Of the Singapore adventure, there is a song to be sung, some day, but we cannot, by taking thought, sing of battles. The song of battle comes when we least expect it, long after or long before the event that is so moving to the heart.
But Singapore is indeed overthrown3 and for two seasons the young men and maidens4 have been back from the Asiatic war front. To some of them, to many, The Golden Book came before they left Springfield. To others it appeared after the last battle, hovering5 above the trenches6 at midnight and there were songs in the air calling them home. Or 306they found it suddenly in their hands in camp shelters, and long litanies and proclamations of the New Springfield and the New Earth flashed upon their souls and burned eternal record there.
It is a gorgeous first of March afternoon and the wind has abated7 for a few hours, and a few buds are out in Washington Park and we are hoping that frost will not nip them in this exceedingly premature8 spring. The lotus pond is still empty and leaden. It flowers only in the height of July but we look to it in hope and with remembrance of other lotus days.
Avanel and I and St. Friend are in the Washington Park Pavilion. The precocious9 spring is in the blood of the ancient saint. He is the youngest of us, the gayest. Avanel is speaking of that morning in front of the blacksmith shop when the great Book fluttered into her arms. “In the fire flaming from the words of that book, I found power to go out and fight for the International Flag, and make that the vengeance10 for the death of my father.”
Now I draw from my coat pocket a tiny duplicate of the book, such as is now in the hands of practically every Springfield citizen, printed by Josephine Windom and Horace 307Andrews. As we three loaf in the pavilion: St. Friend, Avanel and myself, and look at the leaden lotus pond, St. Friend reads aloud the familiar opening sentences of St. Scribe of the Shrines11, who wrote the book in Heaven:—
“I have been long in the jungles of the Celestial12 Zion, speculating on how the ruined mansions13 here, and how the earth itself, might be rebuilt. Yet the true Heaven lies in a single flower, and more and more my speculations14 turn on how my own city, Springfield, may be rebuilt.”
Then St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, at our urging, reads on and on. The volume tells, for instance, how Heaven became a jungle within the lifetime of an ordinary man. The book contains a sermon, which our saint reads to us, on: “Your great great grandson’s neighbors.” It is a volume no more consecutive15 than the Koran. Each dream is written down once for all as it came to the tranced soul of St. Scribe, as he bent16 over the page, with his terrible pen in his hand.
With endless reiteration17 the book denounces the diabolical18 works of the Singaporian sect19 and their conspiring20 against world peace. It pronounces a blessing21 on the predestined victorious22 armies of the World 308Government and prophecies the triumph of their splendid flag.
Moreover, St. Friend reads, not only many of these things, but the sermon on “The Rhythm of the Heart,” and the homily upon “The Good and Evil of Beauty.” He reads the exhortation23 for “The Young Musician who has not learned to Pray,” and the one for “The Young Politician who has not learned to Pray,” and like discourses25 for many other occupations.
And then Avanel and I take turns reading on and on to him through the specific directions for the founding of the schools of the Young Prophets, and the discourse24 on the horror of the angels at all the World Wars, and the tale of how the angels went out to redeem26 the stars from war by surrendering themselves to crucifixion on millions of crosses on millions of suns and stars and planets, and thus within the lifetime of the generation now on earth, Heaven was left a jungle. This is followed by an exhortation to make Springfield a city “worthy of the blood of the crucified poured down upon it.”
But its powers are not directly in its interminable discourses. Always it seems to be a person, not a book, and so, on this afternoon.
309April 10, 2025:—Again it is a goodly afternoon, and we are still hopeful for these precocious buds. As we sit in the sun in the Washington Park Pavilion, Saint Friend, the Giver of Bread, tells us of the visions that came seven years ago.
“I remember the Halloween of 2018, and the next few days, as no other period in my life. I was in the Cathedral all the night, praying before the Image of St. Scribe of the Shrines. And toward morning it took on the appearance of breathing human flesh, but was Hunter Kelly of long ago, in the hunter’s cap and deerskin dress, such as he wore when he came to Illinois two centuries ago.”
And so Hunter Kelly, St. Scribe of the Shrines, made me forget all else, telling me stories of the tomorrow of Illinois and giving clear prophecies of the tomorrow of the Cathedral, in the city and the nation and the world. He spoke27 of saints of the pattern of Abraham Lincoln, and Johnny Appleseed, foreordained to live and breathe beneath our Cathedral roof, before the ever living presence on the altar. Then he gave me the joy of confession28, and seemed to be St. Scribe, the master of my youth. Then all was darkness and sleep.
“In the early morning I woke from my 310trance and found myself lying on the floor of the Cathedral. The Image of Hunter Kelly-St. Scribe was gone from the niche29.
“In the late morning, when I found myself reading his Golden Book to the people, it seemed as though I had known its every word for infinite years.
“I read on and on. When I closed the book and dismissed the people, they went out singing through the streets ‘Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame.’
