And lo, the king lifted up his head and stretched forth his arms and wept. "Yea, all these things have I done," he said, "and they shall perish with me. My death is upon me, and I shall die, and the tribes I have welded together shall be broken apart, and the beasts shall win back their domain, and the green jungle shall overgrow my mansions. Lo, the fire shall go out on the altar of the gods, and my glory shall be as a crimson cloud that the night swallows up in darkness."
Then the young man lifted up his voice and cried: "Oh, king, be comforted! Thy deeds shall not pass as a cloud, neither shall thy laws be strewn before the wind. For I will carve thy glory in rich and rounded words—yea, I will string thy deeds together in jewelled beads of perfect words that thy sons shall wear on their hearts forever."
"Verily thy words are rich with song," said the king; "but thou shalt die, and who will utter them? Like twinkling foam is the speech of man's mouth; like foam from a curling wave that vanishes in the sun."
"Nay, let thy heart believe me, oh king my father," said the youth. "For the words of my mouth shall keep step with the ripple of waves and the beating of wings; yea, they shall mount with the huge paces of the sun in heaven, that cease not for my ceasing. Men shall sound them on suckling tongues still soft with milk, they shall run into battle to the tune of thy deeds, and kindle their fire with the breath of thy wisdom. And thy glory shall be ever living, as a jewel of jasper from the earth—yea, as the green jewel of jasper carven into a god for the rod of thy power, oh king, and of the power of thy sons forever."
The king sat silent till the going-down of the sun. Then lifted he his head, and stroked his beard, and spake: "Verily the sun goes down, and my beard shines whiter than his, and I shall die. Now therefore stand at my right hand, O son of my wise years, child of my dreams. Stand at my right hand, and fit thy speech to music, that men may hold in their hearts thy rounded words. Forever shalt thou keep thy place, and utter thy true tale in the ears of the race. And woe be unto them that hear thee not! Verily that generation shall pass as a cloud, and its glory shall be as a tree that withers. For thou alone shalt win the flying hours to thee, and keep the beauty of them for the joy of men forever."
H. M.
ON THE READING OF POETRY
In the brilliant pages of his essay on Jean François Millet, Romain Rolland says that Millet, as a boy, used to read the Bucolics and the Georgics "with enchantment" and was "seized by emotion—when he came to the line, 'It is the hour when the great shadows seek the plain.'
Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae?"