Mardi And a Voyage Thither II

MARDI: AND A VOYAGE THITHER

Long time we lay thus; then slowly crossed and recrossed our track, almost hopeless; but yet loth to leave him who, with a song in his mouth, died and was buried in a breath.

“Let us away,” said Media – “why seek more? He is gone.” “Ay, gone,” said Babbalanja, “and whither? But a moment

since, he was among us: now, the fixed stars are not more remote than he. So far off, can he live? Oh, Oro! this death thou ordainest, unmans the manliest. Say not nay, my lord. Let us not speak behind Death’s back. Hard and horrible is it to die: blindfold to leap from life’s verge! But thus, in clouds of dust, and with a trampling as of hoofs, the generations disappear; death driving them all into his treacherous fold, as wild Indians the bison herds. Nay, nay, Death is Life’s last despair. Hard and horrible is it to die. Oro himself, in Alma, died not without a groan. Yet why, why live? Life is wearisome to all: the same dull round. Day and night, summer and winter, round about us revolving for aye. One moment lived, is a life. No new stars appear in the sky; no new lights in the soul. Yet, of changes there are many. For though, with rapt sight, in childhood, we behold many strange things beneath the moon, and all MardI looks a tented fair – how soon every thing fades. All of us, in our very bodies, outlive our own selves. I think of green youth as of a merry playmate departed; and to shake hands, and be pleasant with my old age, seems in prospect even harder, than to draw a cold stranger to my bosom. But old age is not for me. I am not of the stuff that grows old. This MardI is not our home. Up and down we wander, like exiles transported to a planet afar: – ’tis not the world we were born in; not the world once so lightsome and gay; not the world where we once

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merrily danced, dined, and supped; and wooed, and wedded our long-buried wives. Then let us depart. But whither? We push ourselves forward then, start back in affright. Essay it again, and flee. Hard to live; hard to die; intolerable suspense! But the grim despot at last interposes; and with a viper in our winding-sheets, we are dropped in the sea.”

“To me,” said Mohi, his gray locks damp with night-dews, “death’s dark defile at times seems at hand, with no voice to cheer. That all have died, makes it not easier for me to depart. And that many have been quenched in infancy seems a mercy to the slow perishing of my old age, limb by limb and sense by sense. I have long been the tomb of my youth. And more has died out of me, already, than remains for the last death to finish. Babbalanja says truth. In childhood, death stirred me not; in middle age, it pursued me like a prowling bandit on the road; now, grown an old man, it boldly leads the way; and ushers me on; and turns round upon me its skeleton gaze: poisoning the last solaces of life. Maramma but adds to my gloom.”

“Death! death!” cried Yoomy, “must I be not, and millions be? Must I go, and the flowers still bloom? Oh, I have marked what it is to be dead; – how shouting boys, of holidays, hide- and-seek among the tombs, which must hide all seekers at last.”

“Clouds on clouds!” cried Media, “but away with them all! Why not leap your graves, while ye may? Time to die, when death comes, without dying by inches. ’Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it. I, a demi-god, fear death not.”

“But when the jackals howl round you?” said Babbalanja.

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“Drive them off! Die the demi-god’s death! On his last couch of crossed spears, my brave old sire cried, ‘Wine, wine; strike up, conch and cymbal; let the king die to martial melodies!’”

“More valiant dying, than dead,” said Babbalanja. “Our end of the winding procession resounds with music and flaunts with banners with brave devices: ‘Cheer up!’ ‘Fear not!’ ‘Millions have died before!’ – but in the endless van, not a pennon streams; all there, is silent and solemn. The last wisdom is dumb.”

Silence ensued; during which, each dip of the paddles in the now calm water, fell full and long upon the ear.

Anon, lifting his head, Babbalanja thus: – “Yillah still eludes us. And in all this tour of Mardi, how little have we found to fill the heart with peace: how much to slaughter all our yearnings.”

“Croak no more, raven!” cried Media. “MardI is full of spring-time sights, and jubilee sounds. I never was sad in my life.”

