PILGRIM, THE night of the weary old year is ended. The blazing sun brings on your path the call of the Destroyer, the fiery scourge for pollutions of the past. A thin line of distance stretches along the road like a fine-drawn note from the one-stringed lute of a beggar seeking the way he has lost. Let the grey dust of the road take you up in her arms, lead you away from the clasp of clinging reluctance! Not for you is the music of the home, the light of the evening lamp, the wistful gaze of the lover keeping watch. You have ever claimed the boon of Life which is not in pleasure nor in peace or comfort, wherefore the time has come for you for rejection at every door. The Cruel One has come, the bolts and bars of your gate are broken, your wine vessel shattered; take his hand whom you do not know and dare not understand. Never fear, pilgrim! Turn not away from the terror of Truth, nor be afraid of the phantom of the unreal, take your last gift from him who takes away everything. Has the old night ended? Then let it end!
THERE ON THE crest of the hill stands the Man of faith amid the snow-white silence, He scans the sky for some signal of light, and when the clouds thicken and the nightbirds scream as they fly he cries, 'Brothers, despair not, for Man is great.' But they never heed him, for they believe that the elemental brute is eternal and goodness in its depth is darkly cunning in deception. When beaten and wounded they cry, 'Brother, where art thou?' The answer comes, 'I am by your side.' But they cannot see in the dark and they argue that the voice is of their own desperate desire, that men are ever condemned to fight for phantoms in an interminable desert of mutual menace.
