1“How the isles grow and multiply around us!” cried Babbalanja, as turning the bold promontory of an uninhabited shore, many distant lands bluely loomed into view. “Surely, our brief voyage, may not embrace all Mardi like its reef?”

2“No,” said Media, “much must be left unseen. Nor every where can Yillah be sought, noble Taji.”

3Said Yoomy, “We are as birds, with pinions clipped, that in unfathomable and endless woods, but flit from twig to twig of one poor tree.”

4“More isles! more isles!” cried Babbalanja, erect, and gazing abroad. “And lo! round all is heaving that infinite ocean. Ah! gods! what regions lie beyond?”

5“But whither now?” he cried, as in obedience to Media, the paddlers suddenly altered our course.

6“To the bold shores of Diranda,” said Media.

7“Ay; the land of clubs and javelins, where the lord seigniors Hello and Piko celebrate their famous games,” cried Mohi.

8“Your clubs and javelins,” said Media, “remind me of the great battle- chant of Narvi—Yoomy!”—turning to the minstrel, gazing abstractedly into the water;—“awake, Yoomy, and give us the lines.”

9“My lord Media, ’tis but a rude, clanging thing; dissonant as if the north wind blew through it. Methinks the company will not fancy lines so inharmonious. Better sing you, perhaps, one of my sonnets.”

10“Better sit and sob in our ears, silly Yoomy that thou art!—no! no! none of your sentiment now; my soul is martially inclined; I want clarion peals, not lute warblings. So throw out your chest, Yoomy: lift high your voice; and blow me the old battle-blast.—Begin, sir minstrel.”

11And warning all, that he himself had not composed the odious chant, Yoomy thus:—

12Our clubs! our clubs!

13The thousand clubs of Narvi!

14Of the living trunk of the Palm-tree made;

15Skull breakers! Brain spatterers!

16Wielded right, and wielded left;

17Life quenchers! Death dealers!

18Causing live bodies to run headless!

19Our bows! our bows!

20The thousand bows of Narvi!

21Ribs of Tara, god of War!

22Fashioned from the light Tola their arrows;

23Swift messengers! Heart piercers!

24Barbed with sharp pearl shells;

25Winged with white tail-plumes;

26To wild death-chants, strung with the hair of wild maidens!

27Our spears! our spears!

28The thousand spears of Narvi!

29Of the thunder-riven Moo-tree made

30Tall tree, couched on the long mountain Lana!

31No staves for gray-beards! no rods for fishermen!

32Tempered by fierce sea-winds,

33Splintered into lances by lightnings,

34Long arrows! Heart seekers!

35Toughened by fire their sharp black points!

36Our slings! our slings!

37The thousand slings of Narvi!

38All tasseled, and braided, and gayly bedecked.

39In peace, our girdles; in war, our war-nets;

40Wherewith catch we heads as fish from the deep!

41The pebbles they hurl, have been hurled before,—

42Hurled up on the beach by the stormy sea!

43Pebbles, buried erewhile in the head of the shark:

44To be buried erelong in the heads of our foes!

45Home of hard blows, our pouches!

46Nest of death-eggs! How quickly they hatch!

47Uplift, and couch we our spears, men!

48Ring hollow on the rocks our war clubs!

49Bend we our bows, feel the points of our arrows:

50Aloft, whirl in eddies our sling-nets;

51To the fight, men of Narvi!

52Sons of battle! Hunters of men!

53Raise high your war-wood!

54Shout Narvi! her groves in the storm!

55“By Oro!” cried Media, “but Yoomy has well nigh stirred up all Babbalanja’s devils in me. Were I a mortal, I could fight now on a pretense. And did any man say me nay, I would charge upon him like a spear-point. Ah, Yoomy, thou and thy tribe have much to answer for; ye stir up all Mardi with your lays. Your war chants make men fight; your drinking songs, drunkards; your love ditties, fools. Yet there thou sittest, Yoomy, gentle as a dove.—What art thou, minstrel, that thy soft, singing soul should so master all mortals? Yoomy, like me, you sway a scepter.”

56“Thou honorest my calling overmuch,” said Yoomy, we minstrels but sing our lays carelessly, my lord Media. ”

57“Ay: and the more mischief they make.”

58“But sometimes we poets are didactic.”

59“Didactic and dull; many of ye are but too apt to be prosy unless mischievous.”

60“Yet in our verses, my lord Media, but few of us purpose harm.”

61“But when all harmless to yourselves, ye may be otherwise to Mardi.”

62“And are not foul streams often traced to pure fountains, my lord?” said Babbalanja. “The essence of all good and all evil is in us, not out of us. Neither poison nor honey lodgeth in the flowers on which, side by side, bees and wasps oft alight. My lord, nature is an immaculate virgin, forever standing unrobed before us. True poets but paint the charms which all eyes behold. The vicious would be vicious without them.”

63“My lord Media,” impetuously resumed Yoomy, “I am sensible of a thousand sweet, merry fancies, limpid with innocence; yet my enemies account them all lewd conceits.”

64“There be those in Mardi,” said Babbalanja, “who would never ascribe evil to others, did they not find it in their own hearts; believing none can be different from themselves.”

65“My lord, my lord!” cried Yoomy. “The air that breathes my music from me is a mountain air! Purer than others am I; for though not a woman, I feel in me a woman’s soul.”

66“Ah, have done, silly Yoomy,” said Media. “Thou art becoming flighty, even as Babbalanja, when Azzageddi is uppermost.”

67“Thus ever: ever thus!” sighed Yoomy. “They comprehend us not.”

68“Nor me,” said Babbalanja. “Yoomy: poets both, we differ but in seeming; thy airiest conceits are as the shadows of my deepest ponderings; though Yoomy soars, and Babbalanja dives, both meet at last. Not a song you sing, but I have thought its thought; and where dull Mardi sees but your rose, I unfold its petals, and disclose a pearl. Poets are we, Yoomy, in that we dwell without us; we live in grottoes, palms, and brooks; we ride the sea, we ride the sky; poets are omnipresent.”