Yet will these people soon have a
tyrant over them, if long they cleave to war. Of many javelins, one
must prove a scepter; of many helmets, one a crown. It is but in the
wearing.--Refill, my lord."

"Fools, fools!" cried Media, "these tribes hate us kings; yet know
not, that Peace is War against all kings. We seldom are undone by
spears, which are our ministers.--This wine is strong."

"Ha, now's the time! In his cups learn king-craft from a king. Ay, ay,
my lord, your royal order will endure, so long as men will fight.
Break the spears, and free the nations. Kings reap the harvests that
wave on battle-fields. And oft you kings do snatch the aloe-flower,
whose slow blossoming mankind watches for a hundred years.--Say on, my
lord."

"All this I know; and, therefore, rest content. My children's children
will be kings; though, haply, called by other titles. Mardi grows
fastidious in names: we royalties will humor it. The steers
would burst their yokes, but have not hands. The whole herd rears and
plunges, but soon will bow again: the old, old way!"

"Yet, in Porpheero, strong scepters have been wrested from anointed
hands. Mankind seems in arms."

"Let them arm on. They hate us:--good;--they always have; yet still
we've reigned, son after sire. Sometimes they slay us, Babbalanja;
pour out our marrow, as I this wine; but they spill no kinless blood.
'Twas justly held of old, that but to touch a monarch, was to strike
at Oro.--Truth. The palest vengeance is a royal ghost; and regicides
but father slaves. Thrones, not scepters, have been broken. Mohi, what
of the past? Has it not ever proved so?"

"Pardon, my lord; the times seem changed. 'Tis held, that demi-gods no
more rule by right divine. In Vivenza's land, they swear the last
kings now reign in Mardi."

"Is the last day at hand, old man? Mohi, your beard is gray; but,
Yoomy, listen. When you die, look around; mark then if any mighty
change be seen. Old kingdoms may be on the wane; but new dynasties
advance. Though revolutions rise to high spring-tide, monarchs will
still drown hard;--monarchs survived the flood!"

"Are all our dreams, then, vain?" sighed Yoomy. "Is this no dawn of
day that streaks the crimson East! Naught but the false and flickering
lights which sometimes mock Aurora in the north! Ah, man, my brother!
have all martyrs for thee bled in vain; in vain we poets sang, and
prophets spoken? Nay, nay; great Mardi, helmed and mailed, strikes at
Op