Young Ofeg's Ditties/Ditty 2

​Mankind seemed trivial and life meaningless. The thoughts of some were lighter than feathers, and of others more void than ether. And although I tested all human efforts under the magnifier, they never seemed larger than the millionth part of a grain of sand, and all worths were as circles or cyphers.

As the day waned towards eventide I went out into the forest. Autumn had come, and it was already far advanced towards the night of the year. The ground was sodden under my feet, and the water trickled down the trunks of the green trees, and only a few skeleton leaves still hung upon the naked tree tops.

But high above me the storm raged and the crown of the forest shivered. It lulled, it rose again, and I heard voices, not feeble, such as of men, but the mighty ones that echo through the spheres.

First came a lament, wild, piercing, as if a ​knife had been thrust through the heart of the universe. That was the forest that writhed.

"Why do you complain?" roared the Storm.

"I am weary," answered the Forest, "weary in my very soul, weary with age and suffering. Now I am shedding my leaves, then I shall become white again, and yet I shall not die, for again the sap will rise and the green leaves shoot. If only one could die—die! I am weary, weary of my very soul."

"You tired of life, who have scarcely yet begun to live! Shake off your rotten leaves and feel how already the new Spring begins to well up in you. Look at me who saw you birthed and who will see you die, who lived long before Nature even dreamed of you, and who will still live when she will have lost you even as a memory. Look at me: I have borne the weight of all the worlds upon my shoulders, through years for whose endless length there exists no number, and yet I am as straight in the back as when I played and leaped an urchin over the water wastes before the egg of the world had got its shell. Through me it is that ​mankind connect their thoughts;—for I am the swiftest of all messengers. Do you not see the load I bear upon my back and in my hands?"

"What is it? I know it not, it looks so strange, and I never hear aught from men."

"Not for two thousand years have I carried so heavy a burden before; for the race that lives now has been working at the sorriest smiths'-work known to man: forging the screws for its own coffin."

And the Storm scattered a handful out over the lands.

"Is that death you are sowing?" asked the Forest.

"It is fire, it is sulphur," answered the Storm, "it is poison and two-edged swords. For mankind shall shuffle off the old coils."

"Relate," said the Forest.

And the Storm paused awhile, resting like a bird on its wings, and its keen, wise eyes scanned all the countries round.

"Two thousand years ago there lived a man called Jesus. He it was who first said that the weak should possess the earth, and as the ​descendants of the slaves became rich and powerful they either burned at the stake or hanged on the gallows all those who refused to believe their belief.

"But below the few who sat on thrones and ate off gold—slaves' sons who had become masters—stood new millions of slaves. They thronged outside the portals of the masters' strongholds, one black inconceivable mass, that peoples the earth; and whenever they saw windows gleaming, or heard the clink of gold or men who were joyous, they forgot that the masters too were the sons of slaves, and they stoned his image, which was placed outside the city gates, with the face of a dove and the body of an ascetic. And they raised a cry of vengeance against their own God and against his votaries, their brethren, just because the latter were inside, whilst they themselves were shut out.

"Do you hear the cry? Yesterday I raised it upon my wings, to-day it shrieks with me across the world, for the hour of change is at hand, and the kingdom of the slaves is divided against itself.

​"Do you hear how it batters against the iron portals; do you hear how the windows crash; do you hear how the image totters on the ancient altar, worm-eaten wood as it was? Do you hear those strokes as of a giant wielding an axe? Do you know what it is? It is the slaves chopping the tree in whose crown they themselves have built their nest, but that is so great that they do not notice it is their own tree. They imagine it is their enemies', for their God has stricken them with blindness, and all slaves are stupid. To-morrow the world of the slave will burn and they will themselves be the incendiaries. And the night will be scarlet and my breath will be hot and blasting, so that even you will shrivel up as a shaving.

"And when the new day dawns and the sun rises, the kingdoms of the earth will lie in ashes, and the tree of the slaves will be a charred trunk, and the sap will have dried in its veins. But upon the desolate plain two hosts will stand opposed; the hordes of the one will be reckoned in millions, for the slaves will always be the many, and they will be like unto ​a black cloud on the morning sky. Those who stand opposite them will be few, but they will shine with the brightness of dawn. And then there will be a stir in the black cloud, and a man will step forward in the likeness of a slave with a black-avised face, cunning eyes, and low hair-covered forehead; and then a gleam will appear in the sun-host, and again a man will step forward, but of his beauty no man can say aught, for such an one has not yet been seen upon earth, for it is the Master, the only true sovereign, he who was stolen as a child by the demon of the slaves and left to perish miserably, and who, unknowing of his birth-right, grew up in the wilderness where no slave had set his foot; and then the last great duel will be fought, the duel between the master and the slave, the cloud and the suns. And such a cry of jubilation as I then shall raise has never yet been heard upon earth."

And the Storm rose once more upon its wings and floated away, and the woods stood still and listened, and when I lifted up my eyes the sky behind the naked forest crowns was glittering with stars.