and praised their goods and +their familiar sails. And many years went by. + +And at last with decks and bulwarks covered with cloth of gold; with +age-old parrots that had known the troubadours, singing illustrious +songs and preening their feathers of gold; with a hold full of emeralds +and rubies; all silken with Indian loot; furling as it came in its way-worn +alien sails, a galleon glided into port, shutting the sunlight from the +merchantmen: and lo! it loomed the equal of the cliffs. + +"Who are you?" they asked, "far-travelled wonderful ship?" + +And they said: "The _Petite Esperance_." + +"O," said the people on shore. "We thought you were sunk at sea." + +"Sunk at sea?" sang the sailors. "We could not be sunk at sea--we +had the gods on board." + + + + +A MISTAKEN IDENTITY + + +Fame as she walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of +Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her +in the dirt of the road. + +"Who are you?" Fame said to her. + +"I am Fame," said Notoriety. + +Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone. + +And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose and +followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her native Pit. + + + + +THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE + + +For a long time there was doubt with acrimony among the beasts as +to whether the Hare or the Tortoise could run the swifter. Some said +the Hare was the swifter of the two because he had such long ears, +and others said the Tortoise was the swifter because anyone whose +shell was so hard as that should be able to run hard too. And lo, the +forces of estrangement and disorder perpetually postponed a decisive +contest. + +But when there was nearly war among the beasts, at last an +arrangement was come to and it was decided that the Hare and the +Tortoise should run a race of five hundred yards so that all should +see who was right. + +"Ridiculous nonsense!" said the Hare, and it was all his backers could +do to get him to run. + +"The contest is most welcome to me," said the Tortoise, "I shall not +shirk it." + +O, how his backers cheered. + +Feeling ran high on the day of the race; the goose rushed at the fox +and nearly pecked him. Both sides spoke loudly of the approaching +victory up to the very moment of the race. + +"I am absolutely confident of success," said the Tortoise. But +the Hare said nothing, he looked bored and cross. Some of his +supporters deserted him then and went to the other side, who were +loudly cheering the Tortoise's inspiriting words. But many remained +with the Hare. "We shall not be disappointed in him," they said. "A +beast with such long ears is bound to win." + +"Run hard," said the supporters of the Tortoise. + +And "run hard" became a kind of catch-phrase which everybody +repeated to one another. "Hard shell and hard living. That's what +the country wants. Run hard," they said. And these words were +never uttered but multitudes cheered from their hearts. + +Then they were off, and suddenly there was a hush. + +The Hare dashed off for about a hundred yards, then he looked +round to see where his rival was. + +"It is rather absurd," he said, "to race with a Tortoise." And he sat +down and scratched himself. "Run hard! Run hard!" shouted some. + +"Let him rest," shouted others. And "let him rest" became a +catch-phrase too. + +And after a while his rival drew near to him. + +"There comes that damned Tortoise," said the Hare, and he got up +and ran as hard as could be so that he should not let the Tortoise +beat him. + +"Those ears will win," said his friends. "Those ears will win; and +establish upon an incontestable footing the truth of what we have +said." And some of them turned to the backers of the Tortoise and +said: "What about your beast now?" + +"Run hard," they replied. "Run hard." + +The Hare ran on for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as far +as the winning-post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool he looked +running races with a Tortoise who was nowhere in sight, and he sat +down again and scratched. + +"Run hard. Run hard," said the crowd, and "Let him rest." + +"Whatever is the use of it?" said the Hare, and this time he stopped +for good. Some say he slept. + +There was desperate excitement for an hour or two, and then the +Tortoise won. + +"Run hard. Run hard," shouted his backers. "Hard shell and hard +living: that's what has done it." And then they asked the Tortoise what +his achievement signified, and he went and asked the Turtle. And the +Turtle said, "It is a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness." And +then the Tortoise repeated it to his friends. And all the beasts said +nothing else for years. And even to this day, "a glorious victory for +the forces of swiftness" is a catch-phrase in the house of the snail. + +And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known is +that very few of those that witnessed it survived the great forest-fire +that happened shortly after. It came up over the weald by night with +a great wind. The Hare and the Tortoise and a very few of the beasts +saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge of the trees, and +they hurriedly called a meeting to decide what messenger they should +send to warn the beasts in the forest. + +They sent the Tortoise. + + + + +ALONE THE IMMORTALS + + +I heard it said that very far away from here, on the wrong side of the +deserts of Cathay and in a country dedicate to winter, are all the years +that are dead. And there a certain valley shuts them in and hides them, +as rumor has it, from the world, but not from the sight of the moon nor +from those that dream in his rays. + +And I said: I will go from here by ways of dream and I will come to +that valley and enter in and mourn there for the good years that are +dead. And I said: I will take a wreath, a wreath of mourning, and lay +it at their feet in token of my sorrow for their dooms. + +And when I sought about among the flowers, among the flowers for +my wreath of mourning, the lily looked too large and the laurel looked +too solemn and I found nothing frail enough nor slender to serve as an +offering to the years that were dead. And at last I made a slender +wreath of daisies in the manner that I had seen them made in one of +the years that is dead. + +"This," said I, "is scarce less fragile or less frail than one of those +delicate forgotten years." Then I took my wreath in my hand and +went from here. And when I had come by paths of mystery to that +romantic land, where the valley that rumour told of lies close to the +mountainous moon, I searched among the grass for those poor slight +years for whom I bought my sorrow and my wreath. And when I found +there nothing in the grass I said: "Time has shattered them and swept +them away and left not even any faint remains." + +But looking upwards in the blaze of the moon I suddenly saw colossi +sitting near, and towering up and blotting out the stars and filling the +night with blackness; and at those idols' feet I saw praying and making +obeisance kings and the days that are and all times and all cities and all +nations and all their gods. Neither the smoke of incense nor of the +sacrifice burning reached those colossal heads, they sat there not to +be measured, not to be over-thrown, not to be worn away. + +I said: "Who are those?" + +One answered: "Alone the Immortals." + +And I said sadly: "I came not to see dread gods, but I came to shed +my tears and to offer flowers at the feet of certain little years that are +dead and may not come again." + +He answered me: "These _are_ the years that are dead, alone the +immortals; all years to be are Their children--They fashioned their +smiles and their laughter; all earthly kings They have crowned, all +gods They have created; all the events to be flow down from their +feet like a river, the worlds are flying pebbles that They have already +thrown, and Time and all his centuries behind him kneel there with +bended crests in token of vassalage at Their potent feet." + +And when I heard this I turned away with my wreath, and went back +to my own land comforted. + + + + +A MORAL LITTLE TALE + + +There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance. And +for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And there +loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that loved the +dance respected him too; they said "He is a pure, good man and acts +according to his lights." + +He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several +Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but +not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very young. +He always dressed in black. + +He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and there +grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his flowing +pure-white beard. + +One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said "Well done." + +"Avaunt," said that earnest man. + +"No, no, friend," said the Devil. + +"Dare not to call me 'friend,'" he answered bravely. + +"Come, come, friend," said the Devil. "Have you not put apart the +couples that would dance? Have you not checked their laughter and +their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery of black? O friend, +friend, you do not know what a detestable thing it is to sit in hell and +hear people being happy, and singing in theatres and singing in the fields, +and whispering after dances under the moon," and he fell to cursing +fearfully. + +"It is you," said the Puritan, "that put into their hearts the evil desire +to dance; and black is God's own livery, not yours." + +And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke. + +"He only made the silly colors," he said, "and useless dawns on +hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along them as soon +as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to dance, and +the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that pernicious influence +Love." + +And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man +sat up in bed and shouted "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" + +"It's true," said the Devil. "It isn't I that send the village fools +muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the +harvest moon is high, it's as much as I can bear even to see them +dancing." + +"Then," said the man, "I have mistaken right for wrong; but as soon +as I wake I will fight you yet." + +"O, no you don't," said the Devil. "You don't wake up out of this sleep." + +And somewhere far away Hell's black steel doors were opened, and +arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut behind +them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and further into +the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan's punishment to know that +those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he had done. + + + + +THE RETURN OF SONG + + +"The swans are singing again," said to one another the gods. And +looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair and +far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly larger +than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from it looking +larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable swans, singing +and singing and singing, till it seemed as though even the gods were +wild ships swimming in music. + +"What is it?" I said to one that was humble among the gods. + +"Only a world has ended," he said to me, "and the swans are coming +back to the gods returning the gift of song." + +"A whole world dead!" I said. + +"Dead," said he that was humble among the gods. "The worlds are +not for ever; only song is immortal." + +"Look! Look!" he said. "There will be a new one soon." + +And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods. + + + + +SPRING IN TOWN + + +At a street corner sat, and played with a wind, Winter disconsolate. + +Still tingled the fingers of the passers-by and still their breath was +visible, and still they huddled their chins into their coats when turning +a corner they met with a new wind, still windows lighted sent out into +the street the thought of romantic comfort by evening fires; these things +still were, yet the throne of Winter tottered, and every breeze brought +tidings of further fortresses lost on lakes or boreal hill-slopes. And not +any longer as a king did Winter appear in those streets, as when the +city was decked with gleaming white to greet him as a conqueror and +he rode in with his glittering icicles and haughty retinue of prancing +winds, but he sat there with a little wind at the corner of the street like +some old blind beggar with his hungry dog. And as to some old blind +beggar Death approaches, and the alert ears of the sightless man +prophetically hear his far-off footfall, so there came suddenly to +Winter's ears the sound, from some neighbouring garden, of Spring +approaching as she walked on daisies. And Spring approaching looked +at huddled inglorious Winter. + +"Begone," said Spring. + +"There is nothing for you to do here," said Winter to her. Nevertheless +he drew about him his grey and battered cloak and rose and called to +his little bitter wind and up a side street that led northward strode away. + +Pieces of paper and tall clouds of dust went with him as far as the city's +outer gate. He turned then and called to Spring: "You can do nothing +in this city," he said; then he marched homeward over plains and sea +and heard his old winds howling as he marched. The ice broke up +behind him and foundered like navies. To left and to right of him flew +the flocks of the sea-birds, and far before him the geese's triumphant +cry went like a clarion. Greater and greater grew his stature as he went +northwards and ever more kingly his mien. Now he took baronies at +a stride and now counties and came again to the snow-white frozen +lands where the wolves came out to meet him and, draping himself +anew with old grey clouds, strode through the gates of his invincible +home, two old ice barriers swinging on pillars of ice that had never +known the sun. + +So the town was left to Spring. And she peered about to see +what she could do with it. Presently she saw a dejected dog coming +prowling down the road, so she sang to him and he gambolled. I saw +him next day strutting by with something of an air. Where there were +trees she went to them and whispered, and they sang the arboreal +song that only trees can hear, and the green buds came peeping out as +stars while yet it is twilight, secretly one by one. She went to gardens +and awaked from dreaming the warm maternal earth. In little patches +bare and desolate she called up like a flame the golden crocus, or its +purple brother like an emperor's ghost. She gladdened the graceless +backs of untidy houses, here with a weed, there with a little grass. +She said to the air, "Be joyous." + +Children began to know that daisies blew in unfrequented corners. +Buttonholes began to appear in the coats of the young men. The work +of Spring was accomplished. + + + + +HOW THE ENEMY CAME TO THLUNRANA + + +It had been prophesied of old and foreseen from the ancient days that +its enemy would come upon Thlunrana. And the date of its doom was +known and the gate by which it would enter, yet none had prophesied +of the enemy who he was save that he was of the gods though he dwelt +with men. Meanwhile Thlunrana, that secret lamaserai, that chief +cathedral of wizardry, was the terror of the valley in which it stood +and of all lands round about it. So narrow and high were the windows +and so strange when lighted at night that they seemed to regard men +with the demoniac leer of something that had a secret in the dark. Who +were the magicians and the deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard +of that furtive place nobody knew, for they went veiled and hooded and +cloaked completely in black. + +Though her doom was close upon her and the enemy of prophecy +should come that very night through the open, southward door that +was named the Gate of the Doom, yet that rocky edifice Thlunrana +remained mysterious still, venerable, terrible, dark, and dreadfully +crowned with her doom. It was not often that anyone dared wander +near to Thlunrana by night when the moan of the magicians invoking +we know not Whom rose faintly from inner chambers, scaring the +drifting bats: but on the last night of all the man from the black-thatched +cottage by the five pine-trees came, because he would see Thlunrana +once again before the enemy that was divine, but that dwelt with