’There comes not Time with his devouring hours; nor any of the evils of the gods or men.  These are the islands whereto the souls of the sailors every night put in from all the world to rest from going up and down the seas, to behold again the vision of far-off intimate hills that lift their orchards high above the fields facing the sunlight, and for a while again to speak with the souls of old.  But about the dawn dreams twitter and arise, and circling thrice around the Happy Isles set out again to find the world of men, then follow the souls of the sailors, as, at evening, with slow stroke of stately wings the heron follows behind the flight of multitudinous rooks; but the souls returning find awakening bodies and endure the toil of the day.  Such are the Happy Isles, whereunto few have come, save but as roaming shadows in the night, and for only a little while.

’But longer than is needed to make me strong and fierce again I may not stay, and at set of sun, when my arms are strong again, and when I feel in my legs that I can plant them fair and bent upon the floor of ocean, then I go back to take a new grip upon the waters of the Straits, and to guard the Further Seas again for a hundred years.  Because the gods are jealous, lest too many men shall pass to the Happy Isles and find content. For the gods have not content.’

The Hurricane

One night I sat alone on the great down, looking over the edge of it at a murky, sullen city.  All day long with its smoke it had troubled the holy sky, and now it sat there roaring in the distance and glared at me with its furnaces and lighted factory windows.  Suddenly I became aware that I was not the only enemy of that city, for I perceived the colossal form of the Hurricane walking over the down towards me, playing idly with the flowers as he passed, and near me he stopped and spake to the Earthquake, who had come up mole-like but vast out of a cleft in the earth.

‘Old friend,’ said the Hurricane, ’rememberest when we wrecked the nations and drave the herds of the sea into new pasturage?’

‘Yes,’ said the Earthquake, drowsily; ‘Yes, yes.’

‘Old friend,’ said the Hurricane, ’there are cities everywhere.  Over thy head while thou didst sleep they have built them constantly.  My four children the Winds suffocate with the fumes of them, the valleys are desolate of flowers, and the lovely forests are cut down since last we went abroad together.’

The Earthquake lay there, with his snout towards the city, blinking at the lights, while the tall Hurricane stood beside him pointing fiercely at it.

‘Come,’ said the Hurricane, ’let us fare forth again and destroy them, that all the lovely forests may come back and the furry creeping things.  Thou shalt whelm these cities utterly and drive the people forth, and I will smite them in the shelterless places and sweep their desecrations from the sea.  Wilt thou come forth with me and do this thing for the glory of it?  Wilt thou wreck the world again as we did, thou and I, or ever Man had come?  Wilt thou come forth to this place at this hour tomorrow night?’