The Night Land

Since Mirdath, My Beautiful One, died and left me lonely in this world,

I have suffered an anguish, and an utter and dreadful pain of longing,

such as truly no words shall ever tell; for, in truth, I that had all

the world through her sweet love and companionship, and knew all the joy

and gladness of Life, have known such lonesome misery as doth stun me to

think upon.

Yet am I to my pen again; for of late a wondrous hope has grown in me,

in that I have, at night in my sleep, waked into the future of this

world, and seen strange things and utter marvels, and known once more

the gladness of life; for I have learned the promise of the future, and

have visited in my dreams those places where in the womb of Time, she

and I shall come together, and part, and again come together--breaking

asunder most drearly in pain, and again reuniting after strange ages, in

a glad and mighty wonder.

And this is the utter strange story of that which I have seen, and

which, truly, I must set out, if the task be not too great; so that, in

the setting out thereof, I may gain a little ease of the heart; and

likewise, mayhap, give ease of hope to some other poor human, that doth

suffer, even as I have suffered so dreadful with longing for Mine Own

that is dead. And some shall read and say that this thing was not, and some shall

dispute with them; but to them all I say naught, save "Read!" And having

read that which I set down, then shall one and all have looked towards

Eternity with me--unto its very portals. And so to my telling:

To me, in this last time of my visions, of which I would tell, it was

not as if I dreamed; but, as it were, that I waked there into the

dark, in the future of this world. And the sun had died; and for me

thus newly waked into that Future, to look back upon this, our Present

Age, was to look back into dreams that my soul knew to be of reality;

but which to those newly-seeing eyes of mine, appeared but as a far

vision, strangely hallowed with peacefulness and light.

Always, it seemed to me when I awaked into the Future, into the

Everlasting Night that lapped this world, that I saw near to me, and

girdling me all about, a blurred greyness. And presently this, the

greyness, would clear and fade from about me, even as a dusky cloud, and

I would look out upon a world of darkness, lit here and there with

strange sights. And with my waking into that Future, I waked not to

ignorance; but to a full knowledge of those things which lit the Night

Land; even as a man wakes from sleep each morning, and knows immediately

he wakes, the names and knowledge of the Time which has bred him, and in

which he lives. And the same while, a knowledge I had, as it were

sub-conscious, of this Present--this early life, which now I live so

utterly alone. In my earliest knowledge of that place, I was a youth, seventeen years

grown, and my memory tells me that when first I waked, or came, as it

might be said, to myself, in that Future, I stood in one of the

embrasures of the Last Redoubt--that great Pyramid of grey metal which

held the last millions of this world from the Powers of the Slayers. And so full am I of the knowledge of that Place, that scarce can I

believe that none here know; and because I have such difficulty, it may

be that I speak over familiarly of those things of which I know; and

heed not to explain much that it is needful that I should explain to

those who must read here, in this our present day. For there, as I stood

and looked out, I was less the man of years of this age, than the

youth of that, with the natural knowledge of that life which I had

gathered by living all my seventeen years of life there; though, until

that my first vision, I (of this Age) knew not of that other and Future

Existence; yet woke to it so naturally as may a man wake here in his bed

to the shining of the morning sun, and know it by name, and the meaning

of aught else. And yet, as I stood there in the vast embrasure, I had

also a knowledge, or memory, of this present life of ours, deep down

within me; but touched with a halo of dreams, and yet with a conscious

longing for One, known even there in a half memory as Mirdath. As I have said, in my earliest memory, I mind that I stood in an

embrasure, high up in the side of the Pyramid, and looked outwards

through a queer spy-glass to the North-West. Aye, full of youth and with

an adventurous and yet half-fearful heart.