them, and some also
of the people of the place. And as the little Pilgrim found herself
walking by a woman who was of these last, she asked her what it was.

And the woman told her it was a poet who had come to say to them what had
been revealed to him, and that the two with the silver trumpets were
angels of the musicians' order, whose office it was to proclaim
everything that was new, that the people should know. And many of those
who were at work in the palaces came out and joined the crowd, and the
painter who had showed the little Pilgrim his picture, and many whose
faces she began to be acquainted with. The poet stood up upon a beautiful
pedestal all sculptured in stone, and with wreaths of living flowers hung
upon it--and when the crowd had gathered in front of him, he began his
poem. He told them that it was not about this land, or anything that
happened in it, which they knew as he did, but that it was a story of the
old time, when men were walking in darkness, and when no one knew the
true meaning even of what he himself did, but had to go on as if blindly,
stumbling and groping with their hands. And "Oh, brethren," he said,
"though all is more beautiful and joyful here where we know, yet to
remember the days when we knew not, and the ways when all was uncertain,
and the end could not be distinguished from the beginning, is sweet and
dear; and that which was done in the dim twilight should be celebrated in
the day; and our Father himself loves to hear of those who, having not
seen, loved, and who learned without any teacher, and followed the light,
though they did not understand."

And then he told them the story of one who had lived in the old time; and
in that air, which seemed to be made of sunshine, and amid all those
stately palaces, he described to them the little earth which they had
left behind--the skies that were covered with clouds, and the ways that
were so rough and stony, and the cruelty of the oppressor, and the cries
of those that were oppressed. And he showed the sickness and the
troubles, and the sorrow and danger; and how Death stalked about, and
tore heart from heart; and how sometimes the strongest would fail, and
the truest fall under the power of a lie, and the tenderest forget to be
kind; and how evil things lurked in every corner to beguile the dwellers
there; and how the days were short and the nights dark, and life so
little that by the time a man had learned something it was his ho