men, +should come against it and it should be no more. Up the dark valley he +went like a bold man, but his fears were thick upon him; his bravery +bore their weight but stooped a little beneath them. He went in at the +southward gate that is named the Gate of the Doom. He came into a +dark hall, and up a marble stairway passed to see the last of Thlunrana. +At the top a curtain of black velvet hung and he passed into a chamber +heavily hung with curtains, with a gloom in it that was blacker than +anything they could account for. In a sombre chamber beyond, seen +through a vacant archway, magicians with lighted tapers plied their +wizardry and whispered incantations. All the rats in the place were +passing away, going whimpering down the stairway. The man from +the black-thatched cottage passed through that second chamber: the +magicians did not look at him and did not cease to whisper. He passed +from them through heavy curtains still of black velvet and came into a +chamber of black marble where nothing stirred. Only one taper burned +in the third chamber; there were no windows. On the smooth floor and +under the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood with its curtains drawn close +together: this was the holy of holies of that ominous place, its inner +mystery. One on each side of it dark figures crouched, either of men +or women or cloaked stone, or of beasts trained to be silent. When +the awful stillness of the mystery was more than he could bear the +man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees went up +to the silk pavilion, and with a bold and nervous clutch of the hand +drew one of the curtains aside, and saw the inner mystery, and laughed. +And the prophecy was fulfilled, and Thlunrana was never more a terror +to the valley, but the magicians passed away from their terrific halls and +fled through the open fields wailing and beating their breasts, for +laughter was the enemy that was doomed to come against Thlunrana +through her southward gate (that was named the Gate of the Doom), +and it is of the gods but dwells with man. + + + + +A LOSING GAME + + +Once in a tavern Man met face to skull with Death. Man entered +gaily but Death gave no greeting, he sat with his jowl morosely over +an ominous wine. + +"Come, come," said Man, "we have been antagonists long, and if I +were losing yet I should not be surly." + +But Death remained unfriendly watching his bowl of wine and gave +no word in answer. + +Then Man solicitously moved nearer to him and, speaking cheerily +still, "Come, come," he said again, "you must not resent defeat." + +And still Death was gloomy and cross and sipped at his infamous +wine and would not look up at Man and would not be companionable. + +But Man hated gloom either in beast or god, and it made him +unhappy to see his adversary's discomfort, all the more because he +was the cause, and still he tried to cheer him. + +"Have you not slain the Dinatherium?" he said. "Have you not put out +the Moon? Why! you will beat me yet." + +And with a dry and barking sound Death wept and nothing said; and +presently Man arose and went wondering away; for he knew not if +Death wept out of pity for his opponent, or because he knew that he +should not have such sport again when the old game was over and +Man was gone, or whether because perhaps, for some hidden reason, +he could never repeat on Earth his triumph over the Moon. + + + + +TAKING UP PICADILLY + + +Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, +if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off--or +so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their hands and wore corduroy +trousers and that little leather band below the knee that goes by the +astonishing name of "York-to-London." + +They seemed to be working with peculiar vehemence, so that I +stopped and asked one what they were doing. + +"We are taking up Picadilly," he said to me. + +"But at this time of year?" I said. "Is it usual in June?" + +"We are not what we seem," said he. + +"Oh, I see," I said, "you are doing it for a joke." + +"Well, not exactly that," he answered me. + +"For a bet?" I said. + +"Not precisely," said he. + +And then I looked at the bit that they had already picked, and +though it was broad daylight over my head it was darkness down +there, all full of the southern stars. + +"It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it," said he that wore +corduroy trousers. "We are not what we appear." + +They were taking up Picadilly altogether. + + + + +AFTER THE FIRE + + +When that happened which had been so long in happening and the +world hit a black, uncharted star, certain tremendous creatures out +of some other world came peering among the cinders to see if there +were anything there that it were worth while to remember. They +spoke of the great things that the world was known to have had; +they mentioned the mammoth. And presently they saw man's temples, +silent and windowless, staring like empty skulls. + +"Some great thing has been here," one said, "in these huge places." +"It was the mammoth," said one. "Something greater than he," said +another. + +And then they found that the greatest thing in the world had been +the dreams of man. + + + + +THE CITY + + +In time as well as space my fancy roams far from here. It led me +once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and red and rose +up out of a desert: a little way off in the desert there was a city. It +was evening, and I sat and watched the city. + +Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly stealing out +of that city's gate to the number of about twenty. I heard the hum +of men's voices speaking at evening. + +"It is well they are gone," they said. "It is well they are gone. We +can do business now. It is well they are gone." And the men that +had left the city sped away over the sand and so passed into the +twilight. + +"Who are these men?" I said to my glittering leader. + +"The poets," my fancy answered. "The poets and artists." + +"Why do they steal away?" I said to him. "And why are the people +glad that they have gone?" + +He said: "It must be some doom that is going to fall on the city, +something has warned them and they have stolen away. Nothing +may warn the people." + +I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up from +the city. And then I also departed, for there was an ominous look +on the face of the sky. + +And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was +nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city. + + + + +THE FOOD OF DEATH + + +Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern bakers +make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chicago, with a +pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried him into the +dining-room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere Death breathed +more freely), and there they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They +brought him a bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death +drank it up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent +medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for invalids, +and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper. They gave him some +milk and borax, such as children drink in England. + +Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities. + + + + +THE LONELY IDOL + + +I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced idol +to whom no one prayed. + +And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged at +receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the years had broken +(and no one heeded the scourge and no one prayed and no one +came with squealing sacrifice; and he had been a god), then I took +pity on the little forgotten thing and prayed to it as perhaps they prayed +long since, before the coming of the strange dark ships, and humbled +myself and said: + +"O idol, idol of the hard pale stone, invincible to the years, O +scourge-holder, give ear for behold I pray. + +"O little pale-green image whose wanderings are from far, know +thou that here in Europe and in other lands near by, too soon there +pass from us the sweets and song and the lion strength of youth: +too soon do their cheeks fade, their hair grow grey and our beloved +die; too brittle is beauty, too far off is fame and the years are gathered +too soon; there are leaves, leaves falling, everywhere falling; there is +autumn among men, autumn and reaping; failure there is, struggle, +dying and weeping, and all that is beautiful hath not remained but is +even as the glory of morning upon the water. + +"Even our memories are gathered too with the sound of the ancient +voices, the pleasant ancient voices that come to our ears no more; +the very gardens of our childhood fade, and there dims with the speed +of the years even the mind's own eye. + +"O be not any more the friend of Time, for the silent hurry of his +malevolent feet have trodden down what's fairest; I almost hear the +whimper of the years running behind him hound-like, and it takes few +to tear us. + +"All that is beautiful he crushes down as a big man tramples daises, +all that is fairest. How very fair are the little children of men. It is +autumn with all the world, and the stars weep to see it. + +"Therefore no longer be the friend of Time, who will not let us be, +and be not good to him but pity us, and let lovely things live on for +the sake of our tears." + +Thus prayed I out of compassion one windy day to the snout-faced +idol to whom no one kneeled. + + + + +THE SPHINX IN THEBES (MASSACHUSETTS) + + +There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money +could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and +she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx. + +So she besought them to bring her a live sphinx; and therefore they +went to the menageries, and then to the forests and the desert places, +and yet could find no sphinx. + +And she would have been content with a little lion but that one was +already owned by a woman she knew; so they had to search the +world again for a sphinx. + +And still there was none. + +But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found +a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods +she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. +And they cast chains on her, who was still with an ominous stillness, +and took her westwards with them and brought her home. + +And so the sphinx came to the steel-built city. + +And the woman was very glad that she owned a sphinx: but the +sphinx stared long into her eyes one day, and softly asked a riddle +of the woman. + +And the woman could not answer, and she died. + +And the sphinx is silent again and none knows what she will do. + + + + +THE REWARD + + +One's spirit goes further in dreams than it does by day. Wandering +once by night from a factory city I came to the edge of Hell. + +The place was foul with cinders and cast-off things, and jagged, +half-buried things with shapeless edges, and there was a huge angel +with a hammer building in plaster and steel. I wondered what he did +in that dreadful place. I hesitated, then asked him what he was +building. "We are adding to Hell," he said, "to keep pace with the +times." "Don't be too hard on them," I said, for I had just come out +of a compromising age and a weakening country. The angel did not +answer. "It won't be as bad as the old hell, will it?" I said. "Worse," +said the angel. + +"How can you reconcile it with your conscience as a Minister of +Grace," I said, "to inflict such a punishment?" (They talked like this +in the city whence I had come and I could not avoid the habit of it.) + +"They have invented a new cheap yeast," said the angel. + +I looked at the legend on the walls of the hell that the angel was +building, the words were written in flame, every fifteen seconds they +changed their color, "Yeasto, the great new yeast, it builds up body +and brain, and something more." + +"They shall look at it for ever," the angel said. + +"But they drove a perfectly legitimate trade," I said, "the law allowed +it." + +The angel went on hammering into place the huge steel uprights. + +"You are very revengeful," I said. "Do you never rest from doing +this terrible work?" + +"I rested one Christmas Day," the angel said, "and looked and +saw little children dying of cancer. I shall go on now until the fires +are lit." + +"It is very hard to prove," I said, "that the yeast is as bad as you +think." + +"After all," I said, "they must live." + +And the angel made no answer but went on building his hell. + + + + +THE TROUBLE IN LEAFY GREEN STREET + + +She went to the idol-shop in Moleshill Street, where the old man +mumbles, and said: "I want a god to worship when it is wet." + +The old man reminded her of the heavy penalties that rightly attach +to idolatry and, when he had enumerated all, she answered him as +was meet: "Give me a god to worship when it is wet." + +And he went to the back places of his shop and sought out and +brought her a god. The same was carved of grey stone and wore a +propitious look and was named, as the old man mumbled, The God +of Rainy Cheerfulness. + +Now it may be that long confinement to the house affects adversely +the liver, or these things may be of the soul, but certain it is that on +a rainy day her spirits so far descended that those cheerful creatures +came within sight of the Pit, and, having tried cigarettes to no good +end, she bethought her of Moleshill Street and the mumbling man. + +He brought the grey idol forth and mumbled of guarantees, although +he put nothing on paper, and she paid him there and then his +preposterous price and took the idol away. + +And on the next wet day that there ever was she prayed to the +grey-stone idol that she had bought, the God of Rainy Cheerfulness +(who knows with what ceremony or what lack of it?), and so +brought down on her in Leafy Green Street, in the preposterous +house at the corner, that doom of which all men speak. + + + + +THE MIST + + +The mist said unto the mist: "Let us go up into the Downs." And +the mist came up weeping. + +And the mist went into the high places and the hollows. + +And clumps of trees in the distance stood ghostly in the haze. + +But I went to a prophet, one who loved the Downs, and I said to +him: "Why does the mist come up weeping into the Downs when it +goes into the high places and the hollows?" + +And he answered: "The mist is the company of a multitude of souls +who never saw the Downs, and now are dead. Therefore they come +up weeping into the Downs, who are dead and never saw them." + + + + +FURROW-MAKER + + +He was all in black, but his friend was dressed in brown, members +of two old families. + +"Is there any change in the way you build your houses?" said he in +black. + +"No change," said the other. "And you?" + +"We change not," he said. + +A man went by in the distance riding a bicycle. + +"He is always changing," said the one in black, "of late almost every +century. He is uneasy. Always changing." + +"He changes the way he builds his house, does he not?" said the +brown one. + +"So my family say," said the other. "They say he has changed of late." + +"They say he takes much to cities?" the brown one said. + +"My cousin who lives in belfries tells me so," said the black one. +"He says he is much in cities." + +"And there he grows lean?" said the brown one. + +"Yes, he grows lean." + +"Is it true what they say?" said the brown one. + +"Caw," said the black one. + +"Is it true that he cannot live many centuries?" + +"No, no," said the black one. "Furrow-maker will not die. We must +not lose furrow-maker. He has been foolish of late, he has played +with smoke and is sick. His engines have wearied him and his cities +are evil. Yes, he is very sick. But in a few centuries he will forget +his folly and we shall not lose furrow-maker. Time out of mind he +has delved and my family have got their food from the raw earth +behind him. He will not die." + +"But they say, do they not?" said the brown one, "his cities are +noisome, and that he grows sick in them and can run no longer, and +that it is with him as it is with us when we grow too many, and the +grass has the bitter taste in the rainy season, and our young grow +bloated and die." + +"Who says it?" replied the black one. + +"Pigeon," the brown one answered. "He came back all dirty. +And Hare went down to the edge of the cities once. He says it +too. Man was too sick to chase him. He thinks that Man will die, +and his wicked friend Dog with him. Dog, he will die. That nasty +fellow