“But for thy one laugh, my lord, how many groans! Were all happy, or all miserable – more tolerable then, than as it is. But happiness and misery are so broadly marked, that this MardI may be the retributive future of some forgotten past. – Yet vain our surmises. Still vainer to say, that all MardI is but a means to an end; that this life is a state of probation: that evil is but permitted for a term; that for specified ages a rebel angel is viceroy. – Nay, nay. Oro delegates his scepter to none; in his everlasting reign there are no interregnums; and Time is Eternity; and we live in Eternity now. Yet, some tell of a hereafter,

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CHAPTER LXXXII

THEY SAIL FROM NIGHT

TO DAY

Ere long the three canoes lurched heavily in a violent swell. Like palls, the clouds swept to and fro, hooding the gibbering winds. At every head-beat wave, our arching prows reared up, and shuddered; the night ran out in rain.

Whither to turn we knew not; nor what haven to gain; so dense the darkness.

But at last, the storm was over. Our shattered prows seemed gilded. Day dawned; and from his golden vases poured red wine upon the waters.

That flushed tide rippled toward us; floating from the east, a lone canoe; in which, there sat a mild, old man; a palm-bough in his hand: a bird’s beak, holding amaranth and myrtles, his slender prow.

“Alma’s blessing upon ye, voyagers! ye look storm-worn.” “The storm we have survived, old man; and many more, we

yet must ride,” said Babbalanja.

“The sun is risen; and all is well again. We but need to repair our prows,” said Media.

“Then, turn aside to Serenia, a pleasant isle, where all are welcome; where many storm-worn rovers land at last to dwell.”

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“Serenia?” said Babbalanja; “methinks Serenia is that land of enthusiasts, of which we hear, my lord; where Mardians pretend to the unnatural conjunction of reason with things revealed; where Alma, they say, is restored to his divine original; where, deriving their principles from the same sources whence flow the persecutions of Maramma – men strive to live together in gentle bonds of peace and charity; – folly! folly!”

“Ay,” said Media; “much is said of those people of Serenia; but their social fabric must soon fall to pieces; it is based upon the idlest of theories. Thanks for thy courtesy, old man, but we care not to visit thy isle. Our voyage has an object, which, something tells me, will not be gained by touching at thy shores. Elsewhere we may refit. Farewell! ’Tis breezing; set the sails! Farewell, old man.”

“Nay, nay! think again; the distance is but small; the wind fair – but ’tis ever so, thither; – come: we, people of Serenia, are most anxious to be seen of Mardi; so that if our manner of life seem good, all MardI may live as we. In blessed Alma’s name, I pray ye, come!”

“Shall we then, my lord?”

“Lead on, old man! We will e’en see this wondrous isle.” So, guided by the venerable stranger, by noon we descried

an island blooming with bright savannas, and pensive with peaceful groves.

Wafted from this shore, came balm of flowers, and melody of birds: a thousand summer sounds and odors. The dimpled tide sang round our splintered prows; the sun was high in heaven, and the waters were deep below.

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“The land of Love!” the old man murmured, as we neared the beach, where innumerable shells were gently rolling in the playful surf, and murmuring from their tuneful valves. Behind, another, and a verdant surf played against lofty banks of leaves; where the breeze, likewise, found its shore.

And now, emerging from beneath the trees, there came a goodly multitude in flowing robes; palm-branches in their hands; and as they came, they sang: –

Hail! voyagers, hail!

Whence e’er ye come, where’er ye rove,

No calmer strand,

No sweeter land,

Will e’er ye view, than the Land of Love!

Hail! voyagers, hail!

To these, our shores, soft gales invite:

The palm plumes wave,

The billows lave,

And hither point fix’d stars of light!

Hail! voyagers, hail!

Think not our groves wide brood with gloom;

In this, our isle,

Bright flowers smile:

Full urns, rose-heaped, these valleys bloom.

Hail! voyagers, hail!

