The Heart Of Earth first appeared in
The Saturday Review, London, July 1909. It was one of the stories we at
Pegana Press were privileged to add to our collection of previously uncollected works entitled
Lost Tales Volume 1 by Lord Dunsany.
It begins thus.
As the poet walked through the moist, grey town thinking of Faëry and imperious Death, he saw the unthought-of pavement, monotonous, wet, clad with dirt, desolate. And, thinking of the long time that they had lain there under unheeding feet, unprotected by soil or grass against the will of the rain, he, being at peace because it was now evening, pitied the old grey stones. And the pavement felt his pity. Every stone felt it; stone told it unto stone for quite a mile. It had been trodden on for two hundred years by dogs as well as men, it had been spat upon and covered with filth, but had not before been pitied.
Deep in it's core it felt the poet's pity; it had felt an earthquake less.
Lord Dunsany shares through his potent writing the ability of creating a portal which transports us into the very setting of the story itself. Anyone who has walked a lonely road lost in thought will recognize this realm. The smell of the wet pavement - rain on stone. The feel of footsteps meandering as the mind follows its own fancy. The power of connection that is the very fabric of reality - that which communicates the feeling of the poet through a network of stone conveying information further down the road.
We are told the poet's thoughts go wandering off into other realms, while the pavement fairly bristles with indignation.
"What is this that dares to pity the heart of Earth? A thing of a few years and the toy of Time!
Is not Earth's heart of the lineage of the stars?..."
And we are allowed audience as the Earth waxes poetic about what it has seen throughout time.
"...What love should Earth's heart have for the hearts of men, who have chosen cities as their foster-mothers, rejecting Earth?..."
Lord Dunsany was a story teller who could make his point in under 1000 words and he wrote a wealth of material in short story format.
The Heart Of Earth appears in Lost Tales Volume 1 published by Pegana Press; by arrangement with the Dunsany Estate. This book contains 10 stories written by Lord Dunsany which have not been in print since their original magazine appearances about 100 years ago.
If you wish to own a copy of the book, please visit
Pegana Press Books.
"...Am I not the heart of wandering Earth, child of the sun?
Who? Who has pitied me?..."