Dog. He will die too, the dirty fellow!" + +"Pigeon and Hare!" said the black one. "We shall not lose +furrow-maker." + +"Who told you he will not die?" his brown friend said. + +"Who told me!" the black one said. "My family and his have +understood each other times out of mind. We know what follies +will kill each other and what each may survive, and I say that +furrow-maker will not die." + +"He will die," said the brown one. + +"Caw," said the other. + +And Man said in his heart: "Just one invention more. There is +something I want to do with petrol yet, and then I will give it all +up and go back to the woods." + + + + +LOBSTER SALAD + + +I was climbing round the perilous outside of the Palace of +Colquonhombros. So far below me that in the tranquil twilight +and clear air of those lands I could only barely see them lay the +craggy tops of the mountains. + +It was along no battlements or terrace edge I was climbing, but +on the sheer face of the wall itself, getting what foothold I could +where the boulders joined. + +Had my feet been bare I was done, but though I was in my +night-shirt I had on stout leather boots, and their edges somehow +held in those narrow cracks. My fingers and wrists were aching. + +Had it been possible to stop for a moment I might have been lured +to give a second look at the fearful peaks of the mountains down +there in the twilight, and this must have been fatal. + +That the thing was all a dream is beside the point. We have fallen +in dreams before, but it is well known that if in one of those falls +you ever hit the ground--you die: I had looked at those menacing +mountaintops and knew well that such a fall as the one I feared +must have such a termination. Then I went on. + +It is strange what different sensations there can be in different +boulders--every one gleaming with the same white light and every +one chosen to match the rest by minions of ancient kings--when +your life depends on the edges of every one you come to. Those +edges seemed strangely different. It was of no avail to overcome +the terror of one, for the next would give you a hold in quite a +different way or hand you over to death in a different manner. +Some were too sharp to hold and some too flush with the wall, +those whose hold was the best crumbled the soonest; each rock +had its different terror: and then there were those things that followed +behind me. + +And at last I came to a breach made long ago by earthquake, +lightning or war: I should have had to go down a thousand feet +to get round it and they would come up with me while I was doing +that, for certain sable apes that I have not mentioned as yet, things +that had tigerish teeth and were born and bred on that wall, had +pursued me all the evening. In any case I could have gone no +farther, nor did I know what the king would do along whose wall +I was climbing. It was time to drop and be done with it or stop and +await those apes. + +And then it was that I remembered a pin, thrown carelessly down +out of an evening-tie in another world to the one where grew that +glittering wall, and lying now if no evil chance had removed it on a +chest of drawers by my bed. The apes were very close, and hurrying, +for they knew my fingers were slipping, and the cruel peaks of those +infernal mountains seemed surer of me than the apes. I reached out +with a desperate effort of will towards where the pin lay on the chest +of drawers. I groped about. I found it! I ran it into my arm. Saved! + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE EXILES + + +The old man with a hammer and the one-eyed man with a spear were +seated by the roadside talking as I came up the hill. + +"It isn't as though they hadn't asked us," the one with the hammer said. + +"There ain't no more than twenty as knows about it," said the other. + +"Twenty's twenty," said the first. + +"After all these years," said the one-eyed man with the spear. "After +all these years. We might go back just once." + +"O' course we might," said the other. + +Their clothes were old even for laborers, the one with the hammer +had a leather apron full of holes and blackened, and their hands +looked like leather. But whatever they were they were English, and +this was pleasant to see after all the motors that had passed me that +day with their burden of mixed and doubtful nationalities. + +When they saw me the one with the hammer touched his greasy cap. + +"Might we make so bold, sir," he said, "as the ask the way to +Stonehenge?" + +"We never ought to go," mumbled the other plaintively. "There's +not more than twenty as knows, but...." + +I was bicycling there myself to see the place so I pointed out the +way and rode on at once, for there was something so utterly servile +about them both that I did not care for their company. They seemed +by their wretched mien to have been persecuted or utterly neglected +for many years, I thought that very likely they had done long terms +of penal servitude. + +When I came to Stonehenge I saw a group of about a score of men +standing among the stones. They asked me with some solemnity if +I was expecting anyone, and when I said No they spoke to me no +more. It was three miles back where I left those strange old men, +but I had not been in the stone circle long when they appeared, +coming with great strides along the road. When they saw them all +the people took off their hats and acted very strangely, and I saw +that they had a goat which they led up then to the old altar stone. +And the two old men came up with their hammer and spear and +began apologizing plaintively for the liberty they had taken in coming +back to that place, and all the people knelt on the grass before them. +And then still kneeling they killed the goat by the altar, and when the +two old men saw this they came up with many excuses and eagerly +sniffed the blood. And at first this made them happy. But soon the +one with the spear began to whimper. "It used to be men," he +lamented. "It used to be men." + +And the twenty men began looking uneasily at each other, and the +plaint of the one-eyed man went on in that tearful voice, and all of +a sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old men +were or what any of them were doing, but there are moments when +it is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And just as I +got up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the one with the +hammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in coming back to +Stonehenge. + +"But after all these years," I heard him crying, "After all these +years...." + +And the one with the spear said: "Yes, after three thousand years...." + + + + +NATURE AND TIME + + +Through the streets of Coventry one winter's night strode a +triumphant spirit. Behind him stooping, unkempt, utterly ragged, +wearing the clothes and look that outcasts have, whining, weeping, +reproaching, an ill-used spirit tried to keep pace with him. Continually +she plucked him by the sleeve and cried out to him as she panted +after and he strode resolute on. + +It was a bitter night, yet it did not seem to be the cold that she feared, +ill-clad though she was, but the trams and the ugly shops and the glare +of the factories, from which she continually winced as she hobbled on, +and the pavement hurt her feet. + +He that strode on in front seemed to care for nothing, it might be hot +or cold, silent or noisy, pavement or open fields, he merely had the +air of striding on. + +And she caught up and clutched him by the elbow. I heard her +speak in her unhappy voice, you scarcely heard it for the noise of +the traffic. + +"You have forgotten me," she complained to him. "You have forsaken +me here." + +She pointed to Coventry with a wide wave of her arm and seemed +to indicate other cities beyond. And he gruffly told her to keep +pace with him and that he did not forsake her. And she went on +with her pitiful lamentation. + +"My anemones are dead for miles," she said, "all my woods are +fallen and still the cities grow. My child Man is unhappy and my other +children are dying, and still the cities grow and you have forgotten me!" + +And then he turned angrily on her, almost stopping in that stride of +his that began when the stars were made. + +"When have I ever forgotten you?" he said, "or when forsaken you +ever? Did I not throw down Babylon for you? And is not Nineveh +gone? Where is Persepolis that troubled you? Where Tarshish and +Tyre? And you have said I forget you." + +And at this she seemed to take a little comfort. I heard her speak +once more, looking wistfully at her companion. "When will the fields +come back and the grass for my children?" + +"Soon, soon," he said: then they were silent. And he strode away, +she limping along behind him, and all the clocks in the towers chimed +as he passed. + + + + +THE SONG OF THE BLACKBIRD + + +As the poet passed the thorn-tree the blackbird sang. + +"How ever do you do it?" the poet said, for he knew bird language. + +"It was like this," said the blackbird. "It really was the most +extraordinary thing. I made that song last Spring, it came to me +all of a sudden. There was the most beautiful she-blackbird that +the world has ever seen. Her eyes were blacker than lakes are at +night, her feathers were blacker than the night itself, and nothing was +as yellow as her beak; she could fly much faster than the lightning. +She was not an ordinary she-blackbird, there has never been any +other like her at all. I did not dare go near her because she was so +wonderful. One day last Spring when it got warm again--it had been +cold, we ate berries, things were quite different then, but Spring came +and it got warm--one day I was thinking how wonderful she was and +it seemed so extraordinary to think that I should ever have seen her, +the only really wonderful she-blackbird in the world, that I opened +my beak to give a shout, and then this song came, and there had +never been anything like it before, and luckily I remembered it, the +very song that I sang just now. But what is so extraordinary, the most +amazing occurence of that marvellous day, was that no sooner had I +sung the song than that very bird, the most wonderful she-blackbird +in the world, flew right up to me and sat quite close to me on the same +tree. I never remember such wonderful times as those. + +"Yes, the song came in a moment, and as I was saying...." + +And an old wanderer walking with a stick came by and the blackbird +flew away, and the poet told the old man the blackbird's wonderful +story. + +"That song new?" said the wanderer. "Not a bit of it. God made it +years ago. All the blackbirds used to sing it when I was young. It +was new then." + + + + +THE MESSENGERS + + +One wandering nigh Parnassus chasing hares heard the high Muses. + +"Take us a message to the Golden Town." + +Thus sang the Muses. + +But the man said: "They do not call to me. Not to such as me speak +the Muses." + +And the Muses called him by name. + +"Take us a message," they said, "to the Golden Town." + +And the man was downcast for he would have chased hares. + +And the Muses called again. + +And when whether in valleys or on high crags of the hills he still +heard the Muses he went at last to them and heard their message, +though he would fain have left it to other men and chased the fleet +hares still in happy valleys. + +And they gave him a wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds as +only the Muses can carve. "By this," they said, "they shall know that +you come from the Muses." + +And the man went from that place and dressed in scarlet silks +as befitted one that came from the high Muses. And through the +gateway of the Golden Town he ran and cried his message, and his +cloak floated behind him. All silent sat the wise men and the aged, +they of the Golden Town; cross-legged they sat before their houses +reading from parchments a message of the Muses that they sent long +before. + +And the young man cried his message from the Muses. + +And they rose up and said: "Thou art not from the Muses. Otherwise +spake they." And they stoned him and he died. + +And afterwards they carved his message upon gold; and read it in +their temples on holy days. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? They sent +another messenger to the Golden Town. And they gave him a +wand of ivory to carry in his hand with all the beautiful stories of +the world wondrously carved thereon. And only the Muses could +have carved it. "By this," they said, "they shall know that you come +from the Muses." + +And he came through the gateway of the Golden Town with the +message he had for its people. And they rose up at once in the +Golden street, they rose from reading the message that they had +carved upon gold. "The last who came," they said, "came with a +wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds, as only the Muses can +carve. You are not from the Muses." And even as they had stoned +the last so also they stoned him. And afterwards they carved his +message on gold and laid it up in their temples. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? Even yet once +again they sent a messenger under the gateway into the Golden +Town. And for all that he wore a garland of gold that the high Muses +gave him, a garland of kingcups soft and yellow on his head, yet +fashioned of pure gold and by whom but the Muses, yet did they +stone him in the Golden Town. But they had the message, and what +care the Muses? + +And yet they will not rest, for some while since I heard them call to me. + +"Go take our message," they said, "unto the Golden Town." + +But I would not go. And they spake a second time. "Go take our +message," they said. + +And still I would not go, and they cried out a third time: "Go take +our message." + +And though they cried a third time I would not go. But morning and +night they cried and through long evenings. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? And when they +would not cease to call to me I went to them and I said: "The +Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their +pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins +out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, +there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are +gone." + +"Go take our message," they cried. + +And I said to the high Muses: "You do not understand. You have +no message for the Golden Town, the holy city no longer." + +"Go take our message," they cried. + +"What is your message?" I said to the high Muses. + +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 death of Pan. + +But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow +softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifty-One Tales +by Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY-ONE TALES *** + +This file should be named 751ta10.txt or 751ta10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 751ta11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 751ta10a.txt + +Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Fifty-One Tales + +Author: Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7838] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on May 21, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY-ONE TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + +FIFTY-ONE TALES + + + +by Lord Dunsany + +1915 + + + +CONTENTS + + +The Assignation + +Charon + +The Death of Pan + +The Sphinx at Giza + +The Hen + +Wind and Fog + +The Raft-Builders + +The Workman + +The Guest + +Death and Odysseus + +Death and the Orange + +The Prayer of the Flower + +Time and the Tradesman + +The Little City + +The Unpasturable Fields + +The Worm and the Angel + +The Songless Country + +The Latest Thing + +The Demagogue and the Demi-monde + +The Giant Poppy + +Roses + +The Man With the Golden Ear-rings + +The Dream of King Karna-Vootra + +The Storm + +A Mistaken Identity + +The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise + +Alone the Immortals + +A Moral Little Tale + +The Return of Song + +Spring In Town + +How the Enemy Came to Thlunrana + +A Losing Game + +Taking Up Picadilly + +After the Fire + +The City + +The Food of Death + +The Lonely Idol + +The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts) + +The Reward + +The Trouble in Leafy Green Street + +The Mist + +Furrow-Maker + +Lobster Salad + +The Return of the Exiles + +Nature and Time + +The Song of the Blackbird + +The Messengers + +The Three Tall Sons + +Compromise + +What We Have Come To + +The Tomb of Pan + + + + +THE ASSIGNATION + + +Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with sordid +adventurers, passed the poet by. + +And still the poet made for her little chaplets of song, to deck her +forehead in the courts of Time: and still she wore instead the worthless +garlands, that boisterous citizens flung to her in the ways, made out of +perishable things. + +And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet came to her +with his chaplets of song; and still she laughed at him and wore the +worthless wreaths, though they always died at evening. + +And one day in his bitterness the poet rebuked her, and said to her: +"Lovely Fame, even in the highways and the byways you have not +foreborne to laugh and shout and jest with worthless men, and I have +toiled for you and dreamed of you and you mock me and pass me by." + +And Fame turned her back on him and walked away, but in departing +she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him as she had not smiled +before, and, almost speaking in a whisper, said: + +"I will meet you in the graveyard at the back of the Workhouse in a +hundred years." + + + + +CHARON + + +Charon leaned forward and rowed. All things were one with his +weariness. + +It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide +floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that had +become for him part of the scheme that the gods had made and was +of a piece with Eternity. + +If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would have divided +all time in his memory into two equal slabs. + +So grey were all things always where he was that if any radiance +lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen +perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have perceived it. + +It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such numbers. +They were coming in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It +was neither Charon's duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why +these things might be. Charon leaned forward and rowed. + +Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the gods to send +no one down from Earth for such a space. But the gods knew best. + +Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat shivering on a +lonely bench and the great boat pushed off. Only one passenger: +the gods knew best. And great and weary Charon rowed on and on +beside the little, silent, shivering ghost. + +And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the +beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like +the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old +as time and the pain in Charon's arms. + +Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the coast of +Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering stepped ashore, and +Charon turned the boat to go wearily back to the world. Then the +little shadow spoke, that had been a man. + +"I am the last," he said. + +No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before had ever +made him weep. + + + + +THE DEATH OF PAN + + +When travellers from London entered Arcady they lamented one to +another the death of Pan. + +And anon they saw him lying stiff and still. + +Horned Pan was still and the dew was on his fur; he had not the look +of a live animal. And then they said, "It is true that Pan is dead." + +And, standing melancholy by that huge prone body, they looked for +long at memorable Pan. + +And evening came and a small star appeared. + +And presently from a hamlet of some Arcadian valley, with a sound +of idle song, Arcadian maidens came. + +And, when they saw there, suddenly in the twilight, that old recumbent +god, they stopped in their running and whispered among themselves. +"How silly he looks," they said, and thereat they laughed a little. + +And at the sound of their laughter Pan leaped up and the gravel flew +from his hooves. + +And, for as long as the travellers stood and listened, the crags and +the hill-tops of Arcady rang with the sounds of pursuit. + + + + +THE SPHINX AT GIZEH + + +I saw the other day the Sphinx's painted face. + +She had painted her face in order to ogle Time. + +And he has spared no other painted face in all the world but hers. + +Delilah was younger than she, and Delilah is dust. Time hath loved +nothing but this worthless painted face. + +I do not care that she is ugly, nor that she has painted her face, so +that she only lure his secret from Time. + +Time dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting cities. + +Time never wearies of her silly smile. + +There are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil. + +I saw an old man go by, and Time never touched him. + +Time that has carried away the seven gates of Thebes! + +She has tried to bind him with ropes of eternal sand, she had hoped +to oppress him with the Pyramids. + +He lies there in the sand with his foolish hair all spread about her paws. + +If she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes, so that he shall +find no more our beautiful things--there are lovely gates in Florence +that I fear he will carry away. + +We have tried to bind him with song and with old customs, but they +only held him for a little while, and he has always smitten us and +mocked us. + +When he is blind he shall dance to us and make sport. + +Great clumsy time shall stumble and dance, who liked to kill little +children, and can hurt even the daisies no longer. + +Then shall our children laugh at him who slew Babylon's winged bulls, +and smote great numbers of the gods and fairies--when he is shorn +of his hours and his years. + +We will shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber +where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we +give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work. + +We will kiss they painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to us Time. + +And yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold blindly +of the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him the +House of Man. + + + + +THE HEN + + +All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering +uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only of +Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North wind +waiting. + +And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. And everyone +spoke of the swallows and the South. + +"I think I shall go South myself next year," said a hen. + +And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the year +wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry discussed +the departure of the hen. + +And very early one morning, the wind being from the North, the +swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings; and a +strength came upon them and a strange old knowledge and a more +than human faith, and flying high they left the smoke of our cities and +small remembered eaves, and saw at last the huge and homeless sea, +and steering by grey sea-currents went southward with the wind. And +going South they went by glittering fog-banks and saw old islands lifting +their heads above them; they saw the slow quests of the wandering +ships, and divers seeking pearls, and lands at war, till there came in +view the mountains that they sought and the sight of the peaks they +knew; and they descended into an austral valley, and saw Summer +sometimes sleeping and sometimes singing song. + +"I think the wind is about right," said the hen; and she spread her +wings and ran out of the poultry-yard. And she ran fluttering out on +to the road and some way down it until she came to a garden. + +At evening she came back panting. + +And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had gone South +as far as the high road, and saw the great world's traffic going by, +and came to lands where the potato grew, and saw the stubble upon +which men live, and at the end of the road had found a garden, and +there were roses in it--beautiful roses!--and the gardener himself was +there with his braces on. + +"How extremely interesting," the poultry said, "and what a really +beautiful description!" + +And the Winter wore away, and the bitter months went by, and the +Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came again. + +"We have been to the South," they said, "and the valleys beyond +the sea." + +But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in the South: +"You should hear our hen," they said. + + + + +WIND AND FOG + + +"Way for us," said the North Wind as he came down the sea on an +errand of old Winter. + +And he saw before him the grey silent fog that lay along the tides. + +"Way for us," said the North Wind, "O ineffectual fog, for I am +Winter's leader in his age-old war with the ships. I overwhelm +them suddenly in my strength, or drive upon them the huge seafaring +bergs. I cross an ocean while you move a mile. There is mourning in +inland places when I have met the ships. I drive them upon the rocks +and feed the sea. Wherever I appear they bow to our lord the Winter." + +And to his arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose up +slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, +took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was +still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I hear him telling +infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A hundred and +fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went from Tyre, +eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of the line, twelve warships under +sail, with their carronades, three hundred and eighty-seven river-craft, +forty-two merchantmen that carried spice, thirty yachts, twenty-one +battleships of the modern time, nine thousand admirals...." he mumbled +and chuckled on, till I suddenly rose and fled from his fearful +contamination. + + + + +THE RAFT-BUILDERS + + +All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon +doomed ships. + +When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity +with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile +upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our +names and a phrase or two and little else. + +They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like +sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract +their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to pieces +before the ship breaks up. + +See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquility deadlier +than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it. Time in its deeps +swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale, feeds on the littlest +things--small tunes and little unskilled songs of the olden, golden +evenings--and anon turneth whale-like to overthrow whole ships. + +See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something there +that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in the +deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the sodden +bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis. + +For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-floor +strewn with crowns. + +Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first. + +There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen. + + + + +THE WORKMAN + + +I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of +some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife +and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and +do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I +could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not +only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the +very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had +time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood. + +Then I went home for I had work to do. And all that evening I thought +of the man's folly, till the thought hindered me from serious work. + +And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the workman +floated through my wall and stood before me laughing. + +I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey +diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter. + +I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the ghost +spoke. It said: "I'm a laughin' at you sittin' and workin' there." + +"And why," I asked, "do you laugh at serious work?" + +"Why, yer bloomin' life 'ull go by like a wind," he said, "and yer 'ole +silly civilization 'ull be tidied up in a few centuries." + +Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laughing +still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity from +which he had come. + + + + +THE GUEST + + +A young man came into an ornate restaurant at eight o'clock in +London. + +He was alone, but two places had been laid at the table which was +reserved for him. He had chosen the dinner very carefully, by letter +a week before. + +A waiter asked him about the other guest. + +"You probably won't see him till the coffee comes," the young man +told him; so he was served alone. + +Those at adjacent tables might have noticed the young man continually +addressing the empty chair and carrying on a monologue with it +throughout his elaborate dinner. + +"I think you knew my father," he said to it over the soup. + +"I sent for you this evening," he continued, "because I want you to +do me a good turn; in fact I must insist on it." + +There was nothing eccentric about the man except for this habit of +addressing an empty chair, certainly he was eating as good a dinner +as any sane man could wish for. + +After the Burgundy had been served he became more voluble in his +monologue, not that he spoiled his wine by drinking excessively. + +"We have several acquaintances in common," he said. "I met King Seti +a year ago in Thebes. I think he has altered very little since you knew +him. I thought his forehead a little low for a king's. Cheops has left the +house that he built for your reception, he must have prepared for you +for years and years. I suppose you have seldom been entertained like +that. I ordered this dinner over a week ago. I thought then that a lady +might have come with me, but as she wouldn't I've asked you. She may +not after all be as lovely as Helen of Troy. Was Helen very lovely? Not +when you knew her, perhaps. You were lucky in Cleopatra, you must +have known her when she was in her prime. + +"You never knew the mermaids nor the fairies nor the lovely goddesses +of long ago, that's where we have the best of you." + +He was silent when the waiters came to his table, but rambled merrily +on as soon as they left, still turned to the empty chair. + +"You know I saw you here in London only the other day. You were +on a motor bus going down Ludgate Hill. It was going much too fast. +London is a good place. But I shall be glad enough to leave it. It was +in London that I met the lady I that was speaking about. If it hadn't +been for London I probably shouldn't have met her, and if it hadn't +been for London she probably wouldn't have had so much besides +me to amuse her. It cuts both ways." + +He paused once to order coffee, gazing earnestly at the waiter and +putting a sovereign in his hand. "Don't let it be chicory," said he. + +The waiter brought the coffee, and the young man dropped a tabloid +of some sort into his cup. + +"I don't suppose you come here very often," he went on. "Well, you +probably want to be going. I haven't taken you much out of your way, +there is plenty for you to do in London." + +Then having drunk his coffee he fell on the floor by a foot of the +empty chair, and a doctor who was dining in the room bent over +him and announced to the anxious manager the visible presence of +the young man's guest. + + + + +DEATH AND ODYSSEUS + + +In the Olympian courts Love laughed at Death, because he was +unsightly, and because She couldn't help it, and because he never +did anything worth doing, and because She would. + +And Death hated being laughed at, and used to brood apart thinking +only of his wrongs and of what he could do to end this intolerable +treatment. + +But one day Death appeared in the courts with an air and They all +noticed it. "What are you up to now?" said Love. And Death with +some solemnity said to Her: "I am going to frighten Odysseus"; and +drawing about him his grey traveller's cloak went out through the +windy door with his jowl turned earthwards. + +And he came soon to Ithaca and the hall that Athene knew, and +opened the door and saw there famous Odysseus, with his white +locks bending close over the fire, trying to warm his hands. + +And the wind through the open door blew bitterly on Odysseus. + +And Death came up behind him, and suddenly shouted. + +And Odysseus went on warming his pale hands. + +Then Death came