swam stately as a seventy-four; and backward tossed his antlered
wilderness in air.

Just bounding from fresh morning groves, with the brine he mixed the
dew of leaves,--his antlers dripping on the swell, that rippled before
his brown and bow-like chest.

"Five hundred thousand centuries since," said Babbalanja, "this same
sight was seen. With Oro, the sun is co-eternal; and the same life
that moves that moose, animates alike the sun and Oro. All are parts
of One. In me, in _me_, flit thoughts participated by the beings
peopling all the stars. Saturn, and Mercury, and Mardi, are brothers,
one and all; and across their orbits, to each other talk, like souls.
Of these things what chapters might be writ! Oh! that flesh can not
keep pace with spirit. Oh! that these myriad germ-dramas in me,
should so perish hourly, for lack of power mechanic.--Worlds pass
worlds in space, as men, men,--in thoroughfares; and after periods of
thousand years, cry:--"Well met, my friend, again!"--To me to _me_,
they talk in mystic music; I hear them think through all their zones.
--Hail, furthest worlds! and all the beauteous beings in ye! Fan me,
sweet Zenora! with thy twilight wings!--Ho! let's voyage to
Aldebaran.--Ha! indeed, a ruddy world! What a buoyant air! Not like to
Mardi, this. Ruby columns: minarets of amethyst: diamond domes! Who is
this?--a god? What a lake-like brow! transparent as the morning air. I
see his thoughts like worlds revolving--and in his eyes--like unto
heavens--soft falling stars are shooting.--How these thousand passing
wings winnow away my breath:--I faint:--back, back to some small
asteroid.--Sweet being! if, by Mardian word I may address thee--
speak!--'I bear a soul in germ within me; I feel the first, faint
trembling, like to a harp-string, vibrate in my inmost being. Kill me,
and generations die.'--So, of old, the unbegotten lived within the
virgin; who then loved her God, as new-made mothers their babes ere
born. Oh, Alma, Alma, Alma!--Fangs off, fiend!--will that name ever
lash thee into foam?--Smite not my face so, forked flames!"

"Babbalanja! Babbalanja! rouse, man! rouse! Art in hell and damned,
that thy sinews so snake-like coil and twist all over thee? Thy brow
is black as Ops! Turn, turn! see yonder moose!"

"Hail! mighty brute!--thou feelest not these things: never canst
_thou_ be damned. Moose! would thy soul were mine; for if that
scorched thing, mine, be immortal--so thine; and thy life hath