Of a surety Morven was a great man!
It was the last night of the old year, and the stars
sat, each upon his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless
eyes upon the world. The night was dark and troubled,
the dread winds were abroad, and fast and frequent
hurried the clouds beneath the thrones of the kings
of night. But ever and anon fiery meteors flashed
along the depths of heaven, and were again swallowed
up in the graves of darkness.
And far below his brethren, and with a lurid haze
around his orb, sat the discontented star that had
watched over the hunters of the North. And on
the lowest abyss of space there was spread a thick
and mighty gloom, from which, as from a caldron, rose
columns of wreathing smoke; and still, when the great
winds rested for an instant on their paths, voices
of woe and laughter, mingled with shrieks, were heard
booming from the abyss to the upper air.
And now, in the middest night, a vast figure rose
slowly from the abyss, and its wings threw blackness
over the world. High upward to the throne of
the discontented star sailed the fearful shape, and
the star trembled on his throne when the form stood
before him face to face. And the shape said:
“Hail, brother!— all hail!”
“I know thee not,” answered the star:
“thou art not the archangel that visitests the
kings of night.”
And the shape laughed loud. “I am the fallen
star of the morning.—I am Lucifer, thy
brother. Hast thou not, O sullen king, served
me and mine? and hast thou not wrested the earth from
thy Lord who sittest above and given it to me by darkening
the souls of men with the religion of fear? Wherefore
come, brother, come;—thou hast a throne
prepared beside my own in the fiery gloom. Come.—The
heavens are no more for thee.” Then the
star rose from his throne, and descended to the side
of Lucifer. For ever hath the spirit of discontent
had sympathy with the soul of pride.
And slowly they sank down to the gulf of gloom.
It was the first night of the new year, and the stars
sat each on his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless
eyes upon the world. But sorrow dimmed the bright
faces of the kings of night, for they mourned in silence
and in fear for a fallen brother.
And the gates of the heaven of heavens flew open with
a golden sound, and the swift archangel fled down
on his silent wings; and the archangel gave to each
of the stars, as before, the message of his Lord;
and to each star was his appointed charge.
And when the heraldry seemed done, there came a laugh
from the abyss of gloom, and half way from the gulf
rose the lurid shape of Lucifer, the fiend.
“Thou countest thy flock ill, O radiant shepherd.
Behold! one star is missing from the three thousand
and ten.”
“Back to thy gulf, false Lucifer!—the
throne of thy brother hath been filled.”
