Chapter 80

Morning

Life or death, weal or woe, the sun stays not his course. On: over
battle-field and bower; over tower, and town, he speeds,--peers in at
births, and death-beds; lights up cathedral, mosque, and pagan
shrine;--laughing over all;--a very Democritus in the sky; and in one
brief day sees more than any pilgrim in a century's round.

So, the sun; nearer heaven than we:--with what mind, then, may blessed
Oro downward look.

It was a purple, red, and yellow East;--streaked, and crossed. And
down from breezy mountains, robust and ruddy Morning came,--a plaided
Highlander, waving his plumed bonnet to the isles.

Over the neighboring groves the larks soared high; and soaring, sang
in jubilees; while across our bows, between two isles, a mighty moose
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