33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
WHEREIN BABBALANJA AND YOOMY EMBRACE.
“How the isles grow and multiply around us!” cried
Babbalanja, as turning the bold promontory of an uninhabited
shore, many distant lands bluely loomed into view.
“Surely, our brief voyage, may not embrace all Mardi like
its reef?”
“No,” said Media, “much must be left unseen. Nor
every where can Yillah be sought, noble Taji.”
“Said Yoomy, “We are as birds, with pinions clipped,
that in unfathomable and endless woods, but flit from twig
to twig of one poor tree.”
“More isles! more isles!” cried Babbalanja, erect, and
gazing abroad. “And lo! round all is heaving that infinite
ocean. Ah! gods! what regions lie beyond?”
“But whither now?” he cried, as in obedience to Media,
the paddlers suddenly altered our course.
“To the bold shores of Diranda,” said Media.
“Ay; the land of clubs and javelins, where the lord
seigniors Hello and Piko celebrate their famous games,” cried
Mohi.
“Your clubs and javelins,” said Media, “remind me of
the great battle-chant of Narvi—Yoomy!”—turning to the
minstrel, gazing abstractedly into the water;—“awake,
Yoomy, and give us the lines.”
“My lord Media, 'tis but a rude, clanging thing; dissonant
as if the north wind blew through it. Methinks the
company will not fancy lines so inharmonious. Better sing
you, perhaps, one of my sonnets.”
“Better sit and sob in our ears, silly Yoomy that thou
art!—no! no! none of your sentiment now; my soul is
martially inclined; I want clarion peals, not lute warblings.
So throw out your chest, Yoomy: lift high your voice; and
blow me the old battle-blast.—Begin, sir minstrel.”
And warning all, that he himself had not composed the
odious chant, Yoomy thus:—
Our clubs! our clubs!
The thousand clubs of Narvi!
Of the living trunk of the Palm-tree made;
Skull breakers! Brain spatterers!
Wielded right, and wielded left;
Life quenchers! Death dealers!
Causing live bodies to run headless!
Our bows! our bows!
The thousand bows of Narvi!
Ribs of Tara, god of War!
Fashioned from the light Tola their arrows;
Swift messengers! Heart piercers!
Barbed with sharp pearl shells;
Winged with white tail-plumes;
To wild death-chants, strung with the hair of wild maidens!
Our spears! our spears!
The thousand spears of Narvi!
Of the thunder-riven Moo-tree made:
Tall tree, couched on the long mountain Lana!
No staves for gray-beards! no rods for fishermen!
Tempered by fierce sea-winds,
Splintered into lances by lightnings,
Long arrows! Heart seekers!
Toughened by fire their sharp black points!
Our slings! our slings!
The thousand slings of Narvi!
All tasseled, and braided, and gayly bedecked.
In peace, our girdles; in war, our war-nets;
Wherewith catch we heads as fish from the deep!
The pebbles they hurl, have been hurled before,—
Hurled up on the beach by the stormy sea!
Pebbles, buried erewhile in the head of the shark:
To be buried erelong in the heads of our foes!
Home of hard blows, our pouches!
Nest of death-eggs! How quickly they hatch!
Uplift, and couch we our spears, men!
Ring hollow on the rocks our war clubs!
Bend we our bows, feel the points of our arrows:
Aloft, whirl in eddies our sling-nets;
To the fight, men of Narvi!
Sons of battle! Hunters of men!
Raise high your war-wood!
Shout Narvi! her groves in the storm!
“By Oro! cried Media, “but Yoomy has well nigh
stirred up all Babbalanja's devils in me. Were I a mortal,
I could fight now on a pretense. And did any man say me
nay, I would charge upon him like a spear-point. Ah,
Yoomy, thou and thy tribe have much to answer for; ye
stir up all Mardi with your lays. Your war chants make
men fight; your drinking songs, drunkards; your love ditties,
fools. Yet there thou sittest, Yoomy, gentle as a dove.
—What art thou, minstrel, that thy soft, singing soul should
so master all mortals? Yoomy, like me, you sway a scepter.”
“Thou honorest my calling overmuch,” said Yoomy, “we
minstrels but sing our lays carelessly, my lord Media.”
“Ay: and the more mischief they make.”
“But sometimes we poets are didactic.”
“Didactic and dull; many of ye are but too apt to be
prosy unless mischievous.”
“Yet in our verses, my lord Media, but few of us purpose
harm.”
“But when all harmless to yourselves, ye may be otherwise
to Mardi.”
“And are not foul streams often traced to pure fountains,
my lord?” said Babbalanja. “The essence of all good and
all evil is in us, not out of us. Neither poison nor honey
lodgeth in the flowers on which, side by side, bees and wasps
oft alight. My lord, nature is an immaculate virgin, forever
standing unrobed before us. True poets but paint the charms
which all eyes behold. The vicious would be vicious without
them.”
“My lord Media,” impetuously resumed Yoomy, “I am
sensible of a thousand sweet, merry fancies, limpid with innocence;
yet my enemies account them all lewd conceits.”
“There be those in Mardi,” said Babbalanja, “who
would never ascribe evil to others, did they not find it in
their own hearts; believing none can be different from themselves.”
“My lord, my lord!” cried Yoomy. “The air that
breathes my music from me is a mountain air! Purer than
others am I; for though not a woman, I feel in me a woman's
soul.”
“Ah, have done, silly Yoomy,” said Media. “Thou art
becoming flighty, even as Babbalanja, when Azzageddi is
uppermost.”
“Thus ever: ever thus!” sighed Yoomy. “They comprehend
us not.”
“Nor me,” said Babbalanja. “Yoomy: poets both, we
differ but in seeming; thy airiest conceits are as the shadows
of my deepest ponderings; though Yoomy soars, and Babbalanja
dives, both meet at last. Not a song you sing, but I
have thought its thought; and where dull Mardi sees but
your rose, I unfold its petals, and disclose a pearl. Poets
are we, Yoomy, in that we dwell without us; we live in
grottoes, palms, and brooks; we ride the sea, we ride the
sky; poets are omnipresent.”
