"Dunsany, Lord - Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

thereby are heaped up dry and stranded, and the gods walk
not among them evermore, because they are hard to their
feet. These are the worlds that have no destiny, whose
people know no god. And the river sweeps onwards ever. And
the name of the river is Oriathon, but men call it Ocean.
This is the Lower Faith of the Inner lands. And there is a
Higher Faith which is not told to all. According to the
Higher Faith of the Inner Lands the river Oriathon sweeps on
through the forests of Infinity and all at once falls
roaring over an Edge, whence Time has long ago recalled his
hours to fight in his war with the gods; and falls unlit by
the flash of nights and days, with his flood unmeasured by
miles, into the deeps of nothing.
Now as the centuries went by and the one way by which a
man could climb Poltarnees became worn with feet, more and
more men surmounted it, not to return. And still they knew
not in the Inner Lands upon what mystery Poltarnees looked.
For on a still day and windless, while men walked happily
about their beautiful streets or tended flocks in the
country, suddenly the west wind would bestir himself and
come in from the Sea. And he would come cloaked and grey
and mournful and carry to someone the hungry cry of the Sea
calling out for bones of men. And he that heard it would
move restlessly for some hours, and at last would rise
suddenly, irresistibly up, setting his face to Poltarnees,
and would say, as is the custom of those lands when men part
briefly, "Till a man's heart remembereth," which means,
"Farewell for a while;" but those that loved him, seeing his
eyes on Poltarnees, would answer sadly, "Till the gods
forget," which means "Farewell."
Now the King of Arizim had a daughter who played with the
wild wood flowers, and with the fountains in her father's
court, and with the little blue heaven-birds that came to
her doorway in the winter to shelter from the snow. And she
was more beautiful than the wild wood flowers, or than all
the fountains in her father's court, or than the blue
heaven-birds in their full winter plumage when they shelter
from the snow. The old wise kings of Mondath and of Toldees
saw her once as she went lightly down the little paths of
her garden, and, turning their gaze into the mists of
thought, pondered the destiny of their Inner Lands. And
they watched her closely by the stately flowers, and
standing alone in the sunlight, and passing and repassing
the strutting purple birds that the king's fowlers had
brought from Asagehon. When she was of the age of fifteen
years the King of Mondath called a council of kings. And
there met with him the kings of Toldees and Arizim. And the
King of Mondath in his Council said:
"The call of the unappeased and hungry Sea" (and at the
word `Sea' the three kings bowed their heads) "lures every