Young Ofeg's Ditties/Ditty 7

​I stood and gazed upon the world and marvelled at its beauty; as it lay stretched before me it was like unto a precious gold ornament upon a cushion of azure velvet.

Suddenly a shadow dropped over everything. Methought, for I knew the noon drew near, that it was but a cloud crossing the sun; but on looking about me, I discovered that it was the century darkening to its close, and all round me silence gathered as before a storm, and I heard voices muttering, voices that never reached me through the tumult of the day.

First a voice came from afar, ay, as if from the uttermost end of the world behind the horizon.

"Why are men so troubled?"

It answered from the East, it answered from the West, it murmured in the South, and it thundered in the North:—

​"They are children afraid of the night when the storm draws near."

And again a voice sounded, but this time a solitary voice behind me, and so near that I turned round.

"Why have we forgotten to rejoice?"

I was about to reply myself, but it was answered from the East, it was answered from the West, it murmured in the South, and it thundered in the North:—

"Men have no time to rejoice!"

But when the noise had died away, I heard a mournful voice repeat the question very softly in my right ear:—

"Tell me, you, why can men never more rejoice?"

And my soul swelled with trouble and was filled with tears.

"For this reason," said I, "we shrink when the great happiness falls to our share, and we never can meet it face to face without feeling the talons of the bird of terror clutching at our soul."