"Lord Dunsany - Time And The Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dunsany Lord)

the valley which opens on the world, that the green earth
that dreams around the feet of older gods shall know the new
god Slid. Then shall mine armies strive with thee no more,
and thou and I shall be the equal lords of the whole earth
when all the world is singing the chaunt of Slid, and thy
head alone shall be lifted above mine armies when rival
hills are dead. And I will deck thee with all the robes of
the sea, and all the plunder that I have taken in rare
cities shall be piled before thy feet. Tintaggon, I have
conquered all the stars, my song swells through all the
space besides, I come victorious from Mahn and Khanagat on
the furthest edge of the worlds, and thou and I are to be
equal lords when the old gods are gone and the green earth
knoweth Slid. Behold me gleaming azure and fair with a
thousand smiles, and swayed by a thousand moods." And
Tintaggon answered: "I am staunch and black and have one
mood, and this -- to defend my masters and their green
earth."
Then Slid went backward growling and summoned together
the waves of a whole sea and sent them singing full in
Tintaggon's face. Then from Tintaggon's marble front the
sea fell backwards crying on to a broken shore, and ripple
by ripple straggled back to Slid saying: "Tintaggon stands."
Far out beyond the battered shore that lay at Tintaggon's
feet Slid rested long and sent the nautilus to drift up and
down before Tintaggon's eyes, and he and his armies sat
singing idle songs of dreamy islands far away to the south,
and of the still stars whence they had stolen forth, of
twilight evenings and of long ago. Still Tintaggon stood
with his feet planted fair upon the valley's edge defending
the gods and Their green earth against the sea.
And all the while that Slid sang his songs and played
with the nautilus that sailed up and down he gathered his
oceans together. One morning as Slid sang of old outrageous
wars and of most enchanting peace and of dreamy islands and
the south wind and the sun, he suddenly launched five oceans
out of the deep all to attack Tintaggon. And the five
oceans sprang upon Tintaggon and passed above his head. One
by one the grip of the oceans loosened, one by one they fell
back into the deep and still Tintaggon stood, and on that
morning the might of all five oceans lay dead at Tintaggon's
feet.
That which Slid had conquered he still held, and there is
now no longer a great green valley in the south, but all
that Tintaggon had guarded against Slid he gave back to the
gods. Very calm the sea lies now about Tintaggon's feet,
where he stands all black amid crumbled cliffs of white,
with red rocks piled about his feet. And often the sea
retreats far out along the shore, and often wave by wave
comes marching in with the sound of the tramping of armies,