“As I stood alone in the church, a vision of the war came to me.
“The angel of the Cathedral came down from the carved niche near the roof. By many signs she was, indeed, the angel of Illinois. The stone was transformed into a presence, delicate as the milkweed silk, ruddy as the sunrise. Her hair was the hue30 of red corn. Her wind blown mantle31 was the color of ripe wheat. Her wings were like those of the white eagle. Her eyes were dark as the deep-digged mine. Her smile was the beginning of visions.
“Circling her temple was an opalescent32 crown, twenty white stars, with the twenty-first over the forehead, with the red blood of Hunter Kelly in the heart’s core of it.
“Above her head appeared a great hand, swinging a censer through the roof and 311walls of the building. The Angel of the Cathedral said to me, as she stood beside me:—‘This is the Censer of Change. A great change is coming to Illinois and the Capital of Illinois.’
“The smoke poured out and filled the streets. It penetrated33 every grove35 of Springfield. It beat in the blood of every living creature.
“The Angel of Illinois said:—‘This is the Incense36 of Civic37 Genius. The city shall be barren no longer but bring forth38.’
“Then through the roof, as though there were a censer higher than the first, clouds of many colors descended39. These became gorgeous cloud-winged children in wonderful, gleaming silks, flying through the walls. And in the same stream Gothic grotesques40 walked and crawled down the aisles41 and out into the streets, all singing: ‘Springfield Awake, Springfield Aflame.’
“The angel of the Cathedral said: ‘These are the children of the New Time and their playmates, the beasts of Innocent Fancy.’
“Then the dusty stone cherubim and seraphim42 that stood by the pillars of the church, with their dusty cold trumpets43, took on life. They blew a long awakening44 cry. Every note was a delicate and heart-shaking surprise. 312Then from above the high altar, from a fire which burned round the Host on the altar, there came soldiers of Heaven, in very ancient armor, but with newly pierced hands.
“The Angel of the Cathedral, the Angel of Illinois, said: ‘These are they who shall live invisibly by every hearth45 and table throughout the Capital.’
“There burst from the pavement smoke and dust and stones, and from there arose the great glass image of the cocaine46 Buddha47. Immobile as any other stone, he was yet carried by invisible hands. He and his company rushed with a great whistling like the hissing48 of serpents. They went out through the walls into the streets as though the walls were nothing. They had many kinds of monsters with them, and strangely singing birds of paradise, and lions with poison quills49.
“The Angel of Illinois said to me: ‘This glass image will turn to dust.’ Yet for every angel at a hearth of the city there will be a demon50, a quilled lion, and a singing bird of paradise. These will eat invisibly at your tables and hearths51, feeding upon the words and thoughts of the household. They will breathe hell’s breath into the faces of the children. But the Angel Soldiers of Heaven 313who have marched from out the High Altar will be with the people also.
“These powers will be in perpetual truce52 and perpetual war in every house in the Capital. But open war between nations and races of men will soon be ended forever.
“These lions have crept and ramped53 through the dark valleys of Heaven and they have the seeds of sweet flowers clinging to their feet and these singing birds of paradise have flown through the dark trees of heaven, and have the seeds of rare trees clinging to their pinions54.
“These censers that have swung over the raw capital, will swing over many another this day, and the angel soldiers will appear in many another city around the world, and by many a far off hearthstone and family and tribal55 table, with their demon foes56 beside them, in perpetual truce, and perpetual war.”
May 15:—The premature, precocious buds and green twigs57 of the year are surviving this perilous58 spring. There are showers and carpets of every kind of blossom. It seems more like June fifteenth than May fifteenth. Beautiful people, mothers and children, boys and girls, in the lightest and whitest of summer masquerading costumes are walking and dancing over the whitest, cleanest streets our 314city has ever known. But the Lady Avanel and I confess to one another, as of old, that these days are not the millennium59, however gay they seem to be.
And yet my lady, this evening, becomes a thing not quite of this earth, a spirit, yet a sower in earthly fields.
I whisper: “Lady Avanel, Miss Fantastic, while the star chimes are ringing another new tune60, what are you sowing from your close-woven willow61 basket so full of seed?” The lady speaks with the voice of the wind:—“I am sowing the torturing thistle of dreams. Some men do not see this city as it is, because they have walked in easy and stupid ways. They have never walked, as we do this evening, while the Thistle of Dreams comes up. We see it springing from the ground in an instant. It will go in an hour. But if we touch it we are blessed and tormented62 forever by newer and newer dreams. And at last our eyes will see this city as it is, a weed patch indeed, but of fancies. And more than a weed patch of fancies,—a forest, but of gigantic dreams.
“The men who can see the dreams build the patterns into visible forms, and then we have the Sunset Towers, and the Truth Tower, and the Street of Past History, and the rest.