Be not deceived; renounce vain things;

Ye may not find

A tranquil mind,

Though hence ye sail with swiftest wings.

Hail! voyagers, hail!

Time flies full fast; life soon is o’er;

And ye may mourn,

That hither borne,

Ye left behind our pleasant shore.

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CHAPTER LXXXIII

THEY LAND

The song was ended; and as we gained the strand, the crowd embraced us; and called us brothers; ourselves and our humblest attendants.

“Call ye us brothers, whom ere now ye never saw?”

“Even so,” said the old man, “is not Oro the father of all? Then, are we not brothers? Thus Alma, the master, hath commanded.”

“This was not our reception in Maramma,” said Media, “the appointed place of Alma; where his precepts are preserved.”

“No, no,” said Babbalanja; “old man! your lesson of brotherhood was learned elsewhere than from Alma; for in Maramma and in all its tributary isles true brotherhood there is none. Even in the Holy Island many are oppressed; for heresies, many murdered; and thousands perish beneath the altars, groaning with offerings that might relieve them.”

“Alas! too true. But I beseech ye, judge not Alma by all those who profess his faith. Hast thou thyself his records searched?” “Fully, I have not. So long, even from my infancy, have I witnessed the wrongs committed in his name; the sins and

inconsistencies of his followers; that thinking all evil must flow from a congenial fountain, I have scorned to study the whole record of your Master’s life. By parts I only know it.”

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“Ah! baneful error! But thus is it, brothers!! that the wisest are set against the Truth, because of those who wrest it from itself.”

“Do ye then claim to live what your Master hath spoken? Are your precepts practices?”

“Nothing do we claim: we but ‘earnestly endeavor.”

“Tell me not of your endeavors, but of your life. What hope for the fatherless among ye?”

“Adopted as a son.”

“Of one poor, and naked?” “Clothed, and he wants for naught.” “If ungrateful, he smite you?”

“Still we feed and clothe him.” “If yet an ingrate?”

“Long, he can not be; for Love is a fervent fire.”

“But what, if widely he dissent from your belief in Alma; – then, surely, ye must cast him forth?”

“No, no; we will remember, that if he dissent from us, we then equally dissent from him; and men’s faculties are Orogiven. Nor will we say that he is wrong, and we are right; for this we know not, absolutely. But we care not for men’s words; we look for creeds in actions; which are the truthful symbols of the things within. He who hourly prays to Alma, but lives not up to world-wide love and charity – that man is more an unbeliever than he who verbally rejects the Master, but does his bidding. Our lives are our Amens.”

“But some say that what your Alma teaches is wholly new – a revelation of things before unimagined, even by the poets.

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To do his bidding, then, some new faculty must be vouchsafed, whereby to apprehend aright.”

“So have I always thought,” said Mohi.

“If Alma teaches love, I want no gift to learn,” said Yoomy. “All that is vital in the Master’s faith, lived here in Mardi, and in humble dells was practiced, long previous to the Master’s coming. But never before was virtue so lifted up among us, that all might see; never before did rays from heaven descend to glorify it, But are Truth, Justice, and Love, the revelations of Alma alone? Were they never heard of till he came? Oh! Alma but opens unto us our own hearts. Were his precepts strange we would recoil – not one feeling would respond; whereas, once hearkened to, our souls embrace them as with

the instinctive tendrils of a vine.”

“But,” said Babbalanja, “since Alma, they say, was solely intent upon the things of the MardI to come – which to all, must seem uncertain – of what benefit his precepts for the daily lives led here?”

“Would! would that Alma might once more descend! Brother! were the turf our everlasting pillow, still would the Master’s faith answer a blessed end; – making us more truly happy here. That is the first and chief result; for holy here, we must be holy elsewhere. ’Tis Mardi, to which loved Alma gives his laws; not Paradise.”

“Full soon will I be testing all these things,” murmured Mohi.

“Old man,” said Media, “thy years and Mohi’s lead ye both to dwell upon the unknown future. But speak to me of other themes. Tell me of this island and its people. From all I have

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