Time and the Gods

by Lord Dunsany

  THE DREAMS OF THE PROPHET

  _I_

  When the gods drave me forth to toil and assailed me with thirst andbeat me down with hunger, then I prayed to the gods. When the godssmote the cities wherein I dwelt, and when Their anger scorched me andTheir eyes burned, then did I praise the gods and offer sacrifice. Butwhen I came again to my green land and found that all was gone, and theold mysterious haunts wherein I prayed as a child were gone, and whenthe gods tore up the dust and even the spider's web from the lastremembered nook, then did I curse the gods, speaking it to Their faces,saying:--

  "Gods of my prayers! Gods of my sacrifice! because Ye have forgottenthe sacred places of my childhood, and they have therefore ceased tobe, yet may I not forget. Because Ye have done this thing, Ye shall seecold altars and shall lack both my fear and praise. I shall not winceat Your lightnings, nor be awed when Ye go by."

  Then looking seawards I stood and cursed the gods, and at this momentthere came to me one in the garb of a poet, who said:--

  "Curse not the gods."

  And I said to him:

  "Wherefore should I not curse Those that have stolen my sacred placesin the night, and trodden down the gardens of my childhood?"

  And he said "Come, and I will show thee." And I followed him to wheretwo camels stood with their faces towards the desert. And we set outand I travelled with him for a great space, he speaking never a word,and so we came at last to a waste valley hid in the desert's midst. Andherein, like fallen moons, I saw vast ribs that stood up white out ofthe sand, higher than the hills of the desert. And here and there laythe enormous shapes of skulls like the white marble domes of palacesbuilt for tyrannous kings a long while since by armies of drivenslaves. Also there lay in the desert other bones, the bones of vastlegs and arms, against which the desert, like a besieging sea, everadvanced and already had half drowned. And as I gazed in wonder atthese colossal things the poet said to me:

  "The gods are dead."

  And I gazed long in silence, and I said:

  "These fingers, that are now so dead and so very white and still, toreonce the flowers in gardens of my youth."

  But my companion said to me:

  "I have brought thee here to ask of thee thy forgiveness of the gods,for I, being a poet, knew the gods, and would fain drive off the cursesthat hover above Their bones and bring Them men's forgiveness as anoffering at the last, that the weeds and the ivy may cover Their bonesfrom the sun."

  And I said:

  "They made Remorse with his fur grey like a rainy evening in theautumn, with many rending claws, and Pain with his hot hands andlingering feet, and Fear like a rat with two cold teeth carved each outof the ice of either pole, and Anger with the swift flight of thedragonfly in summer having burning eyes. I will not forgive thesegods."

  But the poet said:

  "Canst thou be angry with these beautiful white bones?" And I lookedlong at those curved and beautiful bones that were no longer able tohurt the smallest creature in all the worlds that they had made. And Ithought long of the evil that they had done, and also of the good. Butwhen I thought of Their great hands coming red and wet from battles tomake a primrose for a child to pick, then I forgave the gods.

  And a gentle rain came falling out of heaven and stilled the restlesssand, and a soft green moss grew suddenly and covered the bones tillthey looked like strange green hills, and I heard a cry and awoke andfound that I had dreamed, and looking out of my house into the street Ifound that a flash of lightning had killed a child. Then I knew thatthe gods still lived.

  _II_

  I lay asleep in the poppy fields of the gods in the valley of Alderon,where the gods come by night to meet together in council when the moonis low. And I dreamed that this was the Secret.

  Fate and Chance had played their game and ended, and all was over, allthe hopes and tears, regrets, desires and sorrows, things that men weptfor and unremembered things, and kingdoms and little gardens and thesea, and the worlds and the moons and the suns; and what remained wasnothing, having neither colour nor sound.

  Then said Fate to Chance: "Let us play our old game again." And theyplayed it again together, using the gods as pieces, as they had playedit oft before. So that those things which have been shall all be again,and under the same bank in the same land a sudden glare of singlight onthe same spring day shall bring the same daffodil to bloom once moreand the same child shall pick it, and not regretted shall be thebillion years that fell between. And the same old faces shall be seenagain, yet not bereaved of their familiar haunts. And you and I shallin a garden meet again upon an afternoon in summer when the sun standsmidway between his zenith and the sea, where we met oft before. ForFate and Chance play but one game together with every move the same,and they play it oft to while eternity away.

  PART II.