The Good Book (34 page)

Many sharp and heavy blows.

90

Even time and death cannot threaten our work

If we work to defeat death and time.

I have seen this in colours, marble, brick.

In ink I have seen it: the defeat of death and time.

So long as eyes can see, so do works remain.

We are not fools that strive to climb

Above the inevitabilities, to leave our mark on them.

If we arrive late at novel and lofty attempts,

And can stay only a short time,

Nevertheless we depart, though reluctant, with satisfaction:

This was the promise if we would try,

That trying is the triumph itself.

91

For a moment a solitary white sail shows

Where the azure gleam of sea touches sky.

What did the sailors leave behind in their homes

So distant? What do they seek by travelling so far?

I feel, for I cannot hear from here,

The creak of masts, and flapping canvas.

I feel, for I cannot touch from here,

Straining ropes and salt-damp railings.

The billows rise and the impatient wind

Hurries the waves before it.

What does the sea desire? Storms:

It does not wish the sun’s caress,

But awaits with longing the wild rough gale

And the lashing squall.

Where then will be that lone white sail,

Far off where sky meets sea?

92

In the mist the road’s stones glimmered,

Then suddenly I stepped from its obscurity

Into bright night, with sparkling stars

And a pale northern horizon where the sun cannot set.

Above, a grave and wonderful sky,

Beneath, a sleeping earth, bathed

In cool blue light:

This was all I sought, all I needed.

I have no regrets for the past,

I wish only freedom and rest,

I would fall asleep by a tree

For ever, not needing dawn or day:

And with all this, rolling round, would be one.

93

The clouds are exiles as I am,

Adrift as I am, wandering at the wind’s behest

In long strings of vapour,

White or bruised to blue by bellies of rain

Waiting to be emptied, with high heads or strange shapes

That children make play of: as I am.

In the wastes of the sky where the wind crosses

Or blows or pulls, the wandering exiles unresisting,

My thoughts float as they do, at the command of vagaries.

The clouds have no homeland, only banishment:

As I do.

94

Though it is hard to die, it is good to die:

I shall ask no one’s pity,

And no one will pity me.

I won no glory with my lyre,

Nor added lustre to my family’s name;

I am as far from my kin

As on the day I began to live.

All ties are broken, all past regrets forgotten.

There is no one to ask forgiveness,

Because there is no forgiveness to give.

95

Here on the steppe is a forgotten grave.

It is not a memorial to anyone now,

Except to an affection that once was,

That lifted and piled stones one on another,

Many stones, so that wolves could not feed here,

Nor vultures. On the cold steppe there is a song

Sung for ever by the wind, neither ballad nor lament,

But the steppe song, that sings to those who live and die

With its huge horizon before their faces,

And its pure air that carries the wolf’s howl

Far to the world’s edge.

The stones’ only visitor now is the steppe wind

Singing to them neither ballad nor lament.

96

Welcome, solitude: companion of the wise and good,

From whose piercing eye fools flee and villains hide.

I love to walk with you, and listen to your whispered talk,

To your innocence and truth, that melts

All but the most obdurate hearts.

You wear a thousand pleasing shapes,

Yours is the balmy breath of evening

When the landscape swims away in shadows,

Yours is the secrecy of the hermit’s cell

Where is never cause for deceits,

Even of the private self.

Welcome; you are what will greet us all at last,

On that conclusive evening we find, alone,

The landscapes of our lives dissolve to shadow.

97

Dusk descends; all things seem to move far off;

Above, the evening star shines out,

A gracious lantern. And then the mist rises,

And the trees, the fences,

The remote farmhouse chimney, blur and dissolve.

Now in the eastern sky I see the moon,

The gleam and glow of the ochre moon,

And out of the evening obscurity come the willow branches,

Silver and slim.

Moonlight trembles through the play of moving shadows,

And its coolness calms the fretful heart.

98

Night embraces the woods,

From these hills the day has gone down to the west.

Flowers sleep and stars reflect their peace in the lake.