close and began to mouth at him. And after a +while Odysseus turned and spoke. And "Well, old servant," he said, +"have your masters been kind to you since I made you work for me +round Ilion?" + +And Death for some while stood mute, for the thought of the laughter +of Love. + +Then "Come now," said Odysseus, "lend me your shoulder," and he +leaning heavily on that bony joint, they went together through the open +door. + + + + +DEATH AND THE ORANGE + + +Two dark young men in a foreign southern land sat at a restaurant +table with one woman. + +And on the woman's plate was a small orange which had an evil +laughter in its heart. + +And both of the men would be looking at the woman all the time, and +they ate little and they drank much. + +And the woman was smiling equally at each. + +Then the small orange that had the laughter in its heart rolled +slowly off the plate on to the floor. And the dark young men both +sought for it at once, and they met suddenly beneath the table, and +soon they were speaking swift words to one another, and a horror +and an impotence came over the Reason of each as she sat helpless +at the back of the mind, and the heart of the orange laughed and the +woman went on smiling; and Death, who was sitting at another table, +tête-à-tête with an old man, rose and came over to listen to the quarrel. + + + + +THE PRAYER OF THE FLOWERS + + +It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the +old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going +Greecewards. + +"The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love +us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over +the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the +land. + +"The cancrous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their lairs +continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night. + +"The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou art +far, O Pan, and far away." + +I was standing by night between two railway embankments on the +edge of a Midland city. On one of them I saw the trains go by, once +in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by twice in +every five. + +Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them wore +the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever. + +The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and +thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beating +musically up wind, the voice of Pan reproving them from Arcady-- + +"Be patient a little, these things are not for long." + + + + +TIME AND THE TRADESMAN + + +Once Time as he prowled the world, his hair grey not with weakness +but with dust of the ruin of cities, came to a furniture shop and entered +the Antique department. And there he saw a man darkening the wood +of a chair with dye and beating it with chains and making imitation +wormholes in it. + +And when Time saw another doing his work he stood by him awhile +and looked on critically. + +And at last he said: "That is not how I work," and he turned the man's +hair white and bent his back and put some furrows in his little cunning +face; then turned and strode away, for a mighty city that was weary +and sick and too long had troubled the fields was sore in need of him. + + + + +THE LITTLE CITY + + +I was in the pre-destined 11.8 from Goraghwood to Drogheda, when +I suddenly saw the city. It was a little city in a valley, and only seemed +to have a little smoke, and the sun caught the smoke and turned it +golden, so that it looked like an old Italian picture where angels walk +in the foreground and the rest is a blaze of gold. And beyond, as one +could tell by the lie of land although one could not see through the +golden smoke, I knew that there lay the paths of the roving ships. + +All round there lay a patchwork of small fields all over the slopes of +the hills, and the snow had come upon them tentatively, but already +the birds of the waste had moved to the sheltered places for every +omen boded more to fall. Far away some little hills blazed like an +aureate bulwark broken off by age and fallen from the earthward +rampart of Paradise. And aloof and dark the mountains stared +unconcernedly seawards. + +And when I saw those grey and watchful mountains sitting where +they sat while the cities of the civilization of Araby and Asia arose +like crocuses, and like crocuses fell, I wondered for how long there +would be smoke in the valley and little fields on the hills. + + + + +THE UNPASTURABLE FIELDS + + +Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones, the +grey ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall break +his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now, +hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the +bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done. + +"Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities until +they grow old and leave us to go among the myths. + +"We are the most imperishable mountains." + +And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag on +crag and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of Caucasus upon +Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon the backs of storms and +looked down idly from their golden heights upon the crests of the +mountains. + +"Ye pass away," said the mountains. + +And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied, + +"We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable +fields Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon +song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial +fields. His hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though our +fields were of silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils, +with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands and +stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees far-future +wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds of the togas that +cover the knees of the gods." + + + + +THE WORM AND THE ANGEL + + +As he crawled from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an angel. + +And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths +and maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men heavy in +their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far +wars and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and wickedness, and +the pomp of kings, and the people of all the lands that the sunlight knew. + +And the worm spake to the angel saying: "Behold my food." + +"Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes," murmured the +angel, for they walked by the sea, "and can you destroy that too?" + +And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for for +three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its +melody was ringing in _his head_. + + + + +THE SONGLESS COUNTRY + + +The poet came unto a great country in which there were no songs. +And he lamented gently for the nation that had not any little foolish +songs to sing to itself at evening. + +And at last he said: "I will make for them myself some little foolish +songs so that they may be merry in the lanes and happy by the +fireside." And for some days he made for them aimless songs such +as maidens sing on the hills in the older happier countries. + +Then he went to some of that nation as they sat weary with the +work of the day and said to them: "I have made you some aimless +songs out of the small unreasonable legends, that are somewhat akin +to the wind in the vales of my childhood; and you may care to sing +them in your disconsolate evenings." + +And they said to him: + +"If you think we have time for that sort of nonsense nowadays +you cannot know much of the progress of modern commerce." + +And the poet wept for he said: "Alas! They are damned." + + + + +THE LATEST THING + + +I saw an unclean-feeder by the banks of the river of Time. He crouched +by orchards numerous with apples in a happy land of flowers; colossal +barns stood near which the ancients had stored with grain, and the sun +was golden on serene far hills behind the level lands. But his back was +to all these things. He crouched and watched the river. And whatever +the river chanced to send him down the unclean-feeder clutched at +greedily with his arms, wading out into the water. + +Now there were in those days, and indeed still are, certain uncleanly +cities upon the river of Time; and from them fearfully nameless things +came floating shapelessly by. And whenever the odor of these came +down the river before them the unclean-feeder plunged into the dirty +water and stood far out, expectant. And if he opened his mouth one +saw these things on his lips. + +Indeed from the upper reaches there came down sometimes the +fallen rhododendron's petal, sometimes a rose; but they were useless +to the unclean-feeder, and when he saw them he growled. + +A poet walked beside the river's bank; his head was lifted and his +look was afar; I think he saw the sea, and the hills of Fate from which +the river ran. I saw the unclean-feeder standing voracious, up to his +waist in that evil-smelling river. + +"Look," I said to the poet. + +"The current will sweep him away," the poet said. + +"But those cities that poison the river," I said to him. + +He answered: "Whenever the centuries melt on the hills of Fate the +river terribly floods." + + + + +THE DEMAGOGUE AND THE DEMI-MONDE + + +A demagogue and a demi-mondaine chanced to arrive together at +the gate of Paradise. And the Saint looked sorrowfully at them both. + +"Why were you a demagogue?" he said to the first. + +"Because," said the demagogue, "I stood for those principles that +have made us what we are and have endeared our Party to the great +heart of the people. In a word I stood unflinchingly on the plank of +popular representation." + +"And you?" said the Saint to her of the demi-monde. + +"I wanted money," said the demi-mondaine. + +And after some moments' thought the Saint said: "Well, come in; +though you don't deserve to." + +But to the demagogue he said: "We genuinely regret that the limited +space at our disposal and our unfortunate lack of interest in those +Questions that you have gone so far to inculate and have so ably +upheld in the past, prevent us from giving you the support for which +you seek." + +And he shut the golden door. + + + + +THE GIANT POPPY + + +I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a clear day +you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There +used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them +where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies +danced. + +But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant +glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved +in the wind, and as it waved it hummed "Remember not." And by its +oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an +ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed +that way or anything olden. + +He said: "The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and +fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it +of its beautiful strength." And I asked him why he sat on the hills I +knew, playing an olden tune. + +And he answered: "Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which +would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood +of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray +over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have +saved Agamemnon." + +Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the +poppy's sleepy petals murmured "Remember not. Remember not." + + + + +ROSES + + +I know a roadside where the wild rose blooms with a strange +abundance. There is a beauty in the blossoms too of an almost +exotic kind, a taint of deeper pink that shocks the Puritan flowers. +Two hundred generations ago (generations, I mean, of roses) this +was a village street; there was a floral decadence when they left their +simple life and the roses came from the wilderness to clamber round +houses of men. + +Of all the memories of that little village, of all the cottages that stood +there, of all the men and women whose homes they were, nothing +remains but a more beautiful blush on the faces of the roses. + +I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated fields +come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war, they may +find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; because we have loved +a little that swart old city. + + + + +THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN EAR-RINGS + + +It may be that I dreamed this. So much at least is certain--that I +turned one day from the traffic of a city, and came to its docks and +saw its slimy wharves going down green and steep into the water, and +saw the huge grey river slipping by and the lost things that went with it +turning over and over, and I thought of the nations and unpitying Time, +and saw and marvelled at the queenly ships come newly from the sea. + +It was then, if I mistake not, that I saw leaning against a wall, with his +face to the ships, a man with golden ear-rings. His skin had the dark +tint of the southern men: the deep black hairs of his moustache were +whitened a little with salt; he wore a dark blue jacket such as sailors +wear, and the long boots of seafarers, but the look in his eyes was +further afield than the ships, he seemed to be beholding the farthest +things. + +Even when I spoke to him he did not call home that look, but +answered me dreamily with that same fixed stare as though his +thoughts were heaving on far and lonely seas. I asked him what ship +he had come by, for there were many there. The sailing ships were +there with their sails all furled and their masts straight and still like a +wintry forest; the steamers were there, and great liners, puffing up idle +smoke into the twilight. He answered he had come by none of them. +I asked him what line he worked on, for he was clearly a sailor; I +mentioned well-known lines, but he did not know them. Then I asked +him where he worked and what he was. And he said: "I work in the +Sargasso Sea, and I am the last of the pirates, the last left alive." And +I shook him by the hand I do not know how many times. I said: "We +feared you were dead. We feared you were dead." And he answered +sadly: "No. No. I have sinned too deeply on the Spanish seas: I am +not allowed to die." + + + + +THE DREAM OF KING KARNA-VOOTRA + + +King Karna-Vootra sitting on his throne commanding all things said: +"I very clearly saw last night the queenly Vava-Nyria. Though partly +she was hidden by great clouds that swept continually by her, rolling +over and over, yet her face was unhidden and shone, being full of +moonlight. + +"I said to her: + +"'Walk with me by the great pools in many-gardened, beautiful +Istrakhan where the lilies float that give delectable dreams; or, +drawing aside the curtain of hanging orchids, pass with me thence +from the pools by a secret path through the else impassable jungle +that fills the only way between the mountains that shut in Istrakhan. +They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and at evening when +the pools are strange with light, till in their gladness sometimes there +melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely heights the mountaineer. +They have valleys among them older than the wrinkles in the moon. + +"'Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we shall +come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only speak +of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely that +even the butterflies that float about it when they see their images +flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each night +we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing the stars +to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with tidings +of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Séndara and men +shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Séndara the +rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of Zoth, +till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing; +but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to +Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their +lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in +distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma +as they sit telling careless tales to lure men to their wares. + +"'And the heralds passing thence shall come even to Ingra, to +Ingra where they dance. And there they shall tell of thee, so that +thy name long hence shall be sung in that joyous city. And there they +shall