Chapter 79 - Page 2

hyenas grin, the
jackals yell,--let us.--But you don't laugh, my lord? laugh away!"

"No, thank you, Azzageddi, not after that infernal fashion; better
weep."

"He makes me crawl all over, as if I were an ant-hill," said Mohi.

"He's mad, mad, mad!" cried Yoomy.

"Ay, mad, mad, mad!--mad as the mad fiend that rides me!--But come,
sweet minstrel, wilt list to a song?--We madmen are all poets, you
know:--Ha! ha!--

Stars laugh in the sky:
Oh fugle-fi I
The waves dimple below:
Oh fugle-fo!

"The wind strikes her dulcimers; the groves give a shout; the
hurricane is only an hysterical laugh; and the lightning that blasts,
blasts only in play. We must laugh or we die; to laugh is to live. Not
to laugh is to have the tetanus. Will you weep? then laugh while you
weep. For mirth and sorrow are kin; are published by identical nerves.
Go, Yoomy: go study anatomy: there is much to be learned from the
dead, more than you may learn from the living and I am dead though I
live; and as soon dissect myself as another; I curiously look into my
secrets: and grope under my ribs. I have found that the heart is not
whole, but divided; that it seeks a soft cushion whereon to repose;
that it vitalizes the blood; which else were weaker than water: I have
found that we can not live without hearts; though the heartless live
longest. Yet hug your hearts, ye handful that have them; 'tis a
blessed inheritance! Thus, thus, my lord, I run on; from one pole to
the other; from this thing to that. But so the great world goes round,
and in one Somerset, shows the sun twenty-five thousand miles of a
landscape!"

At that instant, down went the fiery full-moon, and the Dog-Star; and
far down into Media, a Tivoli of wine.