BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.
61
5. Rejoice and eing, for only tlius conldst thou rightly guard the golden knowledge, Truth, the delicate pearl and the adamantine jewel of the Law-
III. THE SOWER.
1. Over a boundless plain went a man, carrying seed.
2. Hi a face waa blackened by son and ragged from tempest, scarred and distorted by pain. Naked to the loina, his back was ridged with fur- rows, hia breaat was plowed with stripes.
3. From his hand dropped the fecund seed.
4. And behold, instantly started from the pre- pared soil a blade, a sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspiring tree. Its arms touched the ends of the horizon, the heavens were darkened with its shadow.
5. It bare blossoms of gold and blossoms of blood, fmitage of health and fruitt^e of poison ; birds sang amid its foliage, and a serpent was coiled about ita stem.
6. Under its branches a divinely beaatifol man, crowned with thoma, waa nailed to a croaa.
7. And the tree put forth treacherous boughs to strangle the Sower ; his fleah was bruised and torn, but cunningly he disentangled the murder- ous knot and passed to the eastward.
8. Again there dropped from his hand the fecund seed.