The Night Land

And so to further my telling. Yet before I pass onwards, one other thing

is there of which I shall speak--In the moment in which I waked out of

that youthfulness, into the assured awaredness of this our Age, in

that moment the hunger of this my love flew to me across the ages; so

that what had been but a memory-dream, grew to the pain of Reality,

and I knew suddenly that I lacked; and from that time onwards, I went,

listening, as even now my life is spent.

And so it was that I (fresh-born in that future time) hungered strangely

for My Beautiful One with all the strength of that new life, knowing

that she had been mine, and might live again, even as I. And so, as I

have said, I hungered, and found that I listened.

And now, to go back from my digression, it was, as I have said, I had

amazement at perceiving, in memory, the unknowable sunshine and

splendour of this age breaking so clear through my hitherto most vague

and hazy visions; so that the ignorance of, Aesworpth was shouted to me

by the things which now I knew.

And from that time, onward, for a little space, I was stunned with all

that I knew and guessed and felt; and all of a long while the hunger

grew for that one I had lost in the early days--she who had sung to me

in those faery days of light, that had been in verity. And the

especial thoughts of that age looked back with a keen, regretful wonder

into the gulf of forgetfulness.

But, presently, I turned from the haze and pain of my dream-memories,

once more to the inconceivable mystery of the Night Land, which I viewed

through the great embrasure. For on none did it ever come with weariness

to look out upon all the hideous mysteries; so that old and young

watched, from early years to death, the black monstrosity of the Night

Land, which this our last refuge of humanity held at bay.

To the right of the Red Pit there lay a long, sinuous glare, which I

knew as the Vale of Red Fire, and beyond that for many dreary miles the

blackness of the Night Land; across which came the coldness of the light

from the Plain of Blue Fire.

And then, on the very borders of the Unknown Lands, there lay a range of

low volcanoes, which lit up, far away in the outer darkness, the Black

Hills, where shone the Seven Lights, which neither twinkled nor moved

nor faltered through Eternity; and of which even the great spy-glass

could make no understanding; nor had any adventurer from the Pyramid

ever come back to tell us aught of them. And here let me say, that down

in the Great Library of the Redoubt, were the histories of all those,

with their discoveries, who had ventured out into the monstrousness of

the Night Land, risking not the life only, but the spirit of life