“Lo!” he said, “ages have past,
and each year thou hast appointed me to the same ignoble
charge. Release me, I pray thee, from the duties
that I scorn; or, if thou wilt that the lowlier race
of men be my charge, give unto me the charge not of
many, but of one, and suffer me to breathe into him
the desire that spurns the valleys of life, and ascends
its steeps. If the humble are given to me, let
there be amongst them one whom I may lead on the mission
that shall abase the proud; for, behold, O Appointer
of the Stars, as I have sat for uncounted years upon
my solitary throne, brooding over the things beneath,
my spirit hath gathered wisdom from the changes that
shift below. Looking upon the tribes of earth,
I have seen how the multitude are swayed, and tracked
the steps that lead weakness into power; and fain
would I be the ruler of one who, if abased, shall aspire
to rule.”
As a sudden cloud over the face of noon was the change
on the brow of the archangel.
“Proud and melancholy star,” said the
herald, “thy wish would war with the courses
of the invisible destiny, that, throned far above,
sways and harmonizes all; the source from which the
lesser rivers of fate are eternally gushing through
the heart of the universe of things. Thinkest
thou that thy wisdom, of itself, can lead the peasant
to become a king?”
And the crowned star gazed undauntedly on the face
of the archangel, and answered:
“Yea!—grant me but one trial!”
Ere the archangel could reply, the farthest centre
of the heaven was rent as by a thunderbolt; and the
divine herald covered his face with his hands, and
a voice low and sweet, and mild with the consciousness
of unquestionable power, spoke forth to the repining
star:
“The time has arrived when thou mayest have
thy wish. Below thee, upon yon solitary plain,
sits a mortal, gloomy as thyself, who, born under
thy influence, may be moulded to thy will.”
The voice ceased, as the voice of a dream. Silence
was over the seas of space, and the archangel, once
more borne aloft, slowly soared away into the farther
heaven, to promulgate the divine bidding to the stars
of far-distant worlds.
But the soul of the discontented star exulted within
itself; and it said, “I will call forth a king
from the valley of the herdsmen, that shall trample
on the kings subject to my fellows, and render the
charge of the contemned star more glorious than the
minions of its favored brethren; thus shall I revenge
neglect—thus shall I prove my claim hereafter
to the heritage of the great of earth!”
At that time, though the world had rolled on for ages,
and the pilgrimage of man had passed through various
states of existence, which our dim traditionary knowledge
has not preserved, yet the condition of our race in
the northern hemisphere was then what we, in
our imperfect lore, have conceived to be among the
earliest.
