1Now, northward coasting along Kolumbo’s Western shore, whence came the same wild forest-sounds, as from the Eastern; and where we landed not, to seek among those wrangling tribes;—after many, many days, we spied prow after prow, before the wind all northward bound: sails wide-spread, and paddles plying: scaring the fish from before them.

2Their inmates answered not our earnest hail.

3But as they sped, with frantic glee, in one long chorus thus they sang:—

4We rovers bold,

5To the land of Gold,

6Over bowling billows are gliding:

7Eager to toil,

8For the golden spoil,

9And every hardship biding.

10See! See!

11Before our prows’ resistless dashes,

12The gold-fish fly in golden flashes!

13’Neath a sun of gold,

14We rovers bold,

15On the golden land are gaining;

16And every night,

17We steer aright,

18By golden stars unwaning!

19All fires burn a golden glare:

20No locks so bright as golden hair!

21All orange groves have golden gushings:

22All mornings dawn with golden flushings!

23In a shower of gold, say fables old,

24A maiden was won by the god of gold!

25In golden goblets wine is beaming:

26On golden couches kings are dreaming!

27The Golden Rule dries many tears!

28The Golden Number rules the spheres!

29Gold, gold it is, that sways the nations:

30Gold! gold! the center of all rotations!

31On golden axles worlds are turning:

32With phosphorescence seas are burning!

33All fire-flies flame with golden gleamings:

34Gold-hunters’ hearts with golden dreamings!

35With golden arrows kings are slain:

36With gold we’ll buy a freeman’s name!

37In toilsome trades, for scanty earnings,

38At home we’ve slaved, with stifled yearnings:

39No light! no hope! Oh, heavy woe!

40When nights fled fast, and days dragged slow.

41But joyful now, with eager eye,

42Fast to the Promised Land we fly:

43Where in deep mines,

44The treasure shines;

45Or down in beds of golden streams,

46The gold-flakes glance in golden gleams!

47How we long to sift,

48That yellow drift!

49Rivers! Rivers! cease your going!

50Sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide!

51’Till we’ve gained the golden flowing;

52And in the golden haven ride!

53“Quick, quick, my lord,” cried Yoomy, “let us follow them; and from the golden waters where she lies, our Yillah may emerge.”

54“No, no,” said Babbalanja,—“no Yillah there!—from yonder promised-land, fewer seekers will return, than go. Under a gilded guise, happiness is still their instinctive aim. But vain, Yoomy, to snatch at Happiness. Of that we may not pluck and eat. It is the fruit of our own toilsome planting; slow it grows, nourished by many teats, and all our earnest tendings. Yet ere it ripen, frosts may nip;—and then, we plant again; and yet again. Deep, Yoomy, deep, true treasure lies; deeper than all Mardi’s gold, rooted to Mardi’s axis. But unlike gold, it lurks in every soil,—all Mardi over. With golden pills and potions is sickness warded off?—the shrunken veins of age, dilated with new wine of youth? Will gold the heart-ache cure? turn toward us hearts estranged? will gold, on solid centers empires fix? ’Tis toil world-wasted to toil in mines. Were all the isles gold globes, set in a quicksilver sea, all Mardi were then a desert. Gold is the only poverty; of all glittering ills the direst. And that man might not impoverish himself thereby, Oro hath hidden it, with all other banes,—saltpeter and explosives, deep in mountain bowels, and river-beds. But man still will mine for it; and mining, dig his doom.— Yoomy, Yoomy!—she we seek, lurks not in the Golden Hills!”

55“Lo, a vision!” cried Yoomy, his hands wildly passed across his eyes. “A vast and silent bay, belted by silent villages:—gaunt dogs howling over grassy thresholds at stark corpses of old age and infancy; gray hairs mingling with sweet flaxen curls; fields, with turned furrows, choked with briers; arbor-floors strown over with hatchet-helves, rotting in the iron; a thousand paths, marked with foot-prints, all inland leading, none villageward; and strown with traces, as of a flying host. On: over forest—hill, and dale—and lo! the golden region! After the glittering spoil, by strange river-margins, and beneath impending cliffs, thousands delve in quicksands; and, sudden, sink in graves of their own making: with gold dust mingling their own ashes. Still deeper, in more solid ground, other thousands slave; and pile their earth so high, they gasp for air, and die; their comrades mounting on them, and delving still, and dying—grave pile on grave! Here, one haggard hunter murders another in his pit; and murdering, himself is murdered by a third. Shrieks and groans! cries and curses! It seems a golden Hell! With many camels, a sleek stranger comes— pauses before the shining heaps, and shows his treasures: yams and bread-fruit. ‘Give, give,’ the famished hunters cry—, ‘a thousand shekels for a yam!—a prince’s ransom for a meal!—Oh, stranger! on our knees we worship thee:—take, take our gold; but let us live!’ Yams are thrown them and they fight. Then he who toiled not, dug not, slaved not, straight loads his caravans with gold; regains the beach, and swift embarks for home. ‘Home! home!’ the hunters cry, with bursting eyes. ‘With this bright gold, could we but join our waiting wives, who wring their hands on distant shores, all then were well. But we can not fly; our prows lie rotting on the beach. Ah! home! thou only happiness!—better thy silver earnings than all these golden findings. Oh, bitter end to all our hopes—we die in golden graves.”