The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [85]
From where the white sails flutter, far off,
We will know that his words are true:
Today by the river as we walk hand in hand
There is no suffering,
Today there is only the scented world,
Shining like your beauty, like the moon.
39
The words of love we spoke
Have stored themselves in our history
To await in secret another time:
One day they will fall, as seeds, with rain to earth,
And grow green all over the world.
40
Another dawn will never come
That finds us waking together.
I know this, and little by little
Give up the love that wants such dawns again.
And yet: something within me laughs,
Laughs and shakes it head,
At the thought of ever giving up this love
That wants such dawns again.
41
You were the morning, I was a candle in the dawn.
I surrendered my heart to your smile on awakening.
Such was the pattern of your tresses on my breast
That they will make my grave a bed of violets.
I opened the doors of my desire to you,
And you crossed the threshold:
I am the slave of what I saw in you,
And though your beauty is displayed to everyone,
No one sees your amorous look as I do.
Oh beloved, if like a breeze you pass by my tomb
I will rise in that narrow pass and tear my shroud,
Summoned by the lightness of your footfall.
42
A hot afternoon; I lay drowsing on my bed, limbs spread
To catch the breeze of the half-opened window.
The light in my room was dim
As twilight in a dark green forest,
Or the glimmer before dawn;
Such light as shy girls like for modesty.
Behold then she came, in a loose slip,
Her hair tumbling down her gleaming neck.
I pulled her slip away, not tearing it though of gauze,
And she pretended to try keeping it about her;
But yielded effortlessly, and stood naked,
Naked before my eyes: not a flaw on her body.
What shoulders, arms, I saw and touched!
What breasts so formed for my caress!
How her belly curved beneath her slender waist,
How curved her flanks, her warm thighs!
I pressed her naked body against mine, and kissed:
Who does not know the rest? Drowsy with love we rested:
May many such afternoons be mine!
43
Ring, go to her, encircle her beautiful finger;
May she receive you with a glad heart and take you
Straightway, where I kissed;
Smoothly fit her finger, lucky ring.
I, envious of my gift, would take its place
To encircle her close;
Then when I wished to touch her breasts,
Or reach inside her tunic, I would slip from her finger,
However tight and clinging the fit,
And with wonderful art fall into her garment’s folds.
Again, to close a letter up, she would touch me to her moist lips
Before she pressed the wax that seals its secret.
She would wear me as she steps into the bath,
Though I think her naked limbs would rouse my passion.
A vain wish? Away then, little gift:
Show her what loyalty comes with you,
And what desire.
44
Forbear to wonder what the Cantabrian or Scythian meditate,
Divided from us by the unsleeping sea;
Leave thought for the necessities of life, which needs little.
Youth and beauty are swiftly away,
Old age turns its back on wanton loves.
The same glory does not remain in the flower,
Nor does the ruddy moon shine with the same face:
Why fatigue yourself with thoughts?
While we can, let us recline under the tall pine,
In a shade fragrant with roses,
And wait while the cups of ardent Falernian wine
Cool in the passing stream:
And let us call wanton Lyde from her house,
To hasten with her ivory lyre, her hair
Tied in a graceful knot
In the manner of the Spartan maids.
45
What slender youth, bathed in perfumes,
Embraces you among many a rose, O Pyrrha,
In a pleasant arbour?
For whom do you tie up your golden hair
In simple elegance?
Alas! how often will he lament your faithlessness,
Like a sailor who set out on a sparkling sea
Then sees, surprised,
The water roughening and darkened by gales!
He who now enjoys you,
Fondly thinking you golden, ever lovely,
Is ignorant of the treacherous future
That awaits him at your hands.
O wretched youth, to whom, he untried,