“I am seekin’ for a City—for a City into de Kingdom!”
Then with closed and streaming eyes, she danced with slow and stately step before the Lord. Her voice lifted higher and higher, outstriving her upstretched arms, shrilled the strophe, while the antistrophe rolled in the thick throat of the preacher:
The Woman: “Lord, I don’t feel no-ways tired—”
The Man: “Children! Fight Christ’s fury, Halleluiah!”
The Woman: “I’m—a gonta shout glory when this world’s on fire!”
The Man: “Children! Shout God’s glory, Hallelu!”
There fell a silence, and then out of the gloom of the wood moved a pageant. A score of men clothed in white with shining swords walked slowly forward a space, and from their midst came three old men: one black and shaven and magnificent in raiment; one yellow and turbaned, with a white beard that swept his burning flesh; and the last naked save for a scarf about his loins. They carried dishes of rice and sweetmeats, and they chanted as they came.
One voice said, solemn and low:
“Oh, thou that playest on the flute, standing by the water-ghats on the road to Brindaban.”
A second voice, still lower, sang:
“Oh, flower of eastern silence, walking in the path of stars, divine, beautiful, whom nothing human makes unclean: bring sunrise, noon and golden night and wordless intercession before the wordless God.”
And a third voice rose shrill and clear:
“Oh, Allah, the compassionate, the merciful! who sends his blessing on the Prophet, Our Lord, and on his family and companions and on all to whom he grants salvation.”
They gave rice to Matthew and Kautilya, and sweetmeats, and all blessed them as they knelt. Then the Brahmin took the baby from his grandmother and wound a silken turban on its little protesting head—a turban with that mighty ruby that looked like frozen blood. Swaying the babe up and down and east and west, he placed it gently upon Kautilya’s outstretched arms. It lay there, a thrill of delight; its little feet, curled petals; its mouth a kiss; its hands like waving prayers. Slowly Kautilya stepped forward and turned her face eastward. She raised her son toward heaven and cried:
“Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva! Lords of Sky and Light and Love! Receive from me, daughter of my fathers back to the hundredth name, his Majesty, Madhu Chandragupta Singh, by the will of God, Maharajah of Bwodpur and Maharajah-dhirajah of Sindrabad.”
Then from the forest, with faint and silver applause of trumpets:
“King of the Snows of Gaurisankar!”
“Protector of Ganga the Holy!”
“Incarnate Son of the Buddha!”
“Grand Mughal of Utter India!”
“Messenger and Messiah to all the Darker Worlds!”
Envoy
The tale is done and night is come. Now may all the sprites who, with curled wing and starry eyes, have clustered around my hands and helped me weave this story, lift with deft delicacy from out the crevice where it lines may heavy flesh of fact, that rich and colored gossamer of dream which the Queen of Faerie lent to me for a season. Pleat it to shining bundle and return it, sweet elves, beneath the moon, to her Mauve Majesty with my low and fond obeisance. Beg her, sometime, somewhere, of her abundant leisure, to tell us hard humans: Which is really Truth—Fact or Fancy? the Dream of the Spirit or the Pain of the Bone?
Colophon
Dark Princess
was published in by
W. E. B. Du Bois.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Cecil New,
and is based on a transcription produced between and by
Wikisource
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Dark Princess,
a painting completed in by
An Unknown Artist.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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The League of Moveable Type.
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