They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and at evening when
the pools are strange with light, till in their gladness sometimes there
melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely heights the mountaineer.
They have valleys among them older than the wrinkles in the moon.
"'Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we shall
come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only speak
of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely that
even the butterflies that float about it when they see their images
flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each night
we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing the stars
to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with tidings
of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Sendara and men
shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Sendara the
rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of Zoth,
till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing;
but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to
Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their
lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in
distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma
as they sit telling careless tales to lure men to their wares.
Pages:
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36