The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [88]
Here the exercise of skill in the fresh morning light.
O thoughts come back to these pleasures
And the quiet meadows of home!
A summerhouse with spacious rooms
And a high hall with beams stained red;
A little closet in the southern wing
Reached by a private stair.
And round the house a covered way runs
Where horses are trained.
And sometimes riding, sometimes afoot
You shall explore, O thoughts, the park in spring;
Your jewelled axles gleaming in the sun
And yoke inlaid with gold;
Or amid orchids and sandalwood trees
You shall stroll through shaded woods.
O thoughts come back and live for these delights!
Peacocks shall fill your gardens; you shall rear
The roc and phoenix, and red jungle-fowl,
Whose cry at dawn assembles river storks
To join the play of cranes and ibises;
Where the wild swan all day
Pursues the glint of kingfishers
Flashing amongst the reeds.
O thoughts come back to watch the birds in flight!
He who has found such delights
Shall feel his cheeks glow
And the blood dancing through his limbs.
Stay with me, O thoughts, and share
The span of days that happiness will bring;
See sons and grandsons succeed in their crafts, enriched;
O thoughts come back and bring prosperity
To house and stock!
The roads that lead abroad teem thick as clouds
With travellers going a thousand miles away.
Are they wise in council; by their aid will rulers relieve
The discontents of humble men
And help the lonely poor?
Will there be deeds to repair
The wrongs endured by every tribe of men?
O thoughts come back and leave the unjust world,
Come back to where the good are praised;
Come back to where the wise are sought!
O thoughts, come back, come back! Go not
East or south, north or west;
Come back to the quiet meadows of home,
To the pavilions of repose where there, at last, is rest.
54
That I could shrink the surface of the world,
So that suddenly I might find you standing at my side!
In old days those who went to fight
Had one year’s leave in every three.
But in this war the soldiers never return;
They fight on till they die:
That is their discharge.
I thought of you, so unsoldierlike,
Trying to learn to march and drill,
To load a gun, to shoot and kill.
That a young man such as you,
Poet, scholar, lover,
Would ever come home again
Seemed as likely as that the sky should fall.
Since I heard the news that you were coming back,
Twice I have visited the high hall of your home.
I found your brother mending your horse’s stall;
I found your mother sewing new clothes for you.
I am half afraid; perhaps it is not true;
Yet I never weary of watching the road for you.
Each day I go to the city gate
With a flask of wine, lest you should come thirsty.
Oh that I could shrink the surface of the world,
So that suddenly I might find you standing at my side!
55
Wake up, cup-bearer, arise! and bring
My thirsty lips the bowl they praise.
I thought love would be easy,
But I have stumbled, and fallen.
I begged the breeze to blow to my face
The fragrance of musk in her hair,
The fragrance that sleeps in the night of her hair –
Yet nothing comes but weeping.
Hear the tavern-keeper’s counsel: ‘With red wine
Dye the carpet on which you lie.’
He knows; he knows the way.
Where shall I rest, when all the still night long
Beyond the gateway, oh heart of my heart,
I hear the bells of lamentation and the cry,
‘Bind up your burden, and depart!’
The tide runs high, night is clouded with fears,
In my ears eddying whirlpools clash and roar;
How shall my drowning voice strike their ears
Whose lighter vessels have gained the shore?
I sought something to be my own; the unsparing years
Have brought me only a dishonoured name.
What cloak shall cover my misery
When each jesting mouth repeats my shame!
Oh hold fast what the wise have said:
‘If at last you gain your life’s desire,
Cast the world aside, leave it for dead;
There is no ease otherwise for the heart
Than to bind up your burden, and depart!’
56
The garden birds sang to the rose
Newly