II
They wondered why the fruit had been forbidden; It taught them nothing new. They hid their pride, But did not listen much when they were chidden; They knew exactly what to do outside.
They left: immediately the memory faded
Of all they'd learnt; they could not understand
The dogs now who, before, had always aided;
The stream was dumb with whom they'd always planned.
They wept and quarrelled: freedom was so wild. In front, maturity, as he ascended, Retired like a horizon from the child;
The dangers and the punishments grew greater; And the way back by angels was defended Against the poet and the legislator.Only a smell had feelings to make known, Only an eye could pcint in a direction; The fountain's utterance was itself alone; The bird meant nothing: that was his projection
Who named it as he hunted it for food. He felt the interest in his throat, and found That he could send his servant to the wood, Or kiss his bride to rapture with a sound.
They bred like locusts till they hid the green And edges of the world: and he was abject, And to his own creation became subject;
And shook with hate for things he'd never seen, And knew of love without love's proper object, And was oppressed as he had never been.
IV
He stayed: and was imprisoned in possession. The seasons stood like guards about his ways, The mountains chose the mother of his children, And like a conscience the sun ruled his days.
Beyond him his young cousins in the city Pursued their rapid and unnatural course, Believed in nothing but were easy-going, And treated strangers like a favourite horse.
And he changed little,
But took his colour from the earth,
And grew in likeness to his sheep and cattle.
The townsman thought him miserly and simple, The poet wept and saw in him the truth, And the oppressor held him up as an example.
His generous bearing was a new invention: For life was slow; earth needed to be careless: With horse and sword he drew the girls' attention; He was the Rich, the Bountiful, the Fearless.
And to the young he came as a salvation; They needed him to free them from their mothers, And grew sharp-witted in the long migration, And round his camp fires learnt all men are brothers.
But suddenly the earth was fulclass="underline" he was not wanted.
And he became the shabby and demented,
And took to drink to screw his nerves to murder;
Or sat in offices and stole,
And spoke approvingly of Law and Order,
And hated life with all his soul.
VI
He watched the stars and noted birds in flight; The rivers flooded or the Empire felclass="underline" He made predictions and was sometimes right; His lucky guesses were rewarded well.
And fell in love with Truth before he knew her,
And rode into imaginary lands,
With solitude and fasting hoped to woo her.
And mocked at those who served her with their hands.
But her he never wanted to despise,
But listened always for her voice; and when
She beckoned to him, he obeyed in meekness,
And followed her and looked into her eyes; Saw there reflected every human weakness, And saw himself as one of many men.w
He was their servant—some say he was blind—
And moved among their faces and their things;
Their feeling gathered in him like a wind
And sang: they cried—"It is a God that sings"— '
And worshipped him and set him up apart, And made him vain, till he mistook for song The little tremors of his mind and heart At each domestic wrong.
Songs came no more: he had to make them. 1
With what precision was each strophe planned. He hugged his sorrow like a plot of land,
And walked like an assassin through the town,
And looked at men and did not like them, .
But trembled if one passed him with a frown.
He turned his field into a meeting-place, s
And grew the tolerant ironic eye,
And formed the mobile money-changer's face,
And found the notion of equality. I
|
And strangers were as brothers to his clocks, !
And with his spires he made a human sky; Museums stored his learning like a box, (
And paper watched his money like a spy. ,
It grew so fast his life was overgrown, |
And he forgot what once it had been made for, \
And gathered into crowds and was alone,
And lived expensively and did without, ■
And could not find the earth which he had paid for, Nor feel the love that he knew all about.
They died and entered the closed life like nuns: Even the very poor lost something; oppression Was no more a fact; and the self-centred ones Took up an even more extreme position.
And the kingly and the saintly also were Distributed among the woods and oceans, And touch our open sorrow everywhere, Airs, waters, places, round our sex and reasons;
Are what we feed on as we make our choice. We bring them back with promises to free them, But as ourselves continually betray them:
They hear their deaths lamented in our voice, But in our knowledge know we could restore them; They could return to freedom; they would rejoice.
X
As a young child the wisest could adore him; He felt familiar to them like their wives: The very poor saved up their pennies for him, And martyrs brought him presents of their lives.
But who could sit and play with him all day? Their other needs were pressing, work, and bed: The beautiful stone courts were built where they Could leave him to be worshipped and well fed.
But he escaped. They were too blind to tell That it was he who came with them to labour, And talked and grew up with them like a neighbour:
To fear and greed those courts became a centre; The poor saw there the tyrant's citadel, And martyrs the lost face of the tormentor.
'Ml
He looked in all His wisdom from the throne Down on the humble boy who kept the sheep, And sent a dove; the dove returned alone: Youth liked the music, but soon fell asleep.
But He had planned such future for the youth: Surely His duty now was to compel; For later he would come to love the truth, And own his gratitude. The eagle fell.
It did not work: His conversation bored
The boy who yawned and whistled and made faces,
And wriggled free from fatherly embraces;
But with the eagle he was always willing ■ To go where it suggested, and adored And learnt from it the many ways of killing.
And the age ended, and the last deliverer died
In bed, grown idle and unhappy; they were safe:
The sudden shadow of the giant's enormous calf j
Would fall no more at dusk across the lawn outside.
They slept in peace: in marshes here and there no doubt A sterile dragon lingered to a natural death, But in a year the spoor had vanished from the heath; The kobold's knocking in the mountain petered out.
f
Only the sculptors and the poets were half sad, And the pert retinue from the magician's house Grumbled and went elsewhere. The vanquished powers i
were glad
To be invisible and free: without remorse
Struck down the sons who strayed into their course,
And ravished the daughters, and drove the fathers mad. '
Certainly praise: let the song mount again and again For life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face, For the vegetable patience, the animal grace; Some people have been happy; there have been great men.
But hear the morning's injured weeping, and know why: Cities and men have fallen; the will of the Unjust Has never lost its power; still, all princes must Employ the Fairly-Noble unifying Lie.
History opposes its grief to our buoyant song: