Chapter 63 - Page 2

marveled how
these swine could grovel in the mire, and wear such sallow cheeks.
But they offered no sweet homes; from that mire they never sought to
drag them out; they open threw no orchard; and intermitted not the
mandates that condemned their drudges to a life of deaths. Sad sight!
to see those round-shouldered Helots, stooping in their trenches:
artificial, three in number, and concentric: the isle well nigh
surrounding. And herein, fed by oozy loam, and kindly dew from
heaven, and bitter sweat from men, grew as in hot-beds the nutritious
Taro.

Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief
that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness. But when man
toils and slays himself for masters who withhold the life he
gives to them--then, then, the soul screams out, and every sinew
cracks. So with these poor serfs. And few of them could choose but be
the brutes they seemed.

Now needs it to be said, that Odo was no land of pleasure unalloyed,
and plenty without a pause?--Odo, in whose lurking-places infants
turned from breasts, whence flowed no nourishment.--Odo, in whose
inmost haunts, dark groves were brooding, passing which you heard
most dismal cries, and voices cursing Media. There, men were
scourged; their crime, a heresy; the heresy, that Media was no
demigod. For this they shrieked. Their fathers shrieked before; their
fathers, who, tormented, said, "Happy we to groan, that our
children's children may be glad." But their children's children
howled. Yet these, too, echoed previous generations, and loudly
swore, "The pit that's dug for us may prove another's grave."

But let all pass. To look at, and to roam about of holidays, Odo
seemed a happy land. The palm-trees waved--though here and there you
marked one sear and palsy-smitten; the flowers bloomed--though dead
ones moldered in decay; the waves ran up the strand in glee--though,
receding, they sometimes left behind bones mixed with shells.

But else than these, no sign of death was seen throughout the isle.
Did men in Odo live for aye? Was Ponce de Leon's fountain there? For
near and far, you saw no ranks and files of graves, no generations
harvested in winrows. In Odo, no hard-hearted nabob slept beneath a
gentle epitaph; no _requiescat-in-pace_ mocked a sinner damned; no
_memento-mori_ admonished men to live while yet they might. Here
Death hid his skull; and hid it in the sea, the common sepulcher of
Odo. Not dust to dust, but dust to brine; not hearses but canoes. For
all who died upon that isle were carried out beyond the outer reef,
and there were buried with their sires' sires. Hence came the
thought, that of gusty nights, when round the isles, and high
toward