Chapter 81 - Page 2

"and whither? But a moment since, he was
among us: now, the fixed stars are not more remote than he. So far
off, can he live? Oh, Oro! this death thou ordainest, unmans the
manliest. Say not nay, my lord. Let us not speak behind Death's back.
Hard and horrible is it to die: blindfold to leap from life's verge!
But thus, in clouds of dust, and with a trampling as of hoofs, the
generations disappear; death driving them all into his treacherous
fold, as wild Indians the bison herds. Nay, nay, Death is
Life's last despair. Hard and horrible is it to die. Oro himself, in
Alma, died not without a groan. Yet why, why live? Life is wearisome
to all: the same dull round. Day and night, summer and winter, round
about us revolving for aye. One moment lived, is a life. No new stars
appear in the sky; no new lights in the soul. Yet, of changes there
are many. For though, with rapt sight, in childhood, we behold many
strange things beneath the moon, and all Mardi looks a tented fair--
how soon every thing fades. All of us, in our very bodies, outlive our
own selves. I think of green youth as of a merry playmate departed;
and to shake hands, and be pleasant with my old age, seems in prospect
even harder, than to draw a cold stranger to my bosom. But old age is
not for me. I am not of the stuff that grows old. This Mardi is not
our home. Up and down we wander, like exiles transported to a planet
afar:--'tis not the world _we_ were born in; not the world once so
lightsome and gay; not the world where we once merrily danced, dined,
and supped; and wooed, and wedded our long-buried wives. Then let us
depart. But whither? We push ourselves forward then, start back in
affright. Essay 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,