borrow camels and pass over the sands and go by desert ways +to distant Nirid to tell of thee to the lonely men in the mountain +monasteries. + +"'Come with me even now for it is Spring.'" + +"And as I said this she faintly yet perceptibly shook her head. And it +was only then I remembered my youth was gone, and she dead forty +years." + + + + +THE STORM + + +They saw a little ship that was far at sea and that went by the name +of the _Petite Espérance_. And because of its uncouth rig and its +lonely air and the look that it had of coming from strangers' lands they +said: "It is neither a ship to greet nor desire, nor yet to succor when in +the hands of the sea." + +And the sea rose up as is the wont of the sea and the little ship from +afar was in his hands, and frailer than ever seemed its feeble masts +with their sails of fantastic cut and their alien flags. And the sea made +a great and very triumphing voice, as the sea doth. And then there +arose a wave that was very strong, even the ninth-born son of the +hurricane and the tide, and hid the little ship and hid the whole of the +far parts of the sea. Thereat said those who stood on the good dry +land: + +"'Twas but a little, worthless alien ship and it is sunk at sea, and it is +good and right that the storm have spoil." And they turned and watched +the course of the merchant-men, laden with silver and appeasing spice; +year after year they cheered them into port and praised their goods and +their familiar sails. And many years went by. + +And at last with decks and bulwarks covered with cloth of gold; with +age-old parrots that had known the troubadours, singing illustrious +songs and preening their feathers of gold; with a hold full of emeralds +and rubies; all silken with Indian loot; furling as it came in its way-worn +alien sails, a galleon glided into port, shutting the sunlight from the +merchantmen: and lo! it loomed the equal of the cliffs. + +"Who are you?" they asked, "far-travelled wonderful ship?" + +And they said: "The _Petite Espérance_." + +"O," said the people on shore. "We thought you were sunk at sea." + +"Sunk at sea?" sang the sailors. "We could not be sunk at sea--we +had the gods on board." + + + + +A MISTAKEN IDENTITY + + +Fame as she walked at evening in a city saw the painted face of +Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas-lamp, and many kneeled unto her +in the dirt of the road. + +"Who are you?" Fame said to her. + +"I am Fame," said Notoriety. + +Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone. + +And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose and +followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her native Pit. + + + + +THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE + + +For a long time there was doubt with acrimony among the beasts as +to whether the Hare or the Tortoise could run the swifter. Some said +the Hare was the swifter of the two because he had such long ears, +and others said the Tortoise was the swifter because anyone whose +shell was so hard as that should be able to run hard too. And lo, the +forces of estrangement and disorder perpetually postponed a decisive +contest. + +But when there was nearly war among the beasts, at last an +arrangement was come to and it was decided that the Hare and the +Tortoise should run a race of five hundred yards so that all should +see who was right. + +"Ridiculous nonsense!" said the Hare, and it was all his backers could +do to get him to run. + +"The contest is most welcome to me," said the Tortoise, "I shall not +shirk it." + +O, how his backers cheered. + +Feeling ran high on the day of the race; the goose rushed at the fox +and nearly pecked him. Both sides spoke loudly of the approaching +victory up to the very moment of the race. + +"I am absolutely confident of success," said the Tortoise. But +the Hare said nothing, he looked bored and cross. Some of his +supporters deserted him then and went to the other side, who were +loudly cheering the Tortoise's inspiriting words. But many remained +with the Hare. "We shall not be disappointed in him," they said. "A +beast with such long ears is bound to win." + +"Run hard," said the supporters of the Tortoise. + +And "run hard" became a kind of catch-phrase which everybody +repeated to one another. "Hard shell and hard living. That's what +the country wants. Run hard," they said. And these words were +never uttered but multitudes cheered from their hearts. + +Then they were off, and suddenly there was a hush. + +The Hare dashed off for about a hundred yards, then he looked +round to see where his rival was. + +"It is rather absurd," he said, "to race with a Tortoise." And he sat +down and scratched himself. "Run hard! Run hard!" shouted some. + +"Let him rest," shouted others. And "let him rest" became a +catch-phrase too. + +And after a while his rival drew near to him. + +"There comes that damned Tortoise," said the Hare, and he got up +and ran as hard as could be so that he should not let the Tortoise +beat him. + +"Those ears will win," said his friends. "Those ears will win; and +establish upon an incontestable footing the truth of what we have +said." And some of them turned to the backers of the Tortoise and +said: "What about your beast now?" + +"Run hard," they replied. "Run hard." + +The Hare ran on for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as far +as the winning-post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool he looked +running races with a Tortoise who was nowhere in sight, and he sat +down again and scratched. + +"Run hard. Run hard," said the crowd, and "Let him rest." + +"Whatever is the use of it?" said the Hare, and this time he stopped +for good. Some say he slept. + +There was desperate excitement for an hour or two, and then the +Tortoise won. + +"Run hard. Run hard," shouted his backers. "Hard shell and hard +living: that's what has done it." And then they asked the Tortoise what +his achievement signified, and he went and asked the Turtle. And the +Turtle said, "It is a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness." And +then the Tortoise repeated it to his friends. And all the beasts said +nothing else for years. And even to this day, "a glorious victory for +the forces of swiftness" is a catch-phrase in the house of the snail. + +And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known is +that very few of those that witnessed it survived the great forest-fire +that happened shortly after. It came up over the weald by night with +a great wind. The Hare and the Tortoise and a very few of the beasts +saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge of the trees, and +they hurriedly called a meeting to decide what messenger they should +send to warn the beasts in the forest. + +They sent the Tortoise. + + + + +ALONE THE IMMORTALS + + +I heard it said that very far away from here, on the wrong side of the +deserts of Cathay and in a country dedicate to winter, are all the years +that are dead. And there a certain valley shuts them in and hides them, +as rumor has it, from the world, but not from the sight of the moon nor +from those that dream in his rays. + +And I said: I will go from here by ways of dream and I will come to +that valley and enter in and mourn there for the good years that are +dead. And I said: I will take a wreath, a wreath of mourning, and lay +it at their feet in token of my sorrow for their dooms. + +And when I sought about among the flowers, among the flowers for +my wreath of mourning, the lily looked too large and the laurel looked +too solemn and I found nothing frail enough nor slender to serve as an +offering to the years that were dead. And at last I made a slender +wreath of daisies in the manner that I had seen them made in one of +the years that is dead. + +"This," said I, "is scarce less fragile or less frail than one of those +delicate forgotten years." Then I took my wreath in my hand and +went from here. And when I had come by paths of mystery to that +romantic land, where the valley that rumour told of lies close to the +mountainous moon, I searched among the grass for those poor slight +years for whom I bought my sorrow and my wreath. And when I found +there nothing in the grass I said: "Time has shattered them and swept +them away and left not even any faint remains." + +But looking upwards in the blaze of the moon I suddenly saw colossi +sitting near, and towering up and blotting out the stars and filling the +night with blackness; and at those idols' feet I saw praying and making +obeisance kings and the days that are and all times and all cities and all +nations and all their gods. Neither the smoke of incense nor of the +sacrifice burning reached those colossal heads, they sat there not to +be measured, not to be over-thrown, not to be worn away. + +I said: "Who are those?" + +One answered: "Alone the Immortals." + +And I said sadly: "I came not to see dread gods, but I came to shed +my tears and to offer flowers at the feet of certain little years that are +dead and may not come again." + +He answered me: "These _are_ the years that are dead, alone the +immortals; all years to be are Their children--They fashioned their +smiles and their laughter; all earthly kings They have crowned, all +gods They have created; all the events to be flow down from their +feet like a river, the worlds are flying pebbles that They have already +thrown, and Time and all his centuries behind him kneel there with +bended crests in token of vassalage at Their potent feet." + +And when I heard this I turned away with my wreath, and went back +to my own land comforted. + + + + +A MORAL LITTLE TALE + + +There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance. And +for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And there +loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that loved the +dance respected him too; they said "He is a pure, good man and acts +according to his lights." + +He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several +Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but +not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very young. +He always dressed in black. + +He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and there +grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his flowing +pure-white beard. + +One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said "Well done." + +"Avaunt," said that earnest man. + +"No, no, friend," said the Devil. + +"Dare not to call me 'friend,'" he answered bravely. + +"Come, come, friend," said the Devil. "Have you not put apart the +couples that would dance? Have you not checked their laughter and +their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery of black? O friend, +friend, you do not know what a detestable thing it is to sit in hell and +hear people being happy, and singing in theatres and singing in the fields, +and whispering after dances under the moon," and he fell to cursing +fearfully. + +"It is you," said the Puritan, "that put into their hearts the evil desire +to dance; and black is God's own livery, not yours." + +And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke. + +"He only made the silly colors," he said, "and useless dawns on +hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along them as soon +as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to dance, and +the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that pernicious influence +Love." + +And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man +sat up in bed and shouted "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" + +"It's true," said the Devil. "It isn't I that send the village fools +muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the +harvest moon is high, it's as much as I can bear even to see them +dancing." + +"Then," said the man, "I have mistaken right for wrong; but as soon +as I wake I will fight you yet." + +"O, no you don't," said the Devil. "You don't wake up out of this sleep." + +And somewhere far away Hell's black steel doors were opened, and +arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut behind +them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and further into +the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan's punishment to know that +those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he had done. + + + + +THE RETURN OF SONG + + +"The swans are singing again," said to one another the gods. And +looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair and +far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly larger +than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from it looking +larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable swans, singing +and singing and singing, till it seemed as though even the gods were +wild ships swimming in music. + +"What is it?" I said to one that was humble among the gods. + +"Only a world has ended," he said to me, "and the swans are coming +back to the gods returning the gift of song." + +"A whole world dead!" I said. + +"Dead," said he that was humble among the gods. "The worlds are +not for ever; only song is immortal." + +"Look! Look!" he said. "There will be a new one soon." + +And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods. + + + + +SPRING IN TOWN + + +At a street corner sat, and played with a wind, Winter disconsolate. + +Still tingled the fingers of the passers-by and still their breath was +visible, and still they huddled their chins into their coats when turning +a corner they met with a new wind, still windows lighted sent out into +the street the thought of romantic comfort by evening fires; these things +still were, yet the throne of Winter tottered, and every breeze brought +tidings of further fortresses lost on lakes or boreal hill-slopes. And not +any longer as a king did Winter appear in those streets, as when the +city was decked with gleaming white to greet him as a conqueror and +he rode in with his glittering icicles and haughty retinue of prancing +winds, but he sat there with a little wind at the corner of the street like +some old blind beggar with his hungry dog. And as to some old blind +beggar Death approaches, and the alert ears of the sightless man +prophetically hear his far-off footfall, so there came suddenly to +Winter's ears the sound, from some neighbouring garden, of Spring +approaching as she walked on daisies. And Spring approaching looked +at huddled inglorious Winter. + +"Begone," said Spring. + +"There is nothing for you to do here," said Winter to her. Nevertheless +he drew about him his grey and battered cloak and rose and called to +his little bitter wind and up a side street that led northward strode away. + +Pieces of paper and tall clouds of dust went with him as far as the city's +outer gate. He turned then and called to Spring: "You can do nothing +in this city," he said; then he marched homeward over plains and sea +and heard his old winds howling as he marched. The ice broke up +behind him and foundered like navies. To left and to right of him flew +the flocks of the sea-birds, and far before him the geese's triumphant +cry went like a clarion. Greater and greater grew his stature as he went +northwards and ever more kingly his mien. Now he took baronies at +a stride and now counties and came again to the snow-white frozen +lands where the wolves came out to meet him and, draping himself +anew with old grey clouds, strode through the gates of his invincible +home, two old ice barriers swinging on pillars of ice that had never +known the sun. + +So the town was left to Spring. And she peered about to see +what she could do with it. Presently she saw a dejected dog coming +prowling down the road, so she sang to him and he gambolled. I saw +him next day strutting by with something of an air. Where there were +trees she went to them and whispered, and they sang the arboreal +song that only trees can hear, and the green buds came peeping out as +stars while yet it is twilight, secretly one by one. She went to gardens +and awaked from dreaming the warm maternal earth. In little patches +bare and desolate she called up like a flame the golden crocus, or its +purple brother like an emperor's ghost. She gladdened the graceless +backs of untidy houses, here with a weed, there with a little grass. +She said to the air, "Be joyous." + +Children began to know that daisies blew in unfrequented corners. +Buttonholes began to appear in the coats of the young men. The work +of Spring was accomplished. + + + + +HOW THE ENEMY CAME TO THLUNRANA + + +It had been prophesied