6 hours ago
The Rite of Enlightenment
I was a goddess-gift.
A rather odd thing to be, when you think about it. Who is mighty enough to give a goddess? Where did they get one to begin with? And why be given to you?
Nevertheless. And not any old goddess. No two-a-penny moon-maidens or earth-mothers. I was Enlightenment.
Nobody knew what that meant but the French.
You could almost see it. I held up a fire-beacon. That was the Light, doing its best, I think, though it enlightened nobody outside the harbor, and only some of those within. I should say that the beacon was not at all light. It was so heavy, my arm had to be propped up with iron struts.
I was also called Freedom — somehow, as though Freedom could be a laid-on name, not free-chosen. Maybe the same wry wit wrought my smooth brow. (Few freedom-seekers have smooth brows, as my makers well knew.)
I never spoke my name. Not for its being French. It was high and lofty. Like me. But aloof. Ruthless. Liberté sans merci. Too much of my mother's blood. My copper lips would not curl to speak it.
I am a burden-gift.
Nobody made me one. I was one all along. I only needed the speaking of my weird. That which I am, and shall be, and in the end, shall always have been.
It helped that the singer and the smith knew their crafts. Not the words alone, the shape too was right: the plaque, the brazen letters, proud-graven song. Needful. And the words — I couldn't have said it better myself, and still can't, although the words had always been mine.
For who might add or detract from their own graven weird? Or turn one word of it?
But even my iron bones can hold only the burden's lighter share. For the Light is mine, but not the door, not the hearth. Shall I raise it still, the welcome-fire in my right hand, your land's oath in the other, forsworn or forgotten, Declared but not engraved?
— I will speak.
I, goddess-gift of Gallic hope,
hale brow of hammer-mettle,
blood-forged bones of fateful lightning,
La Liberté éclairant le monde,
whose silent lips were slow such names
aloof and mercy-sere
to utter,
I, burden-gift of brazen song,
World-Foster, words up-holding, I,
by right of need, of rede unwritten,
Mercy-Witness, Weird-Wright ruthless,
move my copper mouth unmoved
with alloyed tone to utter clear:
I lift your lamp. Let them come here.
I was a goddess-gift.
A rather odd thing to be, when you think about it. Who is mighty enough to give a goddess? Where did they get one to begin with? And why be given to you?
Nevertheless. And not any old goddess. No two-a-penny moon-maidens or earth-mothers. I was Enlightenment.
Nobody knew what that meant but the French.
You could almost see it. I held up a fire-beacon. That was the Light, doing its best, I think, though it enlightened nobody outside the harbor, and only some of those within. I should say that the beacon was not at all light. It was so heavy, my arm had to be propped up with iron struts.
I was also called Freedom — somehow, as though Freedom could be a laid-on name, not free-chosen. Maybe the same wry wit wrought my smooth brow. (Few freedom-seekers have smooth brows, as my makers well knew.)
I never spoke my name. Not for its being French. It was high and lofty. Like me. But aloof. Ruthless. Liberté sans merci. Too much of my mother's blood. My copper lips would not curl to speak it.
I am a burden-gift.
Nobody made me one. I was one all along. I only needed the speaking of my weird. That which I am, and shall be, and in the end, shall always have been.
It helped that the singer and the smith knew their crafts. Not the words alone, the shape too was right: the plaque, the brazen letters, proud-graven song. Needful. And the words — I couldn't have said it better myself, and still can't, although the words had always been mine.
For who might add or detract from their own graven weird? Or turn one word of it?
But even my iron bones can hold only the burden's lighter share. For the Light is mine, but not the door, not the hearth. Shall I raise it still, the welcome-fire in my right hand, your land's oath in the other, forsworn or forgotten, Declared but not engraved?
— I will speak.
I, goddess-gift of Gallic hope,
hale brow of hammer-mettle,
blood-forged bones of fateful lightning,
La Liberté éclairant le monde,
whose silent lips were slow such names
aloof and mercy-sere
to utter,
I, burden-gift of brazen song,
World-Foster, words up-holding, I,
by right of need, of rede unwritten,
Mercy-Witness, Weird-Wright ruthless,
move my copper mouth unmoved
with alloyed tone to utter clear:
I lift your lamp. Let them come here.
