XVII

 

 

 

I HAD left the shallow firths and narrow straits behind me, for I had wearied of pastorals with smoke curling from rustic cabins. I had gazed my fill at the sun that shone in stolid stupidity over the just and unjust alike.

 

After I had spent all my youth in sailing over many seas in my dainty pleasure-boat, I was met one morning as I came on deck by the glorious spectacle upon which my fancy had dwelt for many years through murky days and bright nights. From horizon to horizon and right across the arch of the sky a portal stretched in the form of a crescent moon, and on this giant bow sparkled in golden letters these words :

 

This is the entrance to the Kingdom of Truth.

 

And as the twilight dropped over the sea, my boat glided in through the portal to the strains of a music that is never heard in the world of the everyday. ―

 

I had tarried in the new land for fifteen months. One day I lay on the deck of my boat gazing into space, and my soul was filled with restful joy. The sky was red, red as roses and wine, red as love and blood, and the ocean was red as the sky. And the swart sun hung in the red sky, sable as coal or the memory of sorrow, and it was mirrored in the sorghum depths of the ocean like a colossal column the color of a pomegranate when it inclines to black. Far away on the horizon a tawny streak glistened like a golden fringe on the crimson canopy. They were my newly discovered islets, over which I roamed a new Adam in paradise, a new being in a new world. For that which was crooked in the old world was straight here, and those things which I had been used to see running in zigzags ran here in circles. Here former virtues hobbled on crutches, as senile oldings at the point of death, whilst sins stood in full flower; and the fruits that grew on these unknown trees provided me with a fare of rare sweetness, for they were of the same species as those into which Mother Eve bit; whereas in those which I had brought with me from the old world, as its most splendid ingathering, I invariably found― worms in the kernel.

 

I lay stretched on the deck of my pleasure- boat, and my eyes rested upon the tawny fringe on the red canopy, and I was restfully glad in spirit, and beautiful fancies detached themselves softly from the loose white network of my thoughts, letting it slide from them; and rising, bent and mirrored themselves in my soul. And their faces were full of peace, and their eyes were laughter-lit, and their lips moved ― suddenly I heard my own voice say: ―

 

“Happy, happy, happy is he who has found the one great truth, and can rest in its meadows. Then to him what are foes? ― What is death? Thistledown and gossamer. Life is his own soul, and his soul is a guest-chamber in which he holds quiet festivals. Threefold happy he who can rest in its meadows and listen to the purling of the streams of eternal truth.”

 

Suddenly it whistled through the air, and the screams of birds sounded; and as I lifted my eyes I saw the ruby space filled with birds swart as the sun, with the long pointed wings of sea birds, the wings that carry them on distant journeys. And when they were poised right above my boat, the one that flew first swooped down and perched upon the masthead, and speaking with a human voice, said:

 

“He who casts anchor is soon out of the running. Yesterday the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, today the desert in which no flower blows. Tomorrow your Eldorado is a fossil-land. Now we rustle away over your head whilst you lie and dream in your arrogant well-being, forgetting that you too swept by forgotten countries whilst men slept. Behind your islets new worlds lie and new auroras blaze.”

 

And the sable bird rose upon his broad- pointed wings, those that carry on distant journeys, and swept away towards the horizon, and vanished behind the golden fringe, woven by islets round the sea’s red canopy. And the swart sun flamed, and I set all my sails, and my dainty craft sped away with the wind that came rushing in the wake of the fleeting birds, even as a bird, a sea bird, a storm bird.