of old and foreseen from the ancient days that +its enemy would come upon Thlunrana. And the date of its doom was +known and the gate by which it would enter, yet none had prophesied +of the enemy who he was save that he was of the gods though he dwelt +with men. Meanwhile Thlunrana, that secret lamaserai, that chief +cathedral of wizardry, was the terror of the valley in which it stood +and of all lands round about it. So narrow and high were the windows +and so strange when lighted at night that they seemed to regard men +with the demoniac leer of something that had a secret in the dark. Who +were the magicians and the deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard +of that furtive place nobody knew, for they went veiled and hooded and +cloaked completely in black. + +Though her doom was close upon her and the enemy of prophecy +should come that very night through the open, southward door that +was named the Gate of the Doom, yet that rocky edifice Thlunrana +remained mysterious still, venerable, terrible, dark, and dreadfully +crowned with her doom. It was not often that anyone dared wander +near to Thlunrana by night when the moan of the magicians invoking +we know not Whom rose faintly from inner chambers, scaring the +drifting bats: but on the last night of all the man from the black-thatched +cottage by the five pine-trees came, because he would see Thlunrana +once again before the enemy that was divine, but that dwelt with men, +should come against it and it should be no more. Up the dark valley he +went like a bold man, but his fears were thick upon him; his bravery +bore their weight but stooped a little beneath them. He went in at the +southward gate that is named the Gate of the Doom. He came into a +dark hall, and up a marble stairway passed to see the last of Thlunrana. +At the top a curtain of black velvet hung and he passed into a chamber +heavily hung with curtains, with a gloom in it that was blacker than +anything they could account for. In a sombre chamber beyond, seen +through a vacant archway, magicians with lighted tapers plied their +wizardry and whispered incantations. All the rats in the place were +passing away, going whimpering down the stairway. The man from +the black-thatched cottage passed through that second chamber: the +magicians did not look at him and did not cease to whisper. He passed +from them through heavy curtains still of black velvet and came into a +chamber of black marble where nothing stirred. Only one taper burned +in the third chamber; there were no windows. On the smooth floor and +under the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood with its curtains drawn close +together: this was the holy of holies of that ominous place, its inner +mystery. One on each side of it dark figures crouched, either of men +or women or cloaked stone, or of beasts trained to be silent. When +the awful stillness of the mystery was more than he could bear the +man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees went up +to the silk pavilion, and with a bold and nervous clutch of the hand +drew one of the curtains aside, and saw the inner mystery, and laughed. +And the prophecy was fulfilled, and Thlunrana was never more a terror +to the valley, but the magicians passed away from their terrific halls and +fled through the open fields wailing and beating their breasts, for +laughter was the enemy that was doomed to come against Thlunrana +through her southward gate (that was named the Gate of the Doom), +and it is of the gods but dwells with man. + + + + +A LOSING GAME + + +Once in a tavern Man met face to skull with Death. Man entered +gaily but Death gave no greeting, he sat with his jowl morosely over +an ominous wine. + +"Come, come," said Man, "we have been antagonists long, and if I +were losing yet I should not be surly." + +But Death remained unfriendly watching his bowl of wine and gave +no word in answer. + +Then Man solicitously moved nearer to him and, speaking cheerily +still, "Come, come," he said again, "you must not resent defeat." + +And still Death was gloomy and cross and sipped at his infamous +wine and would not look up at Man and would not be companionable. + +But Man hated gloom either in beast or god, and it made him +unhappy to see his adversary's discomfort, all the more because he +was the cause, and still he tried to cheer him. + +"Have you not slain the Dinatherium?" he said. "Have you not put out +the Moon? Why! you will beat me yet." + +And with a dry and barking sound Death wept and nothing said; and +presently Man arose and went wondering away; for he knew not if +Death wept out of pity for his opponent, or because he knew that he +should not have such sport again when the old game was over and +Man was gone, or whether because perhaps, for some hidden reason, +he could never repeat on Earth his triumph over the Moon. + + + + +TAKING UP PICADILLY + + +Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, +if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off--or +so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their hands and wore corduroy +trousers and that little leather band below the knee that goes by the +astonishing name of "York-to-London." + +They seemed to be working with peculiar vehemence, so that I +stopped and asked one what they were doing. + +"We are taking up Picadilly," he said to me. + +"But at this time of year?" I said. "Is it usual in June?" + +"We are not what we seem," said he. + +"Oh, I see," I said, "you are doing it for a joke." + +"Well, not exactly that," he answered me. + +"For a bet?" I said. + +"Not precisely," said he. + +And then I looked at the bit that they had already picked, and +though it was broad daylight over my head it was darkness down +there, all full of the southern stars. + +"It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it," said he that wore +corduroy trousers. "We are not what we appear." + +They were taking up Picadilly altogether. + + + + +AFTER THE FIRE + + +When that happened which had been so long in happening and the +world hit a black, uncharted star, certain tremendous creatures out +of some other world came peering among the cinders to see if there +were anything there that it were worth while to remember. They +spoke of the great things that the world was known to have had; +they mentioned the mammoth. And presently they saw man's temples, +silent and windowless, staring like empty skulls. + +"Some great thing has been here," one said, "in these huge places." +"It was the mammoth," said one. "Something greater than he," said +another. + +And then they found that the greatest thing in the world had been +the dreams of man. + + + + +THE CITY + + +In time as well as space my fancy roams far from here. It led me +once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and red and rose +up out of a desert: a little way off in the desert there was a city. It +was evening, and I sat and watched the city. + +Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly stealing out +of that city's gate to the number of about twenty. I heard the hum +of men's voices speaking at evening. + +"It is well they are gone," they said. "It is well they are gone. We +can do business now. It is well they are gone." And the men that +had left the city sped away over the sand and so passed into the +twilight. + +"Who are these men?" I said to my glittering leader. + +"The poets," my fancy answered. "The poets and artists." + +"Why do they steal away?" I said to him. "And why are the people +glad that they have gone?" + +He said: "It must be some doom that is going to fall on the city, +something has warned them and they have stolen away. Nothing +may warn the people." + +I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up from +the city. And then I also departed, for there was an ominous look +on the face of the sky. + +And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was +nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city. + + + + +THE FOOD OF DEATH + + +Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern bakers +make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chicago, with a +pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried him into the +dining-room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere Death breathed +more freely), and there they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They +brought him a bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death +drank it up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent +medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for invalids, +and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper. They gave him some +milk and borax, such as children drink in England. + +Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities. + + + + +THE LONELY IDOL + + +I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced idol +to whom no one prayed. + +And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged at +receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the years had broken +(and no one heeded the scourge and no one prayed and no one +came with squealing sacrifice; and he had been a god), then I took +pity on the little forgotten thing and prayed to it as perhaps they prayed +long since, before the coming of the strange dark ships, and humbled +myself and said: + +"O idol, idol of the hard pale stone, invincible to the years, O +scourge-holder, give ear for behold I pray. + +"O little pale-green image whose wanderings are from far, know +thou that here in Europe and in other lands near by, too soon there +pass from us the sweets and song and the lion strength of youth: +too soon do their cheeks fade, their hair grow grey and our beloved +die; too brittle is beauty, too far off is fame and the years are gathered +too soon; there are leaves, leaves falling, everywhere falling; there is +autumn among men, autumn and reaping; failure there is, struggle, +dying and weeping, and all that is beautiful hath not remained but is +even as the glory of morning upon the water. + +"Even our memories are gathered too with the sound of the ancient +voices, the pleasant ancient voices that come to our ears no more; +the very gardens of our childhood fade, and there dims with the speed +of the years even the mind's own eye. + +"O be not any more the friend of Time, for the silent hurry of his +malevolent feet have trodden down what's fairest; I almost hear the +whimper of the years running behind him hound-like, and it takes few +to tear us. + +"All that is beautiful he crushes down as a big man tramples daises, +all that is fairest. How very fair are the little children of men. It is +autumn with all the world, and the stars weep to see it. + +"Therefore no longer be the friend of Time, who will not let us be, +and be not good to him but pity us, and let lovely things live on for +the sake of our tears." + +Thus prayed I out of compassion one windy day to the snout-faced +idol to whom no one kneeled. + + + + +THE SPHINX IN THEBES (MASSACHUSETTS) + + +There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money +could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and +she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx. + +So she besought them to bring her a live sphinx; and therefore they +went to the menageries, and then to the forests and the desert places, +and yet could find no sphinx. + +And she would have been content with a little lion but that one was +already owned by a woman she knew; so they had to search the +world again for a sphinx. + +And still there was none. + +But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found +a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods +she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. +And they cast chains on her, who was still with an ominous stillness, +and took her westwards with them and brought her home. + +And so the sphinx came to the steel-built city. + +And the woman was very glad that she owned a sphinx: but the +sphinx stared long into her eyes one day, and softly asked a riddle +of the woman. + +And the woman could not answer, and she died. + +And the sphinx is silent again and none knows what she will do. + + + + +THE REWARD + + +One's spirit goes further in dreams than it does by day. Wandering +once by night from a factory city I came to the edge of Hell. + +The place was foul with cinders and cast-off things, and jagged, +half-buried things with shapeless edges, and there was a huge angel +with a hammer building in plaster and steel. I wondered what he did +in that dreadful place. I hesitated, then asked him what he was +building. "We are adding to Hell," he said, "to keep pace with the +times." "Don't be too hard on them," I said, for I had just come out +of a compromising age and a weakening country. The angel did not +answer. "It won't be as bad as the old hell, will it?" I said. "Worse," +said the angel. + +"How can you reconcile it with your conscience as a Minister of +Grace," I said, "to inflict such a punishment?" (They talked like this +in the city whence I had come and I could not avoid the habit of it.) + +"They have invented a new cheap yeast," said the angel. + +I looked at the legend on the walls of the hell that the angel was +building, the words were written in flame, every fifteen seconds they +changed their color, "Yeasto, the great new yeast, it builds up body +and brain, and something more." + +"They shall look at it for ever," the angel said. + +"But they drove a perfectly legitimate trade," I said, "the law allowed +it." + +The angel went on hammering into place the huge steel uprights. + +"You are very revengeful," I said. "Do you never rest from doing +this terrible work?" + +"I rested one Christmas Day," the angel said, "and looked and +saw little children dying of cancer. I shall go on now until the fires +are lit." + +"It is very hard to prove," I said, "that the yeast is as bad as you +think." + +"After all," I said, "they must live." + +And the angel made no answer but went on building his hell. + + + + +THE TROUBLE IN LEAFY GREEN STREET + + +She went to the idol-shop in Moleshill Street, where the old man +mumbles, and said: "I want a god to worship when it is wet." + +The old man reminded her of the heavy penalties that rightly attach +to idolatry and, when he had enumerated all, she answered him as +was meet: "Give me a god to worship when it is wet." + +And he went to the back places of his shop and sought out and +brought her a god. The same was carved of grey stone and wore a +propitious look and was named, as the old man mumbled, The God +of Rainy Cheerfulness. + +Now it may be that long confinement to the house affects adversely +the liver, or these things may be of the soul, but certain it is that on +a rainy day her spirits so far descended that those cheerful creatures +came within sight of the Pit, and, having tried cigarettes to no good +end, she bethought her of Moleshill Street and the mumbling man. + +He brought the grey idol forth and mumbled of guarantees, although +he put nothing on paper, and she paid him there and then his +preposterous price and took the idol away. + +And on the next wet day that there ever was she prayed to the +grey-stone idol that she had bought, the God of Rainy Cheerfulness +(who knows with what ceremony or what lack of it?), and so +brought down on her in Leafy Green Street, in the preposterous +house at the corner, that doom of which all men speak. + + + + +THE MIST + + +The mist said unto the mist: "Let us go up into the Downs." And +the mist came up weeping. + +And the mist went into the high places and the hollows. + +And clumps of trees in the distance stood ghostly in the haze. + +But I went to a prophet, one who loved the Downs, and I said to +him: "Why does the mist come up weeping into the Downs when it +goes into the high places and the hollows?" + +And he answered: "The mist is the company of a multitude of souls +who never saw the Downs, and now are dead. Therefore they come +up weeping into the Downs, who are dead and never saw them." + + + + +FURROW-MAKER + + +He was all in black, but his friend was dressed in brown, members +of two old families. + +"Is there any change in the way you build your houses?" said he in +black. + +"No change," said the other. "And you?" + +"We change not," he said. + +A man went by in the distance riding a bicycle. + +"He is always changing," said the one in black, "of late almost every +century. He is uneasy. Always changing." + +"He changes the way he builds his house, does he not?" said the +brown one. + +"So my family