look into my secrets:  and grope under my ribs.  I have found that the heart is not whole, but divided; that it seeks a soft cushion whereon to repose; that it vitalizes the blood; which else were weaker than water:  I have found that we can not live without hearts; though the heartless live longest.  Yet hug your hearts, ye handful that have them; ’tis a blessed inheritance!  Thus, thus, my lord, I run on; from one pole to the other; from this thing to that.  But so the great world goes round, and in one Somerset, shows the sun twenty-five thousand miles of a landscape!”

At that instant, down went the fiery full-moon, and the Dog-Star; and far down into Media, a Tivoli of wine.

CHAPTER LXXX Morning

Life or death, weal or woe, the sun stays not his course.  On:  over battle-field and bower; over tower, and town, he speeds,—­peers in at births, and death-beds; lights up cathedral, mosque, and pagan shrine;—­laughing over all;—­a very Democritus in the sky; and in one brief day sees more than any pilgrim in a century’s round.

So, the sun; nearer heaven than we:—­with what mind, then, may blessed Oro downward look.

It was a purple, red, and yellow East;—­streaked, and crossed.  And down from breezy mountains, robust and ruddy Morning came,—­a plaided Highlander, waving his plumed bonnet to the isles.

Over the neighboring groves the larks soared high; and soaring, sang in jubilees; while across our bows, between two isles, a mighty moose swam stately as a seventy-four; and backward tossed his antlered wilderness in air.

Just bounding from fresh morning groves, with the brine he mixed the dew of leaves,—­his antlers dripping on the swell, that rippled before his brown and bow-like chest.

“Five hundred thousand centuries since,” said Babbalanja, “this same sight was seen.  With Oro, the sun is co-eternal; and the same life that moves that moose, animates alike the sun and Oro.  All are parts of One.  In me, in me, flit thoughts participated by the beings peopling all the stars.  Saturn, and Mercury, and Mardi, are brothers, one and all; and across their orbits, to each other talk, like souls.  Of these things what chapters might be writ!  Oh! that flesh can not keep pace with spirit.  Oh! that these myriad germ-dramas in me, should so perish hourly, for lack of power mechanic.—­Worlds pass worlds in space, as men, men,—­in thoroughfares; and after periods of thousand years, cry:—­“Well met, my friend, again!”—­To me to me, they talk in mystic music; I hear them think through all their zones.  —­Hail, furthest worlds! and all the beauteous beings in ye!  Fan me, sweet Zenora! with thy twilight wings!—­Ho! let’s voyage to Aldebaran.—­Ha! indeed, a ruddy world!  What a buoyant air!  Not like to Mardi, this.  Ruby columns:  minarets of amethyst:  diamond domes!  Who is this?—­a god?  What a lake-like brow! transparent as the morning air.