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

and the

Third thief, the soldierly one, held their ground,

And, inside the cave, Dathan spoke of barbarism.

‘Barbarism?’ Moses said. ‘You talk to me

Of barbarism? When you, to my certain knowledge,

Were one of the leaders of the most filthy display

Of barbarism known in the annals of all the tribes.

Count yourself lucky, Dathan, that you were not chosen

For the ultimate punishment after that abomination

Which stinks still in God’s nostrils.’ Dathan replied:

‘Very well, Moses. If I was a sinner,

I was unenlightened. What excuse can you show?’

And Moses cried: ‘Excuse, Dathan? Must we

Have excuses to sustain the law,

The law that sustains the life of man? For I

Am in the service of life, while you are

All given over to death. You, the nay-sayer,

The sneerer, the denier, you still live,

While better than you could ever be granted a dream

Of becoming are struck down by your sneers,

Your greed and your lust.’ The soldierly thief said:

‘It is a strange way of serving life,

Killing men. It was my brother you killed,

Do you know that? A man who had his faults,

Like all men, but meant to harm to any, dead

And dead like a dog beaten to pulp by children.

Dead because of some nonsense about the Sabbath,

For nonsense it is, and all the world knows it for nonsense.’ –

‘All the word’, said Moses, ‘the little world

Of the stupid who disdain the vision. Your brother, you say,

On your head and the heads of the evil like you

Lies my sister’s death. Ah, but it is no matter.’ –

‘Ah, it comes clearer now,’ Dathan said, in glee.

‘It is not the law that drives you – it is revenge.’ –

‘No, Dathan,’ said Moses, ‘not revenge.

Vengeance is not for me. Vengeance is for

The Lord God, in his own time. There is for me

The law and the enforcing of the law –

Yes, by murder if need be, since you hold

That just execution is murder – until men

Cease to be ignorant and know that their own good

Is the good of the commonalty, and that that good

Is enshrined in the law. You will learn, be made to learn.

Perhaps you are already learning, you,

Dathan, the most obdurate of my children.’ –

‘Oh yes,’ sneered Dathan. ‘I am learning one thing:

Remember thou to keep holy the Sabbath day.’

In torment of spirit, Moses walked the night,

Addressing bitterly the torrent of stars

And the silence of the wilderness. ‘My people,’ he said.

          ‘Your people.

They are a stiffnecked people. They are a people

Who savour their ignorance like manna. Why why,

O Lord, am I set above them? Why, of all the

Men that walk the earth, was I chosen

To lead them to a fair land that is

None of their deserving? Why, Lord, was I chosen

To bring them to the law they despise and spurn?

They speak harshly of me, spit in my shadow,

Cast stones at my son, send my wife home weeping.

Am I not a man like any other,

Deserving of peace – deserving of wine at sundown,

A glowing fire to dream into under the stars?

Was I not better off as a prince in Egypt,

Jewelled with office, wearing the perfume

Of the respect and the worship of men? God, my Lord,

I speak from the heart and I have ever done.

I am sick to death of the burden of rule I bear.

What will you do if I renounce it now –

If I pass it to Aaron or to Joshua

Or to any of the young who promise richly?

You can do little more than strike me down

As you have struck down others. Well, it may be

That I am willing to be struck down – lie at peace

In the earth, where is no more trouble, pain

Or oppression of the wicked. I defy you, then,

Or am willing to do so, as others have.

Am I not free to do so? Am I not a man

Like other men, clothed in the garment

Of liberty of choice? And yet I have not forgotten

The humility of the servant before the master.

In humility I ask – let your servant

Go, let your servant go.’ But there was no answer

From the array of the stars or the night’s silence.

So he went to his bed, finding his wife asleep,

His son happy in a dream, and tried to sleep.

Then he heard a voice, his own, grown old,

Speak slow and tired: ‘Moses, my servant Moses,

I will ride you as a horseman rides a horse.

You will always know my weight at your back,

My spurs in your flank. I will never let you go.

You have doubted, and will doubt again and again,

But in spite of your doubts, you will bear the burden

To life’s end. You will lead your people to the land

That is promised, since that is my will. You will lead them,

But you yourself will never eat or drink

Of the fruit of the fulfilment of the promise.

I will never let you go, but I will never

Let you enter. Nor will any one

Of your generation, sick with the doubt

Of the Lord’s promise, ever enter that land.

The milk of my beneficence and the honey

Of my jealous love – neither is for you

Nor for the generation that is yours.

Those will flow in a land you may see from far

But whose soil will never bless your foot, whose air

Never delight your nostrils, and whose sun

Never warm your grey head. I have spoken.’

Ghersom lay silently awake now, listening

In wonder to a sound he had never heard:

The sobbing of his father.

                So at daybreak

They addressed themselves to the march, with Moses grim

In the vanguard, and the young, guarding the tablets,

Sang with a hope they had a right to feel:

We go to the land

Where the hand of the Lord

Showers blessings, and

The sun fails not, nor the soil

And man’s toil is a prayer

Of thankfulness to the Lord.

There it lies, beyond our eyes

And yet within reach of our hand.

We go to the unknown land.

                           Lustily singing,

The young, guarding the Ark of the Covenant.

13

EVER UNREST

The wilderness of Paran. Wilderness

After wilderness, and now this wilderness.

Sand, rock, distant mountain. A copper sun

Riding a wilderness of bronze. Thirst,

Their close companion in the wilderness.

Here? Here? they cried. We camp here?

A wife said humbly: ‘I should think there must be

A good reason for it. I