315“Then I walk past these buildings and sow new thistle-down and thistles, and they penetrate34 the very concrete of the sidewalk, splitting it for their roots. Then younger men and women are stung with new visions, that make the Sunset Towers seem commonplace, and all but the Springfield Flag, the Star Spangled Banner, and the World Flag, dim things.”
The Thistle of Dreams is growing around Avanel as she speaks. It looks like a gigantic fleur de lis, but from it comes endless silk as though from the pods of the milkweed. She says of that silk: “It is full of thorns sharper than Cupid’s arrows, more transforming than any drug from Asia. They work their way to many a heart and brain. When the young citizens are tormented by these they will build things greater than Springfield has yet looked upon, people’s palaces, as yet without a name.”
“And who are you, Lady Avanel, and by what authority do you speak?”
“I am only the breath of the prairie, I am only the West-going Heart, and by that authority I speak to you, and by that authority I sow the thistle.”
“Lady Avanel, Miss Fantastic, while the star chimes are ringing another new tune, 316what are you sowing from your close woven willow basket, so full of seed?”
“I am sowing the appleseeds of Johnny Appleseed and Hunter Kelly and the Acorns of Rabbi Terence Ezekiel and the seeds of the Golden Rain Tree of New Harmony. But they are now breathed on by the winds of chaos63 and their glory comes suddenly.”
At once in her path appear saplings, then they become full grown trees. And there are many earthquakes, as the boughs64 begin, this very midnight, to bear flowers and fruit. Then come up from the roots explosive scraps65 of earth and volcano coals. Treasure sacks of strange jewels, neither scorched66 nor smoked, are tossed to the surface of the ground. These sacks are full of coins of celestial gold, stamped with a picture of Hunter Kelly, as though he were a President or an Emperor of some strange dominion67.
From each heap of celestial gold come two or three bright spirits with wreaths of tiny leaves or flowers round their baby foreheads, weeping angels, an hour old, little boys, most sturdy and kicking.
And now angels will come to bear them to the houses of the laughing people. Citizens who are not at home will find them later on the table, and in the wood box and in the 317waste-basket, strange little visitors and sons.
“Lady Avanel, Miss Fantastic, what of these children from the sod?”
The lady answers: “These are the laughter of earth and heaven.
“These children will grow in stature68 and beauty for twenty years. And then these little sons of God will see the daughters of men, that they are fair, as it was in the book of Genesis, at the very beginning of time. The next generation of men in Springfield, born of the loves of these angels and daughters of the city, will be giants like Nimrod. These giants will drive out the former institutions with their own swords, forged for this special war. That generation will build many mansions of divine beauty, sheltering men and near-angels alike. And the houses of magical or heavenly aspect will mix with the plain, grimy or earthen houses:—for the generations of Springfield will be forever a mixed breed.”
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1
acorns
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| n.橡子，栎实( acorn的名词复数 ) | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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overthrown
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| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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4
maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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5
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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6
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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7
abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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shrines
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| 圣地，圣坛，神圣场所( shrine的名词复数 ) | |
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12
celestial
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| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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14
speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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15
consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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17
reiteration
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| n. 重覆, 反覆, 重说 | |
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18
diabolical
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| adj.恶魔似的，凶暴的 | |
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sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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conspiring
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| 密谋( conspire的现在分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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21
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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exhortation
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| n.劝告，规劝 | |
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discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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25
discourses
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| 论文( discourse的名词复数 )； 演说； 讲道； 话语 | |
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26
redeem
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| v.买回，赎回，挽回，恢复，履行（诺言等） | |
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27
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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28
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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29
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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30
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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31
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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32
opalescent
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| adj.乳色的，乳白的 | |
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33
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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34
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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35
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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36
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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civic
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| adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的 | |
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38
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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39
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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40
grotesques
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| n.衣着、打扮、五官等古怪，不协调的样子( grotesque的名词复数 ) | |
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41
aisles
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| n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊 | |
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42
seraphim
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| n.六翼天使(seraph的复数)；六翼天使( seraph的名词复数 ) | |
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43
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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44
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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45
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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46
cocaine
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| n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂） | |
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47
Buddha
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| n.佛；佛像；佛陀 | |
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48
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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49
quills
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| n.（刺猬或豪猪的）刺( quill的名词复数 )；羽毛管；翮；纡管 | |
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50
demon
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| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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51
hearths
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| 壁炉前的地板，炉床，壁炉边( hearth的名词复数 ) | |
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52
truce
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| n.休战，(争执，烦恼等的)缓和；v.以停战结束 | |
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53
ramped
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| 土堤斜坡( ramp的过去式和过去分词 )； 斜道； 斜路； （装车或上下飞机的）活动梯 | |
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54
pinions
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| v.抓住[捆住]（双臂）( pinion的第三人称单数 ) | |
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55
tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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56
foes
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| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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57
twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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58
perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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59
millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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60
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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61
willow
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| n.柳树 | |
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62
tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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63
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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64
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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66
scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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67
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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