Baba: Younger daughter of Beltani, afterwards the slave of Lord Ribâta.
Bazuzu: Beltani's negro slave.
Zor: Baba's pet goat.
Hodo: The Babylonish trader.
Charmides: The Greek rhapsode.
Allaraine: The archetype of song.
PROLOGUE
THE INCARNATION
Thronged in Uranian mists, all the archtype spirits of heaven,
Gathered in slow-firing wrath against one of their natural number,
Watched her who, first of them all since Jehovah created their order,
Daring the Almighty ire, did forget her transcendence for man.
Wonder divine o'er the sorrow and sin of the earth-condemned races
Dwelt in the heart of the moon-daughter, now beyond ken of her kindred.
They who, betwixt the one Godhead, His logos, creation, and man,
Infinite, soulless, essential, divine, were highest ideas,
Perfect observance forever had kept of their order, till now,
Seemingly fearless in great disobedience, Istar, the moon-child,
Caught and had struck to her heart a great earth-flown vibration: so learned
All that her high-worshipped fellows knew not of mankind and of woe.
Fleeing the loud-rolling world with her new apperception, she sped
Far to the heart of the moon, where her father, the moon-god, received her.
Then, on her silence of wisdom and grief, rose a fast-winging plaint
Carried across vasty deeps by the loud-surging breath of the wind.
Host upon host, then, the infinite tide, the reflectors of being
Swept towards the refuge of Istar. Their voices, in anger uplifted,
Crashed in a thunderous whirlwind through space; and their far-flowing light
Gleaming and streaming in chaos of bright iridescence, in flames
Violet, yellow and green, silver, crimson, and shimmering gold,
Glorified space and struck down the world-dwellers to terrified prayer.
Sin, the great moon-god, the father of her who sought refuge alone,
Mourned in his mystical home; cried aloud through the uprising clamor,
Asking indulgence for Istar the woman. Him answered but one:
Allaraine, son of the stars, the bard of Æolian songs,
Lord of white clouds, who, begot of a sunset, went winging his way
Far through the star-vault at midnight, full-sprung, with his heavenly path
Marked by mellifluous song—'twas he who to Sin made reply.
He, who alone, from the earth's evening glow had beheld earthly passion,
Tranced by the high, fearless wrong of incarnate humanity's power,
Fearlessly now, before all the tumultuous host, voiced his pity.
Vain were his words, though they fell into space like the pearls of the sea,
Melting round God's very throne, with melodious ecstasy fraught.
Silent the archtypes heard, and in silence of trembling delight
Istar, the lover of souls, concealed in the moon's dim retreat,
Heard him. And silent the earth-world revolved and Time's pulses were stilled.
Finally, out of the deep, where space is not and time cannot be,
God, the Almighty Jehovah, made answer to Allaraine's plea:
"Istar, who knowledge of incarnate souls was forbidden to hold,
Thou, who unknowing, daredst pity men's sorrows and sins manifold.
Go to the earth-world as one among men, and there shalt thou behold
Life, and its correlate, Death. Sentient there thou shalt live, but shalt be
Heaven-born still, and thus worshipped on earth, though thou mayst not be free
Till, 'neath the sorrows of flesh, thou shalt find man's relation to me."