say 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.
"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
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