The Madman | Page 8

sacrifice thyself?"
And a third said, "Thinkest thou with this price to buy world glory?"
Then said a fourth, "Behold, how he smiles! Can such pain be

forgiven?"
And I answered them all, and said:
"Remember only that I smiled. I do not atone--nor sacrifice--nor wish
for glory; and I have nothing to forgive. I thirsted--and I besought you
to give me my blood to drink. For what is there can quench a madman's
thirst but his own blood? I was dumb--and I asked wounds of you for
mouths. I was imprisoned in your days and nights--and I sought a door
into larger days and nights.
And now I go--as others already crucified have gone. And think not we
are weary of crucifixion. For we must be crucified by larger and yet
larger men, between greater earths and greater heavens."
The Astronomer
In the shadow of the temple my friend and I saw a blind man sitting
alone. And my friend said, "Behold the wisest man of our land."
Then I left my friend and approached the blind man and greeted him.
And we conversed.
After a while I said, "Forgive my question; but since when has thou
been blind?"
"From my birth," he answered.
Said I, "And what path of wisdom followest thou?"
Said he, "I am an astronomer."
Then he placed his hand upon his breast saying, "I watch all these suns
and moons and stars."
The Great Longing
Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea.

We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is
deep and strong and strange. Nay, it is deeper than my sister's depth
and stronger than my brother's strength, and stranger than the
strangeness of my madness.
Aeons upon aeons have passed since the first grey dawn made us
visible to one another; and though we have seen the birth and the
fullness and the death of many worlds, we are still eager and young.
We are young and eager and yet we are mateless and unvisited, and
though we lie in unbroken half embrace, we are uncomforted. And
what comfort is there for controlled desire and unspent passion?
Whence shall come the flaming god to warm my sister's bed? And what
she-torrent shall quench my brother's fire? And who is the woman that
shall command my heart?
In the stillness of the night my sister murmurs in her sleep the fire-god's
unknown name, and my brother calls afar upon the cool and distant
goddess. But upon whom I call in my sleep I know not.

Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We
three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep
and strong and strange.
Said a Blade of Grass
Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, "You make such a noise falling!
You scatter all my winter dreams."
Said the leaf indignant, "Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless,
peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the
sound of singing."
Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when
spring came she waked again--and she was a blade of grass.
And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above

her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself,
"O these autumn leaves! They make such noise! They scatter all my
winter dreams."
The Eye
Said the Eye one day, "I see beyond these valleys a mountain veiled
with blue mist. Is it not beautiful?"
The Ear listened, and after listening intently awhile, said, "But where is
any mountain? I do not hear it."
Then the Hand spoke and said, "I am trying in vain to feel it or touch it,
and I can find no mountain."
And the Nose said, "There is no mountain, I cannot smell it."
Then the Eye turned the other way, and they all began to talk together
about the Eye's strange delusion. And they said, "Something must be
the matter with the Eye."
The Two Learned Men
Once there lived in the ancient city of Afkar two learned men who
hated and belittled each other's learning. For one of them denied the
existence of the gods and the other was a believer.
One day the two met in the marketplace, and amidst their followers
they began to dispute and to argue about the existence or the
non-existence of the gods. And after hours of contention they parted.
That evening the unbeliever went to the temple and prostrated himself
before the altar and prayed the gods to forgive his wayward past.
And the same hour the other learned man, he who had upheld the gods,
burned his sacred