Gothic Angel Tomb
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Gothic AngelGothic Angel Tomb
THE GOTHIC ANGEL TOMB OF PAN
"Seeing," they said, "that old-time Pan is dead, let us now make
a gothic angel tomb for him and a monument, that the dreadful worship of long
ago may be remembered and avoided by all."
So said the people of the enlightened lands. And they built a
white and mighty gothic tomb of marble. Slowly it rose under the hands
of the builders and longer every evening after sunset it gleamed with
rays of the departed sun.
And many mourned for Pan while the builders built; many reviled
him. Some called the builders to cease and to weep for Pan and
others called them to leave no memorial at all of so infamous a god.
But the builders built on steadily.
And one day all was finished, and the gothic angel tomb stood there like a
steep sea-cliff. And Pan was carved thereon with humbled head
and the feet of gothic angels pressed upon his neck. And when the gothic tomb
was finished the sun had already set, but the afterglow was rosy on
the huge bulk of Pan.
And presently all the enlightened people came, and saw the gothic tomb
and remembered Pan who was dead, and all deplored him and his
wicked age. But a few wept apart because of the death of Pan.
But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow
softly along the hills, Pan saw the gothic tomb and laughed.
THE WORM AND THE GOTHIC ANGEL
As he crawled from the gothic tombs of the fallen a worm met with a gothic angel.
And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths
and maidens and the cities of men.
They saw the old men heavy in
their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far
wars and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and wickedness, and
the pomp of kings, and the people of all the lands that the sunlight knew.
And the worm spake to the gothic angel saying: "Behold my food."
"Be dakeon para Thina poluphloisboio Thalassaes," murmured the
gothic angel, for they walked by the sea, "and can you destroy that too?"
And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for for
three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its
melody was ringing in his head.
By: Lord Dunsany, Fifty-One Tales, 1915.
