In the ancient days, when the first quiver of speech came to my lips, I ascended the holy mountain and spoke unto God, saying, “Master, I am thy slave. Thy hidden will is my law and I shall obey thee for ever more.”
But God made no answer, and like a mighty tempest passed away.
And after a thousand years I ascended the holy mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, “Creator, I am thy creation. Out of clay hast thou fashioned me and to thee I owe mine all.”
And God made no answer, but like a thousand swift wings passed away.
And after a thousand years I climbed the holy mountain and spoke unto God again, saying, “Father, I am thy son. In pity and love thou hast given me birth, and through love and worship I shall inherit thy kingdom.”
And God made no answer, and like the mist that veils the distant hills he passed away.
And after a thousand years I climbed the sacred mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, “My God, my aim and my fulfillment; I am thy yesterday and thou are my tomorrow. I am thy root in the earth and thou art my flower in the sky, and together we grow before the face of the sun.”
Then God leaned over me, and in my ears whispered words of sweetness, and even as the sea that enfoldeth a brook that runneth down to her, he enfolded me.
And when I descended to the valleys and the plains God was there also.
Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea.
We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange. Nay, it is deeper than my sister’s depth and stronger than my brother’s strength, and stranger than the strangeness of my madness.
Aeons upon aeons have passed since the first grey dawn made us visible to one another; and though we have seen the birth and the fullness and the death of many worlds, we are still eager and young.
We are young and eager and yet we are mateless and unvisited, and though we lie in unbroken half embrace, we are uncomforted. And what comfort is there for controlled desire and unspent passion? Whence shall come the flaming god to warm my sister’s bed? And what she-torrent shall quench my brother’s fire? And who is the woman that shall command my heart?
In the stillness of the night my sister murmurs in her sleep the fire-god’s unknown name, and my brother calls afar upon the cool and distant goddess. But upon whom I call in my sleep I know not.
* * *
Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange.
Our age bereft of nobility How can our faces show it? I look for love. My lips stand out dry and cracked with want of it. Oh it is well. My poem shall show the need for it.
The night is covered with signs. The body and face of man, with signs, and his journeys. Where the rock is split and speaks to the water; the flame speaks to the cloud; the red splatter, abstraction, on the door speaks to the angel and the constellations. The grains of sand on the sea-floor speak at last to the noon. And the loud hammering of the land behind
I don’t remember exactly when Budberg died, it was either two years ago or three. The same with Chen. Whether last year or the one before. Soon after our arrival, Budberg, gently pensive, Said that in the beginning it is hard to get accustomed, For here there is no spring or summer, no winter or fall.
“I kept dreaming of snow and birch forests. Where so little changes you hardly notice how time goes by.
By such an all-embalming summer day As sweetens now among the mountain pines Down to the cornland yonder and the vines, To where the sky and sea are mixed in gray, How do all things together take their way Harmonious to the harvest, bringing wines And bread and light and whatsoe’er combines In the large wreath to make it round and gay. To me my troubled life doth now appear Like scarce distinguishable summits hung Around the blue horizon: places where Not even a traveller purposeth to steer,— Whereof a migrant bird in passing sung, And the girl closed her window not to hear.
The glow of my campfire is dark red and flameless, The circle of white ash widens around it. I get up and walk off in the moonlight and each time I look back the red is deeper and the light smaller. Scorpio rises late with Mars caught in his claw; The moon has come before them, the light Like a choir of children in the young laurel trees.
Comment form: