too. And lo, the forces of estrangement and disorder perpetually postponed a decisive contest.
But when there was nearly war among the beasts, at last an arrangement was come to and it was decided that the Hare and the Tortoise should run a race of five hundred yards so that all should see who was right.
“Ridiculous nonsense!” said the Hare, and it was all his backers could do to get him to run.
“The contest is most welcome to me,” said the Tortoise, “I shall not shirk it.”
O, how his backers cheered.
Feeling ran high on the day of the race; the goose rushed at the fox and nearly pecked him. Both sides spoke loudly of the approaching victory up to the very moment of the race.
“I am absolutely confident of success,” said the Tortoise. But the Hare said nothing, he looked bored and cross. Some of his supporters deserted him then and went to the other side, who were loudly cheering the Tortoise’s inspiriting words. But many remained with the Hare. “We shall not be disappointed in him,” they said. “A beast with such long ears is bound to win.”
“Run hard,” said the supporters of the Tortoise.
And “run hard” became a kind of catchphrase which everybody repeated to one another. “Hard shell and hard living. That’s what the country wants. Run hard,” they said. And these words were never uttered but multitudes cheered from their hearts.
Then they were off, and suddenly there was a hush.
The Hare dashed off for about a hundred yards, then he looked round to see where his rival was.
“It is rather absurd,” he said, “to race with a Tortoise.” And he sat down and scratched himself.
“Run hard! Run hard!” shouted some.
“Let him rest,” shouted others. And “let him rest” became a catchphrase too.
And after a while his rival drew near to him.
“There comes that damned Tortoise,” said the Hare, and he got up and ran as hard as could be so that he should not let the Tortoise beat him.
“Those ears will win,” said his friends. “Those ears will win; and establish upon an incontestable footing the truth of what we have said.” And some of them turned to the backers of the Tortoise and said: “What about your beast now?”
“Run hard,” they replied. “Run hard.”
The Hare ran on for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as far as the winning-post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool he looked running races with a Tortoise who was nowhere in sight, and he sat down again and scratched.
“Run hard. Run hard,” said the crowd, and “Let him rest.”
“Whatever is the use of it?” said the Hare, and this time he stopped for good. Some say he slept.
There was desperate excitement for an hour or two, and then the Tortoise won.
“Run hard. Run hard,” shouted his backers. “Hard shell and hard living: that’s what has done it.” And then they asked the Tortoise what his achievement signified, and he went and asked the Turtle. And the Turtle said, “It is a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness.” And then the Tortoise repeated it to his friends. And all the beasts said nothing else for years. And even to this day, “a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness” is a catchphrase in the house of the snail.
And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known is that very few of those that witnessed it survived the great forest-fire that happened shortly after. It came up over the weald by night with a great wind. The Hare and the Tortoise and a very few of the beasts saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge of the trees, and they hurriedly called a meeting to decide what messenger they should send to warn the beasts in the forest.
They sent the Tortoise.
Alone the Immortals
I heard it said that far away from here, on the wrong side of the deserts of Cathay and in a country dedicate to winter, are all the years that are dead. And there a certain valley shuts them in and hides them, as rumor has it, from the world, but not from the sight of the moon nor from those that dream in his rays.
And I said: I will go from here by ways of dream and I will come to that valley and enter in and mourn there for the good years that are dead. And I said: I will take a wreath, a wreath of mourning, and lay it at their feet in token of my sorrow for their dooms.
And when I sought about among the flowers, among the flowers for my wreath of mourning, the lily looked too large and the laurel looked too solemn and I found nothing frail enough nor slender to serve as an offering to the years that were dead. And at last I made a slender wreath of daisies in the manner that I had seen them made in one of the years that is dead.
“This,” said I, “is scarce less fragile or less frail than one of those delicate forgotten years.” Then I took my wreath in my hand and went from here. And when I had come by paths of mystery to that romantic land, where the valley that rumour told of lies close to the mountainous moon, I searched among the grass for those poor slight years for whom I bought my sorrow and my wreath. And when I found there nothing in the grass I said: “Time has shattered them and swept them away and left not even any faint remains.”
But looking upwards in the blaze of the moon I suddenly saw colossi sitting near, and towering up and blotting out the stars and filling the night with blackness; and at those idols’ feet I saw praying and making obeisance kings and the days that are and all times and all cities and all nations and all their
