And the centuries plodded by, on and on round the world, and one
day they that had danced, they that had sung in that city, remembered
the lair of the earthquake in the deeps down under their feet, and made
plans one with another and sought to avert the danger, sought to
appease the earthquake and turn his anger away.
They sent down singing girls, and priests with oats and wine, they
sent down garlands and propitious berries, down by dark steps to
the black depths of the earth, they sent peacocks newly slain, and
boys with burning spices, and their thin white sacred cats with collars
of pearls all newly drawn from sea, they sent huge diamonds down in
coffers of teak, and ointment and strange oriental dyes, arrows and
armor and the rings of their queen.
"Oho," said the earthquake in the coolth of the earth, "so they are
not the gods."
WHAT WE HAVE COME TO
When the advertiser saw the cathedral spires over the downs in the
distance, he looked at them and wept.
"If only," he said, "this were an advertisement of Beefo, so nice, so
nutritious, try it in your soup, ladies like it."
THE TOMB OF PAN
"Seeing," they said, "that old-time Pan is dead, let us now make
a tomb for him and a monument, that the dreadful worship of long
ago may be remembered and avoided by all."
So said the people of the enlightened lands. And they built a
white and mighty tomb of marble. Slowly it rose under the hands
of the builders and longer every evening after sunset it gleamed with
rays of the departed sun.
And many mourned for Pan while the builders built; many reviled
him. Some called the builders to cease and to weep for Pan and
others called them to leave no memorial at all of so infamous a god.
But the builders built on steadily.
And one day all was finished, and the tomb stood there like a
steep sea-cliff. And Pan was carved thereon with humbled head
and the feet of angels pressed upon his neck. And when the tomb
was finished the sun had already set, but the afterglow was rosy on
the huge bulk of Pan.
And presently all the enlightened people came, and saw the tomb
and remembered Pan who was dead, and all deplored him and his
wicked age. But a few wept apart because of the death of Pan.
But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow
softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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