Leave me here, where the shadows of the forest firs cover me;

Let the night breeze breathe around me like the breath of dreams,

For here over the dark crest of the hill lies sorrow:

Beyond it, the battlefield where long ago

They laid the hacked and broken bones of men

Who died before they lived, far from home.

I shall sit here in the shadows and remember them.

99

When evening comes and the world grows quiet

And the heart too,

When your hand lies weary on your knee

And you can hear the tick of the pendulum from the clock on the wall

Which has not made itself heard all day,

When dusk lies in the corners and the nightjar flies outside;

Then you think of the gleam of the setting sun

Looking one last time through the window,

The sound of children on their way home, laughing,

To their supper and sleep,

You think perhaps the day was glad after all,

And tomorrow might be gladder.

100

I would be well content if allowed

The use of past experience,

To use the wisdom gleaned from follies past,

Acknowledged now;

To try life again, in hope

Of fewer errors on second proof.

But my heart said: could you, in truth?

Will you pardon time wasted,

Morality violated, talent abused,

Judgement ill-made, mercies not done,

Opportunity lost?

It is an evil incident to man

To leave unexamined the springs of useful truth,

And to walk the world with eyes shut,

Mind closed, ears stopped,

Heart gated against the greater good.

And one can walk thus only in the trodden way.

101

They sent me a present from Annam:

A red cockatoo,

Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,

Speaking the speech of men.

They had done to it what they always do

To the learned and eloquent:

They took a cage with stout bars

And shut it inside.

102

My bed has been put behind the unpainted screen.

They have shifted the stove next to the blue curtain.

My grandchildren read to me sometimes from their books:

The servants heat my soup on the brazier outside.

With a quick pencil I answer goodwill notes from my friends,

I feel in my pocket for coins to pay the doctor.

When all these trifling things are done

I lie back on my pillow, and sleep with my face to the south.

103

Until forty one is distracted by the five lusts;

After seventy one is prey to a hundred diseases.

But at fifty and sixty one is free from all ills.

Calm and still, the heart enjoys rest.

I have put behind me love and greed,

I have put behind me profit and fame;

I am not yet decrepit or decayed;

Strength of limbs remains to me,

And I can seek the river and walk the hills;

My heart still loves hearing the flute and strings,

My stomach enjoys the new wine and the feast.

Do not complain of three-score:

It is the time we obey ourselves best.

104

Do not braid up your hair.

Let it fly unconfined,

Let its ravisher, the wind,

Wanton with it:

Like a clew of golden thread

Unravelled, let it free.

Do not wind up that light in ribands,

Or over-cloud it, like the night;

But let the sun’s colour in it

Shake loose and scatter abroad,

Like day.

105

Into the isolated fields two figures passed,

Walking slow, into the frozen wood.

Their lips are tight, their eyes dead,

No one hears what they said.

Into the frozen fields two shadows passed,

To remember or deny the forgotten past.

Do you recall our ecstasy, they asked;

Why should we recall it, they answered;

Does my name beat in your heart always, they asked;

Never, they answered; and the taste of our kisses, they asked,

Do you taste them still?

No, they answered; all is gone, kisses too;

Forgotten, like a broken cup, its contents spilled.

So through the barren night they wandered,

Through the frozen meadows,

Only darkness hearing their words.

106

Worldly concerns are again drawing me.

The world seduces me: my thoughts

Grow narrow and covetous.

Once I used to visit you,

Passing there in the early morning;

Stopped my horse at your gate and tapped;

You sent your children to lead me in,

And you ran to the door to greet me,

Gown flapping round your bare ankles,

Laughing, cap awry.

And we breakfasted together on the swept terrace

With its view to the hills and the eastern lodge high up,

Its roof visible above the trees.

We talked all day sometimes,

But never spoke of profit or office.

Since we parted, how long has passed?

The leaves were falling then; now I hear

The new cicadas sing. And I

Have been drawn back to worldly concerns;

The world seduces me again,

Though we never talked of office and profit.

107

How great a thing is a cup of wine!

A single cup makes us tell the story of our lives.

By the willows that gaze at themselves in the pond

We drank and talked of our schooldays together,

Amazed at our folly then, and our ignorance: