PALINGENESIS
The lodge of Olelbis is very great and beautiful:
Its pillars are the trunks of acorned oak-trees, upward growing;
Its walls are interwoven with all the flowers of the world;
In its midst there is a limpid pool
Formed from the dews that glide downward from the laden petals——
Who drinks thereof, he lives forever.
In the days of the First People
Fire was under the wing of the Swift;
Thence Flint stole it,
And the World was enkindled.
From his lodge in the sky Olelbis gazed downwards:
The hills were smoking,
The tops of the trees were blazing,
The rocks were consumed as burning brush
And the earth, bursting, flew upward in furious sparks which clung to the vault of the sky,——
The stars that glow by night are the embers of them.
Then Olelbis saw that the flames assailed the foundations of the heavens;
The pillars of his lodge were shaking,
The pillars of his lodge were burning,——
And his voice sounded around the World.
The Woman of the Waters was the first to hear:
Her hair is like the kelp which the waves spew forth in their tumult;
Her hands are like the fins of huge whales;
Her feet are like the tail-flukes of huge whales;
When she thrashes amid the sea the foam of the billows washes the sky-floor.
The Man of the North Wind was the first to hear:
His wings are like the wings of enormous bats,
They are blacker than night is black;
When he blows furiously his cheek feathers move up and down,
Sweeping earth and sky.
Against mountains of fire arose mountains of water;
They fought with one another,
They consumed one another;
Red smoke hung over all things;
Black smoke hung over all things.
Then Olelbis, gazing downward, beheld only ashes;
There was no earth where the earth had been;
There was no sea where the sea had been;
There was nought save the dusk of floating ashes.
From the walls of the lodge of Olelbis
The flowers descended like a many-colored snow;
From the Pool of Life
The round drops descended in a shining mist:
Life was renewed where Life had been.