OUR WEARY DEITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 79, 1 April 1908, Page 6

OUR WEARY DEITY.

By RANGATIRA. Lolling idly on a spur of the Andes, well south of Lima, towards the Cuzco side of the mountains, I watched the wide sunny vista of prairie. There was little of life in sight—a herd of buck and a soaring eagle, high in the blue. Presently a little cloud of dust hove up; it came nearer—its maker travelled fast. When the clouds neared the foothills and began the long ascent, I watched it, wondering. Was it a man, a stag, a god, fleet-footed, or what? The long, even stride made mc think of winged feet, and as the last dry tussocks were covered, he I flung a magnificent length of limb and muscle at my side. "Fagged?" "Fagged clean out!" ; "From the North?" "From a she devil. But I've stopped her this time." A glint of self-congratulation in his blue gaze. "Lor', but I am tired," and he rolled on his side, his ginger-gold head buried in a tussock. He slept. Civilisation again, with its whalebone and stay laces; things seems tight after the pampas, and Time is so short that it is done up in parcels and labelled Our red-haired, serious-eyed god — Amusement—is hunting us hard, driven by his stern High Priestess Fashion, that dame of shifting eye and many loves. The god is determined, full of purpose, his slate blue eyes are full of grim eagerness, for his priestess has long since killed his happy vagrant moods, when his sunny, gay, careless youth lounged on the hillside and splashed in mountain pools, when he trod light-footed, lush grass banks, and hollows full of blackberries where the black, purple-lustred bunches caught morning dews, and frost fringe lay on coppery leaf and scarlet. Aye, be was a charming playfellow, loving the windy hill tops, loving indeed all things. Then a dainty lady caught him and made herself his mistress, his Arguseyed priestess, and made him old. She lassooed him and taught him ugly wiles and took him tp dim, yellow-lighted houses, hotels, and corners. For a little he enjoyed it, then longed and yawned for long hill chains and veldt, and rivers broad and deep.

Amusement, dear god, belongs to no man singly, to no class or sect; he loves to idle in and out with all men, friend to child and saint and sinner, all alike. But Fashion sought him, wooed him hard, and bound him to her flying chariot wheels and changed her course so quickly that in his mad race to keep afoot, he dropped his cloak of youth, and the dancing sun-flecks died in his straining eyes.

"Stop, while I rest on yonder hill side and watch the new leaves and lambs, and coquette with those boys and lassies," gasped he. But his mistress, busy with her reins and horses, flung him a glance down her shoulder.

No, no Amusement, no time, the Socialists would trap you, or the Trade Unions would steal you, and Labour would, chain you up until she rules, when, spoilt, old, decadent, vice-scorched and ailing, she would bring you forth and bid you dance to her preposterous fiddling. No, my fair young blue-glanced god, Time and the middle class have touched you, and Labour hurries close behind. Come, forget regrets and your long string of childish merriments, the herd of tricks Europe and the other five have taught you. Those days are over, and your mission lies before you—to string the world's muscle to tension, to murder ennui, to drown old clogging satiety in exercise to call sleep to waking eyes by the glorious forgettable _ <;f Bridge.

"Oh, I'm aweary, I wish that I were dead," groaned the tired god.

"What ails thee, my Singing Bird?" Art tired of success?"

"Yes, dear Fashion, I have found its husks. You tell mc my duty lies in going to excess, in exercise to fitness worthy of the ring. The world isn't half so nice a place since you instituted competition, and made friends fly at each other's throats. Cut my tether line, and leave mc, priestess, to rest a while." The god sighed, and laid his long length in the dust. The priestess, full of serpents' wiles, came down from her chariot, and took the tired head upon her knees, and soothed him, and coo'd soft flatteries. As she smoothed his hair, she found it full of grey; pace kills even such as he, and down the lithe limbs, relaxed in weariness, crept a tell-tale thinness. The god was sick. Morning dawned on long hills, and night's dew mists stole away. A bird piped and sang to sunbeams, fair on flower and field. It was full day, and the god slept on. Millions of. people crept over the hills, seeking their errant god They formed a motley crowd—gay huntsmen booted and spurredglorious horses bitted andchaffing at metal, dear white packs, shimmering, black and tan rnottlings, sterns waving, giving .tongue now and again as the scent lies on the dews. Ah, glorious music of fallow and fern. "Forward. For'-ard-'.'-r Amonj; the crowding, .-votaries come

golfing men and women, fine,-keen and straight of eye, strong of arm and swing; talking loud of "putting green" and "cleek" and "holes," Cheeks of tan and wrists of iron and rude health adorn them, and they reek of airy hilltops and sun and no pettiness. Here are old, patient cricketers, flannelled, and mumbling of wicket and run. There lurches a footballer, thick and broad of muscle and face; a meagre jockey lad, pinched of face and bandy of leg. Still, they come, guns and Ashing rods, mallet and racket and bat. A merry, dirty guttersnipe, his pocket full of marbles. In a far ravine, half lost in the remnant of night's fog, lag those hol-low-eyed and vagrant soulcd rays of pleasure, with glint of roulette and liquor overdone, in fact all the friends of Madame Vice, who play for life in thick slices, with the three instruments Madame uses so cleverly. The High Priestess hears thei:- voices, sees them come, a vast sea of humans, eager for their sport. On her knees Amusement sleeps, wrapt in a sulky drowse, a hopeless forgetfulnes_. "Go home," she says, "your god is ill. Leave him to sleep." The vast million turns away, and soon the wide vale is bare. Soon on the hills steal velvet-footed tigers, for no pucra shikari is near to hunt them, and they laze, like great orange, black-striped cat*, : in the sun, closing hot, green-fired eyes : in peace. Pheasants chuck and challenge happily iv their ferny coverts, and merry hares and foxes take the trail, softly padding the sweet, grassy slopes. Far away, in cityland, clubmen, yawning for occupation, turn them to the pen and plough, and women slack their restlessness in growing beautiful in skin and mind and 'home. Still sleeps Amusement, and Fashion murmurs "Hush!" Down on the far horizon creeps up a strange human collection. The Masses, seeking our god, the god of the classes. They are strange to look at, many oi them fine to see—huge labourers, immense of muscle, shapen on the wheel of toil. Women, tired-eyed, flat of form, pale of skin, new from the whirl of mc- j chanieal grind, factory licked, unknow-■ ing, ungrowing. Mothers, not too many of these, hollow-eyed, hollow bosomed, leading listless, lagging children by the hand, valiant-hearted and fighting grim circumstance. The Masses are come, millions, tired of labour, weary in mind, sick to the verge of disaster for a sight of the god. Then he. Amusement, wakes and throws his high priestess into a swamp, _nd he speaks to the Masses and tells

I) them he Is useless, if not found through ; ! thjeir work and. after it. But the IJ Masses know better, and catch him, and 1 j dress him in red, and run up the flag of 1 J anarchy, and daace the Daaiee of Revolu--3 I tion, and groan, and threaten, and make , an ugly. orgy. They cut, and kill, and - burn, till Amusement leaves them, and \ goes away to dwell in cool, deep pine 1 groves where children and, wise people I come and-play with him. So Classes and , Masses do without him, till they woo , 'him as he wishes. Amusement is a. hand- > some god, and fair of face when let alone 1 He loves simplicity, and loves'real workj ers, and is a rare chum to humans when - they are sick or sorry. But he doesn't f like his worship overdone or cha-nged too f often.