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

herbs, ‘The time is coming’,

Moses said, and shuddered. ‘This is Passover,

And will be so till the end of our race, to mark

The hour of his passing over.’ Shuddering. ‘But it is a

Terrible thing, a terrible burden, and the

Burden is just beginning.’ He put his head in his hands,

But Miriam held his shoulders, saying: ‘Courage.

Courage.’ Then all suddenly listened.

But there was nothing to hear. ‘The silence,’ Aaron said,

‘Strikes like a new noise.’ Then Moses heard.

‘He is coming. God help them. He is coming. Now.’

Then, from afar, a scream, and another,

And soon the sound of wailing. They sat silent,

The meat grown cold on the table, listening.

Then the noise of a nearing wind at the door,

And the door shaking, but then the shaking ceased,

And the wind passed over.

                 In the imperial palace

They heard the wailing without, even Pharaoh heard,

And his queen, in the innermost chamber, listened dumbly.

The infant prince slept in his cradle, placed in the heart

Of a magical pentacle, and the chief magician,

His assistants all about him, intoned, intoned:

‘For the safety of the house and all within it.

May the first nameless, who guards the doors of the eyes,

Be doubly watchful. May the second nameless,

Who sits in the doorways of the ears, be this night aware

Of the rustling and breathing of the malign intruder.

May the third nameless, who lives suspended in the

Air of the nostrils, smell out the evil of him

Who approaches with the intent of evil…’ A little cry

From the cradle, and the king froze, and the queen,

But they bent over and Pharaoh said: ‘He is dreaming.

It is a good dream – see, he smiles in his sleep.

My precious. See, he holds out his little arms.’

And he lifted the child from his cradle and held him, crooning,

Like any father, then said: ‘No harm, no harm,

No harm shall come to him, for he is my precious.’

A sudden scream from afar stopped the magician’s chant

An instant, but he continued: ‘And the nameless one

Who sits in the cup of the navel…’ Pharaoh said:

‘Be quiet. What was that?’ And a minister, soothing:

‘A servant, majesty. The child of a servant.’

Pharaoh whispered: ‘Nothing shall. Nothing.

Stand round us with your torches. Burn your incense.

Say your prayer. Say it.’ So the magician intoned:

‘Gods of the seven worlds, hear, hearken.

Let the word of your servant be sweet in the ear

Of the guardians of the living. Let no evil

Touch your servant this night, let the dark be

Beneficent, and the vapours of the night

Be like the balm of the morning. Let the souls

Of the evil dead lie in sleep, unenticed

By the smell of smoke that puts out the light

Till the morning comes again, and the world is living

And the sun blesses and there is nothing more to fear.’

Pharaoh looked down on his child, cradled in his arms,

Looked and looked and did not believe and looked

Incredulously towards his queen and all looked and

None was in any doubt as a bank of candles

Flickered as in the draught of a great wind,

And from Pharaoh went up the cry of an animal,

Filling the chamber, the palace, spilling into the night,

Spilling into one pair of ears in Pithom, those

That had listened to fieldmice chatter and bats at nightfall.

The palace took up the cry and gongs and drums

Turned it to a geometry of lamentation,

While, like a thing of wood or metal, the king

Carried the child blindly, the mother following,

Choked in pain the gongs muffled, till they stood

Before a god of metal and Pharaoh whispered:

‘What do I do now? Beg you to comfort him

On his passage through the tunnels of the night?

Beseech you to remember that he is still

Of your divine flesh, and to restore him to the light

Where he is – needed? Or do I see you already

As very hollow, very weak, impotent, a sham?

Am I born too early or too late? Does heaven

Remake itself? Has the dominion passed over

To that single God who was neither sun nor moon

But the light of both? But in your eyes there is nothing.

Your head is the head of a bird.’

The mother took the tiny body, weeping under the gongs,

And Pharaoh turned his back on the god, looking towards

Goshen, Moses, saying, ‘Did you hear my cry?

And the cries of the other fathers of Egypt, mothers

Of Egypt? Go, then. Take your women and your

Unscathed children. Take your cattle and sheep

And your wretched possessions. Leave my people in peace.

Go, serve your God in what manner you will.

And come no more into Egypt.’ And said again:

Rise up and go forth among my people,

Both you and the people of Israel, and go,

Serve the Lord, as you have said.

Take your flocks and your herds and bless your freedom

Be gone. And bless me also. Me also.

7

THE EXODUS

Before dawn, with a foredawn wind blowing,

With the blowing of ram’s horns, answering

From tribe to tribe, under the moon and stars,

They got themselves ready, hardly able to believe it,

Many sad at leaving the evil known for the unknown good,

Especially as the hovels emptied of chattels,

The meagre good were roped to carts, and

Home, such as it was, dissolved with the

Fading of the stars. There were tears enough

As the cocks crew, answering from

Village to village. The cows were milked in haste

And, lowing, herded for the journey. A choral bleat

Of sheep drowned the horn and the cock-crow. Oxen

Were harnessed. While Aaron marshalled the tribal leaders

And then the leaders marshalled the tribes,

Moses walked among them all, cutting off thought,

For thought was mostly doubt of himself, seeing

The women with child, the children, the champing old

Lifted on to ox-carts. The stars were gone,

The east promised another day of fire,

The desert beckoned. Miriam released her doves

And her doves flew eastward, into the light

That was not yet cruel light. Dathan was a flame

About the cart whereon the treasury was loaded,

Gold, jewels, all Egyptian bribes. Then Moses spoke

To the God within him, saying: ‘Be with me, be

With me,’ raising his staff, setting his face

With smarting eyes to the east, and so it began,

The ragged exodus, with none to oppose them,

Through the delta land, through scrub, then to the desert,

Already, as the sun warmed, the lineaments

Of fatigue, despair, the promise of rebellion

Among some