On golden couches kings are dreaming!
The Golden Rule dries many tears!
The Golden Number rules the spheres!
Gold, gold it is, that sways the nations:
Gold! gold! the center of all rotations!
On golden axles worlds are turning:
With phosphorescence seas are burning!
All fire-flies flame with golden gleamings:
Gold-hunters' hearts with golden dreamings!
With golden arrows kings are slain:
With gold we'll buy a freeman's name!
In toilsome trades, for scanty earnings, At home we've slaved, with stifled yearnings:
No light! no hope! Oh, heavy woe!
When nights fled fast, and days dragged slow.
But joyful now, with eager eye,
Fast to the Promised Land we fly:
Where in deep mines,
The treasure shines;
Or down in beds of golden streams,
The gold-flakes glance in golden gleams!
How we long to sift,
That yellow drift!
Rivers! Rivers! cease your going!
Sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide! 'Till we've gained the golden flowing;
And in the golden haven ride!
"Quick, quick, my lord," cried Yoomy, "let us follow them; and from the golden waters where she lies, our Yillah may emerge."
"No, no," said Babbalanja, — "no Yillah there! — from yonder promisedland, fewer seekers will return, than go. Under a gilded guise, happiness is still their instinctive aim. But vain, Yoomy, to snatch at Happiness. Of that we may not pluck and eat. It is the fruit of our own toilsome planting; slow it grows, nourished by many teats, and all our earnest tendings. Yet ere it ripen, frosts may nip;-and then, we plant again; and yet again. Deep, Yoomy, deep, true treasure lies; deeper than all Mardi's gold, rooted to Mardi's axis. But unlike gold, it lurks in every soil, — all Mardi over. With golden pills and potions is sickness warded off? — the shrunken veins of age, dilated with new wine of youth? Will gold the heart-ache cure? turn toward us hearts estranged? will gold, on solid centers empires fix? 'Tis toil world-wasted to toil in mines. Were all the isles gold globes, set in a quicksilver sea, all Mardi were then a desert. Gold is the only poverty; of all glittering ills the direst. And that man might not impoverish himself thereby, Oro hath hidden it, with all other banes, — saltpeter and explosives, deep in mountain bowels, and riverbeds. But man still will mine for it; and mining, dig his doom.-Yoomy, Yoomy! — she we seek, lurks not in the Golden Hills!"
"Lo, a vision!" cried Yoomy, his hands wildly passed across his eyes.
"A vast and silent bay, belted by silent villages:-gaunt dogs howling over grassy thresholds at stark corpses of old age and infancy; gray hairs mingling with sweet flaxen curls; fields, with turned furrows, choked with briers; arbor-floors strown over with hatchet-helves, rotting in the iron; a thousand paths, marked with foot-prints, all inland leading, none villageward; and strown with traces, as of a flying host. On: over forest-hill, and dale-and lo! the golden region! After the glittering spoil, by strange river-margins, and beneath impending cliffs, thousands delve in quicksands; and, sudden, sink in graves of their own making: with gold dust mingling their own ashes. Still deeper, in more solid ground, other thousands slave; and pile their earth so high, they gasp for air, and die; their comrades mounting on them, and delving still, and dying-grave pile on grave!
Here, one haggard hunter murders another in his pit; and murdering, himself is murdered by a third. Shrieks and groans! cries and curses!
It seems a golden Hell! With many camels, a sleek stranger comes-pauses before the shining heaps, and shows his treasures: yams and bread-fruit. 'Give, give,' the famished hunters cry-, 'a thousand shekels for a yam! — a prince's ransom for a meal! — Oh, stranger! on our knees we worship thee:-take, take our gold; but let us live!' Yams are thrown them and they fight. Then he who toiled not, dug not, slaved not, straight loads his caravans with gold; regains the beach, and swift embarks for home. 'Home! home!' the hunters cry, with bursting eyes. 'With this bright gold, could we but join our waiting wives, who wring their hands on distant shores, all then were well. But we can not fly; our prows lie rotting on the beach. Ah! home! thou only happiness! — better thy silver earnings than all these golden findings. Oh, bitter end to all our hopes-we die in golden graves."
CHAPTER LXIII
They Seek Through The Isles Of Palms; And Pass The Isles Of Myrrh
Now, our prows we turned due west, across the blue lagoon.
Soon, no land appeared. Far as the eye could sweep, one azure plain; all over flaked with foamy fleeces:-a boundless flock upon a boundless mead!
Again, all changed. Like stars in multitude, bright islets multiplied around. Emerald-green, they dotted shapes fantastic: circles, arcs, and crescents;-atolls all, or coral carcanets, begemmed and flashing in the sun.
By these we glided, group after group; and through the foliage, spied sweet forms of maidens, like Eves in Edens ere the Fall, or Proserpines in Ennas. Artless airs came from the shore; and from the censer-swinging roses, a bloom, as if from Hebe's cheek.
"Here, at last, we find sweet Yillah!" murmured Yoomy. "Here must she lurk in innocence! Quick! Let us land and search."
"If here," said Babbalanja, "Yillah will not stay our coming, but fly before us through the groves. Wherever a canoe is beached, see you not the palm-trees pine? Not so, where never keel yet smote the strand. In mercy, let us fly from hence. I know not why, but our breath here, must prove a blight."
These regions passed, we came to savage islands, where the glittering coral seemed bones imbedded, bleaching in the sun. Savage men stood naked on the strand, and brandished uncouth clubs, and gnashed their teeth like boars.
The full red moon was rising; and, in long review there passed before it, phantom shapes of victims, led bound to altars through the groves.
Death-rattles filled the air. But a cloud descended, and all was gloom.
Again blank water spread before us; and after many days, there came a gentle breeze, fraught with all spicy breathings; cinnamon aromas; and in the rose-flushed evening air, like glow worms, glowed the islets, where this incense burned.
"Sweet isles of myrh! oh crimson groves," cried Yoomy. "Woe, woe's your fate! your brightness and your bloom, like musky fire-flies, double-lure to death! On ye, the nations prey like bears that gorge themselves with honey."
Swan-like, our prows sailed in among these isles; and oft we landed; but in vain; and leaving them, we still pursued the setting sun.
CHAPTER LXIV
Concentric, Inward, With Mardi's Reef, They Leave Their Wake Around The World
West, West! West, West! Whitherward point Hope and prophet-fingers; whitherward, at sun-set, kneel all worshipers of fire; whitherward in mid-ocean, the great whales turn to die; whitherward face all the Moslem dead in Persia; whitherward lie Heaven and Hell! — West, West!
Whitherward mankind and empires-flocks, caravans, armies, navies; worlds, suns, and stars all wend! — West, West! — Oh boundless boundary!
Eternal goal! Whitherward rush, in thousand worlds, ten thousand thousand keels! Beacon, by which the universe is steered! — Like the north-star, attracting all needles! Unattainable forever; but forever leading to great things this side thyself! — Hive of all sunsets! — Gabriel's pinions may not overtake thee!
Over balmy waves, still westward sailing! From dawn till eve, the bright, bright days sped on, chased by the gloomy nights; and, in glory dying, lent their luster to the starry skies. So, long the radiant dolphins fly before the sable sharks but seized, and torn in flames-die, burning:-their last splendor left, in sparkling scales that float along the sea.