Collected Poems Anthony Burgess (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📖

become impatient.’

And Moses, rapt in the office his hand performed:

‘Impatient. Sometimes. They say that the

Wisdom of Egypt is. Complete and sealed. That there is

No new wisdom. To be learned. The death of a

Man. Means more than the. Birth of a. Child.

For what new wisdom. Can the. Child bring to the

World? Egypt looks to the. End. The closure. The

Seal.’ And she: ‘You do not see things as an

Egyptian does, as a true Egyptian does. They want

Certainty. Death is all too certain – ’

‘If it is so. Certain why is it not. More simple?

It is expressed though. So many gods. Hawk-faced.

Dog-headed. Crocodile-toothed. It is a. Darkness.

Full of monsters.’ And she: ‘When I was a girl,

I remember, there were men who taught a simple faith.

A faith of the sun, which it seemed right to worship,

The lifegiver. The men were heard for a time,

Then soon not even heard of.’ And he, half to himself,

Lulled by his own hands’ ministry: ‘The wise men.

Have taught me to see. Beauty in the many. Beautiful.

Death in the many. Forms of death. Could there not be a

Light that is not. The sun. But which the sun. Uses?’

She then, urgent: ‘Give me light, Moses. Light the torches.’

‘But,’ he said, ‘the sun is not yet down.’

‘Light them just the same. I fear the dark.

I would go to the sun and be consumed in him.

But soon there will be no sun.’ So he lighted them,

And she said: ‘You came from the water. I must return to it.

Embark on a boat whose pennant is the sun that shines in the dark.

Whose name is the name of the god of the harvest of souls.

Whose oars are the arms of a god whose face I must not see.

And the keel of the boat is truth. Or justice.

I am ferried to the western bank of the river,

For there the sun has his setting. And there I

Find a secret way into the earth.

I am going to the river. And you

Were brought out of the river. The same river?’

So Moses, with troubled affection, stroked her brow,

But the hands had no magic… A grain-city,

In wood and baked clay and wire, a toy for Mernefta,

Crown prince of Egypt, cousin to Moses, only a child

But imperious enough, filled the chamber and he strode over it,

Seeing the whole city from his sky like a god, while a

Chamberlain pointed out this and this, not quite a toy then

But a projected glory of the empire, a torment for the slaves.

Moses came and said: ‘You summoned me, my lord.’

And the boy: ‘It is highness you must call me, cousin.

Your highness. I have searched for you all day

And everywhere. That is not right.’ (‘Not right.

Your highness.’) ‘You promised to take me to hunt

Crocodiles.’ Deferential, a little amused, sad:

‘Ah, yes, your highness. But then. I reconsidered.

Your highness. What would have happened to me.

If the crocodiles had. Snapped and eaten you?

What would have happened. To the throne of. Egypt?’

A child’s scowl: ‘You, I suppose, would have taken it.

I am angry with you, cousin.’ A little bemused, sad:

‘Do not be angry. You highness. Not now. I am come.

To tell you sad news.’ Then the chamberlain, a man’s scowl:

‘His highness is not to be given sad news. That is laid down.’

Moses, ignoring him: ‘My mother is dead. Your

Father’s sister. The Princess Bithiah.

Is dead.’ A child’s cruelty: ‘Dead? Like the

Three thousand men who built the treasure-city,

And the ones who will die building this?’ hitting it.

‘Yes. Highness. There is only. One way of being

Dead.’ But the child was more than a child: ‘No.

Those dead will be forgotten. Not one name

Of one of them will be remembered. But

My name will be written there. They will take hammers

And hammer my name into stone. Mernefta,

Fifth king of his dynasty, first of them all for glory.

And the thousands of dead, five or six thousand,

Forgotten. A fine thing.’ The chamberlain, impatient:

‘Highness, you have forgotten the purpose

For which your cousin was sent here.’ And the boy: ‘Ah, yes.

You, cousin, are to go and see the workers.

To see that they are building right. I asked my father

That you be sent. It is a punishment, you see.

You should have taken me hunting.’ A little amused, sad,

Bowing: ‘As your highness says. A punishment.’

But there was a task to perform first. Among the effigies,

In the reek of the holy fires, he stood, watching,

While, with wands of obsidian, the priests and priestesses

Opened her dead eyes and mouth, intoning:

Your lips I open in the god’s name,

That you may speak and eat.

Your eyes I open in the god’s name,

That light and sight may bless them.

But not the gross tastes and speech of the earth.

But not the insubstantial light of the sun

That warms the earth. When you awaken

And depart from the tomb, at the endless

End of the sacred river underground,

You will raise your eyes to light eternal,

Open your mouth in speech

That is soundless since it is the soul of speech.

Let all my offences be forgotten dust.

Let tribulation be as motes in the sun

When the sun is down.

Greetings to you, greatest god of the underworld.

At length my eyes are brought to the

Witness of your beauty, whose eternal contemplation

Is my sole care. I know your name at last,

As I know the names of the two and forty gods

Who preside in the halls of the eternal.

I am become one to whom sin is not even a name.

I am become one who had no eyes for the false path.

And line by coil the winding-sheet rose to the

Neck, the mouth, the nostrils. Then eyes alone

Where uncovered. So Moses took the linen, trembling,

And covered them, saying: ‘You who became my mother

Out of your goodness

Who leave me motherless

And yet with a mother

Still to be sought,

Farewell.’ And the ceremony was ended. It was time to

Engage the sun, the living and dying, not the dead: duty.

Officers of the court invested him in the

Travelling robes of a prince. A princely horse,

With jewelled caparison, pawed dust out of the earth.

He mounted, was saluted, rode off with officers,

Attendants, a body-servant, towards Pithom, asking:

‘Pithom. And what is the life of Pithom?’ –

‘Slaves, your highness. But sometimes unruly. Enslaved,

But a