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

who, tasting that word freedom,

Were ready enough to spit it out of a dry mouth,

Longing sickly for the slave’s day, the known evil.

So Pithom was empty. In the empty house of Aaron

A lone dog crunched the paschal bone. In the

Empty heart of Pharaoh bitterness

Found a house, then the house grew to a palace,

Then massive portals of the palace heaved to opening,

After the funeral, one of many, the priests

Giving unctuous comfort, saying: ‘It will pass

As a bad dream passes. For the pestilence is gone,

The rivers flow silver not red, the air is

Filled with the song of birds not the buzz of gnats

And the fretful cry of locusts. The land, you will see,

Will be fruitful again, your loins, you will see,

Will be fruitful.’ But the bereaved wept.

‘The evil,’ spoke the priests, ‘that visited our land

Was an emanation of an evil people.

But the Israelites are no longer with us: the gods

Gave us a sign to drive them out of our midst.

And lo they are gone…’ At Pithom, in the empty mudpits,

A scribe drank palm-wine with an overseer of workers,

His occupation, for the moment, gone. ‘Quiet,’ said the scribe.

‘The silence is a sort of memory of their noise.’

‘Not quiet in the other mudpits,’ the overseer said.

‘He should never have done it. Now all the slaves –

Greeks, Berbers, the rest – want to go to the desert,

To do sacrifice to what they call their gods.

Of course, it could all be a coincidence –

The plague, the flies, the locusts. But the

Blood was real, though. Red, thick,

As any in a slaughterhouse. All against nature.

It was as if nature went wrong for a time.

And these – ’ He gestured towards the huge absence.

‘These took advantage. They cause it, no.

They pretended to cause it. Cunning.’ The scribe said:

‘This too is against nature. This not having slaves.

How does one build a city without slaves?

A civilisation – do you know that word? – without slaves

Is totally against reason, meaning nature.

You have to have slaves.’ So they drank palm-wine

To protect themselves from the evil emptiness.

In that other emptiness, nearly a day’s march done,

The emptiness began to fill with the

First of the new signs: a dust-cloud swirling

And many fearful and talking of being lost,

We’re lost already, and look at this evil dust

Enveloping us, I said we should never have left,

At least we were safe there. The words of Moses

Relayed through leaders to tribe after tribe:

‘You say we are lost. But we are not lost.

You see this cloud of dust. It is God’s sign

That he is with us. See how the wind

Drives the cloud before us. God works through

Everything. Even a cloud of dust. God works

Through the smoke and rain. And dust of the desert.

God works through this pillar of cloud. See –

How it moves ahead of us. It bids us follow.’

Follow, some said, follow where? The answer was ready

On the lips of the leaders: ‘The promised land.

Where else.’ We shan’t see much of it.

Not with the dust in the way. And then there’s night.

What do we follow at night? ‘The Lord,’ said Moses,

‘Will think of something.’ And, indeed, at nightfall

A blinding company of fireflies, was it fireflies?,

Flashed into view. Fireflies? Glowworms? ‘Let’s follow,’

Moses said. A pillar of fire, moving ahead of them.

They followed, marvelling some, some grumbling.

How did they know it was not Egyptian magic,

Leading them back to slavery? Ah, slavery, some said.

The word is worse than the thing. But they followed.

And, in the council-chamber, the Lord Pharaoh

Followed his ministers’ words distractedly,

His ears still filled with the sobbing of his queen

And his own sobbing. ‘The shock of the people, majesty,

Has been, naturally, profound. It is manifested,

So to speak, in a slow numbing

Illness of doubt. Such doubt has not

Previously been known.’ And ‘The whole concept of the

Monarchy is inevitably in jeopardy,

Since there seems, in the eyes of the commonalty,

To have been a withdrawal of divine power.’ And Pharaoh:

‘What reports from the worksites, my lords?’ They answered:

‘Majesty, the recent riots have been contained.

There has been what is termed in this message here

A slackening of fibre, the sense of a

Silent but massive insolence in the face of the

Threat of…’ And Pharaoh: ‘Yes yes yes, and of course

The great evil is already a great dream.

Except among the bereaved.’ So one said:

‘Wounds heal, majesty. A truism, but true.’ Pharaoh answered:

‘Anger does not heal. Hatred. But then of course

Comes doubt – doubt as to the validity

Of the whole ancient system. New modes of justice.

New gods. Can there be new gods?’ The chief magician:

‘The gods, as I have said, majesty, subsist

Outside time. Only in time is change possible.

There are no new gods. You may, majesty, take that

As an irrefutable fact.’ Then a minister:

‘History, as our records show, is full of the

Inexplicable. The sudden famine, the muddying of the Nile,

Plagues, storms – Nature is wayward, self-willed.

But this has nothing at all to do with the gods.’

Pharaoh said: ‘Vague theology, half-chewed theory.

What is to be done? What practical measures

Offer themselves? There shoring up of a whipped monarchy

With the gods yawning…’ The chief magician said:

‘With respect, your divine majesty, such cynicism

Is in itself a corroborative of the already increasing

Popular lack of confidence in the…’ A minister

Spoke firmly: ‘The following narrative is no lie.

The Pharaoh, out of his divine benevolence,

Granted the request of the Israelite work-force

That they be permitted to do sacrifice

To their god in the desert. The period of leave requested

Was three days.’ Pharaoh saw. ‘How many days

Have they now been out of Egypt? Five, is it not?’

Five, five. ‘So’, Pharaoh pronounced.

‘We bring them back. Nothing could be simpler.’

Nothing simpler. Smiles, but he did not smile.

At the end of the fifth day in the desert, Aaron spoke,

Dissatisfied, to Moses, looking ahead,

Pharaoh and Pithom already far in the past:

‘The mistake, I say, lies in the organisation.

Old men, hereditary leaders of tribes and clans –

What true leadership can you expect from them?

They will be good enough at sitting in tents, cross-legged,

Giving judgments on marriage and property. But for a

Desert march…’ Moses looked back at Pithom,

Into the sunset, faintly troubled at something

He must wait for time to define, and said: ‘I know.

But this is no time