say," said the other. "They say he has changed of late." + +"They say he takes much to cities?" the brown one said. + +"My cousin who lives in belfries tells me so," said the black one. +"He says he is much in cities." + +"And there he grows lean?" said the brown one. + +"Yes, he grows lean." + +"Is it true what they say?" said the brown one. + +"Caw," said the black one. + +"Is it true that he cannot live many centuries?" + +"No, no," said the black one. "Furrow-maker will not die. We must +not lose furrow-maker. He has been foolish of late, he has played +with smoke and is sick. His engines have wearied him and his cities +are evil. Yes, he is very sick. But in a few centuries he will forget +his folly and we shall not lose furrow-maker. Time out of mind he +has delved and my family have got their food from the raw earth +behind him. He will not die." + +"But they say, do they not?" said the brown one, "his cities are +noisome, and that he grows sick in them and can run no longer, and +that it is with him as it is with us when we grow too many, and the +grass has the bitter taste in the rainy season, and our young grow +bloated and die." + +"Who says it?" replied the black one. + +"Pigeon," the brown one answered. "He came back all dirty. +And Hare went down to the edge of the cities once. He says it +too. Man was too sick to chase him. He thinks that Man will die, +and his wicked friend Dog with him. Dog, he will die. That nasty +fellow Dog. He will die too, the dirty fellow!" + +"Pigeon and Hare!" said the black one. "We shall not lose +furrow-maker." + +"Who told you he will not die?" his brown friend said. + +"Who told me!" the black one said. "My family and his have +understood each other times out of mind. We know what follies +will kill each other and what each may survive, and I say that +furrow-maker will not die." + +"He will die," said the brown one. + +"Caw," said the other. + +And Man said in his heart: "Just one invention more. There is +something I want to do with petrol yet, and then I will give it all +up and go back to the woods." + + + + +LOBSTER SALAD + + +I was climbing round the perilous outside of the Palace of +Colquonhombros. So far below me that in the tranquil twilight +and clear air of those lands I could only barely see them lay the +craggy tops of the mountains. + +It was along no battlements or terrace edge I was climbing, but +on the sheer face of the wall itself, getting what foothold I could +where the boulders joined. + +Had my feet been bare I was done, but though I was in my +night-shirt I had on stout leather boots, and their edges somehow +held in those narrow cracks. My fingers and wrists were aching. + +Had it been possible to stop for a moment I might have been lured +to give a second look at the fearful peaks of the mountains down +there in the twilight, and this must have been fatal. + +That the thing was all a dream is beside the point. We have fallen +in dreams before, but it is well known that if in one of those falls +you ever hit the ground--you die: I had looked at those menacing +mountaintops and knew well that such a fall as the one I feared +must have such a termination. Then I went on. + +It is strange what different sensations there can be in different +boulders--every one gleaming with the same white light and every +one chosen to match the rest by minions of ancient kings--when +your life depends on the edges of every one you come to. Those +edges seemed strangely different. It was of no avail to overcome +the terror of one, for the next would give you a hold in quite a +different way or hand you over to death in a different manner. +Some were too sharp to hold and some too flush with the wall, +those whose hold was the best crumbled the soonest; each rock +had its different terror: and then there were those things that followed +behind me. + +And at last I came to a breach made long ago by earthquake, +lightning or war: I should have had to go down a thousand feet +to get round it and they would come up with me while I was doing +that, for certain sable apes that I have not mentioned as yet, things +that had tigerish teeth and were born and bred on that wall, had +pursued me all the evening. In any case I could have gone no +farther, nor did I know what the king would do along whose wall +I was climbing. It was time to drop and be done with it or stop and +await those apes. + +And then it was that I remembered a pin, thrown carelessly down +out of an evening-tie in another world to the one where grew that +glittering wall, and lying now if no evil chance had removed it on a +chest of drawers by my bed. The apes were very close, and hurrying, +for they knew my fingers were slipping, and the cruel peaks of those +infernal mountains seemed surer of me than the apes. I reached out +with a desperate effort of will towards where the pin lay on the chest +of drawers. I groped about. I found it! I ran it into my arm. Saved! + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE EXILES + + +The old man with a hammer and the one-eyed man with a spear were +seated by the roadside talking as I came up the hill. + +"It isn't as though they hadn't asked us," the one with the hammer said. + +"There ain't no more than twenty as knows about it," said the other. + +"Twenty's twenty," said the first. + +"After all these years," said the one-eyed man with the spear. "After +all these years. We might go back just once." + +"O' course we might," said the other. + +Their clothes were old even for laborers, the one with the hammer +had a leather apron full of holes and blackened, and their hands +looked like leather. But whatever they were they were English, and +this was pleasant to see after all the motors that had passed me that +day with their burden of mixed and doubtful nationalities. + +When they saw me the one with the hammer touched his greasy cap. + +"Might we make so bold, sir," he said, "as the ask the way to +Stonehenge?" + +"We never ought to go," mumbled the other plaintively. "There's +not more than twenty as knows, but...." + +I was bicycling there myself to see the place so I pointed out the +way and rode on at once, for there was something so utterly servile +about them both that I did not care for their company. They seemed +by their wretched mien to have been persecuted or utterly neglected +for many years, I thought that very likely they had done long terms +of penal servitude. + +When I came to Stonehenge I saw a group of about a score of men +standing among the stones. They asked me with some solemnity if +I was expecting anyone, and when I said No they spoke to me no +more. It was three miles back where I left those strange old men, +but I had not been in the stone circle long when they appeared, +coming with great strides along the road. When they saw them all +the people took off their hats and acted very strangely, and I saw +that they had a goat which they led up then to the old altar stone. +And the two old men came up with their hammer and spear and +began apologizing plaintively for the liberty they had taken in coming +back to that place, and all the people knelt on the grass before them. +And then still kneeling they killed the goat by the altar, and when the +two old men saw this they came up with many excuses and eagerly +sniffed the blood. And at first this made them happy. But soon the +one with the spear began to whimper. "It used to be men," he +lamented. "It used to be men." + +And the twenty men began looking uneasily at each other, and the +plaint of the one-eyed man went on in that tearful voice, and all of +a sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old men +were or what any of them were doing, but there are moments when +it is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And just as I +got up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the one with the +hammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in coming back to +Stonehenge. + +"But after all these years," I heard him crying, "After all these +years...." + +And the one with the spear said: "Yes, after three thousand years...." + + + + +NATURE AND TIME + + +Through the streets of Coventry one winter's night strode a +triumphant spirit. Behind him stooping, unkempt, utterly ragged, +wearing the clothes and look that outcasts have, whining, weeping, +reproaching, an ill-used spirit tried to keep pace with him. Continually +she plucked him by the sleeve and cried out to him as she panted +after and he strode resolute on. + +It was a bitter night, yet it did not seem to be the cold that she feared, +ill-clad though she was, but the trams and the ugly shops and the glare +of the factories, from which she continually winced as she hobbled on, +and the pavement hurt her feet. + +He that strode on in front seemed to care for nothing, it might be hot +or cold, silent or noisy, pavement or open fields, he merely had the +air of striding on. + +And she caught up and clutched him by the elbow. I heard her +speak in her unhappy voice, you scarcely heard it for the noise of +the traffic. + +"You have forgotten me," she complained to him. "You have forsaken +me here." + +She pointed to Coventry with a wide wave of her arm and seemed +to indicate other cities beyond. And he gruffly told her to keep +pace with him and that he did not forsake her. And she went on +with her pitiful lamentation. + +"My anemones are dead for miles," she said, "all my woods are +fallen and still the cities grow. My child Man is unhappy and my other +children are dying, and still the cities grow and you have forgotten me!" + +And then he turned angrily on her, almost stopping in that stride of +his that began when the stars were made. + +"When have I ever forgotten you?" he said, "or when forsaken you +ever? Did I not throw down Babylon for you? And is not Nineveh +gone? Where is Persepolis that troubled you? Where Tarshish and +Tyre? And you have said I forget you." + +And at this she seemed to take a little comfort. I heard her speak +once more, looking wistfully at her companion. "When will the fields +come back and the grass for my children?" + +"Soon, soon," he said: then they were silent. And he strode away, +she limping along behind him, and all the clocks in the towers chimed +as he passed. + + + + +THE SONG OF THE BLACKBIRD + + +As the poet passed the thorn-tree the blackbird sang. + +"How ever do you do it?" the poet said, for he knew bird language. + +"It was like this," said the blackbird. "It really was the most +extraordinary thing. I made that song last Spring, it came to me +all of a sudden. There was the most beautiful she-blackbird that +the world has ever seen. Her eyes were blacker than lakes are at +night, her feathers were blacker than the night itself, and nothing was +as yellow as her beak; she could fly much faster than the lightning. +She was not an ordinary she-blackbird, there has never been any +other like her at all. I did not dare go near her because she was so +wonderful. One day last Spring when it got warm again--it had been +cold, we ate berries, things were quite different then, but Spring came +and it got warm--one day I was thinking how wonderful she was and +it seemed so extraordinary to think that I should ever have seen her, +the only really wonderful she-blackbird in the world, that I opened +my beak to give a shout, and then this song came, and there had +never been anything like it before, and luckily I remembered it, the +very song that I sang just now. But what is so extraordinary, the most +amazing occurence of that marvellous day, was that no sooner had I +sung the song than that very bird, the most wonderful she-blackbird +in the world, flew right up to me and sat quite close to me on the same +tree. I never remember such wonderful times as those. + +"Yes, the song came in a moment, and as I was saying...." + +And an old wanderer walking with a stick came by and the blackbird +flew away, and the poet told the old man the blackbird's wonderful +story. + +"That song new?" said the wanderer. "Not a bit of it. God made it +years ago. All the blackbirds used to sing it when I was young. It +was new then." + + + + +THE MESSENGERS + + +One wandering nigh Parnassus chasing hares heard the high Muses. + +"Take us a message to the Golden Town." + +Thus sang the Muses. + +But the man said: "They do not call to me. Not to such as me speak +the Muses." + +And the Muses called him by name. + +"Take us a message," they said, "to the Golden Town." + +And the man was downcast for he would have chased hares. + +And the Muses called again. + +And when whether in valleys or on high crags of the hills he still +heard the Muses he went at last to them and heard their message, +though he would fain have left it to other men and chased the fleet +hares still in happy valleys. + +And they gave him a wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds as +only the Muses can carve. "By this," they said, "they shall know that +you come from the Muses." + +And the man went from that place and dressed in scarlet silks +as befitted one that came from the high Muses. And through the +gateway of the Golden Town he ran and cried his message, and his +cloak floated behind him. All silent sat the wise men and the aged, +they of the Golden Town; cross-legged they sat before their houses +reading from parchments a message of the Muses that they sent long +before. + +And the young man cried his message from the Muses. + +And they rose up and said: "Thou art not from the Muses. Otherwise +spake they." And they stoned him and he died. + +And afterwards they carved his message upon gold; and read it in +their temples on holy days. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? They sent +another messenger to the Golden Town. And they gave him a +wand of ivory to carry in his hand with all the beautiful stories of +the world wondrously carved thereon. And only the Muses could +have carved it. "By this," they said, "they shall know that you come +from the Muses." + +And he came through the gateway of the Golden Town with the +message he had for its people. And they rose up at once in the +Golden street, they rose from reading the message that they had +carved upon gold. "The last who came," they said, "came with a +wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds, as only the Muses can +carve. You are not from the Muses." And even as they had stoned +the last so also they stoned him. And afterwards they carved his +message on gold and laid it up in their temples. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? Even yet once +again they sent a messenger under the gateway into the Golden +Town. And for all that he wore a garland of gold that the high Muses +gave him, a garland of kingcups soft and yellow on his head, yet +fashioned of pure gold and by whom but the Muses, yet did they +stone him in the Golden Town. But they had the message, and what +care the Muses? + +And yet they will not rest, for some while since I heard them call to me. + +"Go take our message," they said, "unto the Golden Town." + +But I would not go. And they spake a second time. "Go take our +message," they said. + +And still I would not go, and they cried out a third time: "Go take +our message." + +And though they cried a third time I would not go. But morning and +night they cried and through long evenings. + +When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? And when they +would not cease to call to me I went to them and I said: "The +Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their +pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins +out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, +there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are +gone." + +"Go take our message," they cried. + +And I said to the high Muses: "You do not understand. You have +no message for the Golden Town, the holy city no longer." + +"Go take our message," they cried. + +"What is your message?" I said to the high Muses. + +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 death of Pan. + +But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow +softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fifty-One Tales +by Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett] + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIFTY-ONE TALES *** + +This file should be named 851ta10.txt or 851ta10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 851ta11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 851ta10a.txt + +Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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