And thus twelve days were past, and now the seer Of the great change he saw was drawing near Informed his King, who read to him the prayers, And for the end each friendly act prepares, Then said: "O my Heabani, dearest friend, I would that I thy body could defend From thy fierce foe that brings the end to thee. My friend in battle I may never see Again, when thou didst nobly stand beside Me; with my seer and friend I then defied All foes; and must thou leave thy friend, my seer?" "Alas! my King, I soon shall leave thee here."
[Footnote 1: We have here quoted an Accadian hymn to the goddess of fate. ("Trans. Soc. of Bib. Arch.," vol. ii. p. 39.)]
[Footnote 3: Accadian hymn on the future of the just. ("Trans. Soc. of Bib. Arch.," vol. ii. p. 32.)]
[Footnote 4: Assyrian fragmentary hymn ("W.A.I.," iv. 25, col. v.), translated in "Records of the Past," vol. xi. pp. 161, 162.]
[Footnote 5: The land of Mas, Mr. Sayce supposes, was situated west of the Euphrates Valley.]
[Footnote 6: "Dragons." The word for this animal is "tammabuk-ku." It was probably one of the monsters portrayed on the Babylonian cylinders now in the British Museum.]
HEABANI REVEALS TWO WONDERFUL VISIONS TO THE KING, ONE OF DEATH AND OBLIVION, AND THE OTHER OF HEAVEN, AND DIES IN THE ARMS OF THE KING
"But, oh, my King! to thee I now reveal A secret that my heart would yet conceal, To thee, my friend, two visions I reveal: The first I oft have dreamed beneath some spell Of night, when I enwrapped from all the world, With Self alone communed. Unconscious hurled By winged thought beyond this present life, I seeming woke in a Dark World where rife Was Nothingness,--a darksome mist it seemed, All eke was naught;--no light for me there gleamed; And floating 'lone, which way I turned, saw naught; Nor felt of substance 'neath my feet, nor fraught With light was Space around; nor cheerful ray Of single star. The sun was quenched; or day Or night, knew not. No hands had I, nor feet, Nor head, nor body, all was void. No heat Or cold I felt, no form could feel or see; And naught I knew but conscious entity. No boundary my being felt, or had; And speechless, deaf, and blind, and formless, sad, I floated through dark space,--a conscious blank! No breath of air my spirit moved; I sank I knew not where, till motionless I ceased At last to move, and yet I could not rest, Around me spread the Limitless, and Vast. My cheerless, conscious spirit,--fixed and fast In some lone spot in space was moveless, stark! An atom chained by forces stern and dark, With naught around me. Comfortless I lived In my dread loneliness! Oh, how I grieved! And thus, man's fate in Life and Death is solved With naught but consciousness, and thus involved All men in hopes that no fruition have? And this alone was all that death me gave? That all had vanished, gone from me that life Could give, and left me but a blank, with strife Of rising thoughts, and vain regrets, to float;-- Away from life and light, be chained remote!