The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [94]
The artist trembles; in the mass of stone
There is a slender figure seeking escape,
Lost before it was found:
One blow, and it is gone, shattered, like a dream
Unremembered.
89
How can the statue last longer than its maker?
Hard stone outlasts even hard hearts.
There is a live image in the cold stone,
And the chisel cuts it free and gives it life.
Its maker becomes ashes after the years have bent him down;
Nature is thus defeated by art, though nature struck art
Many sharp and heavy blows.
90
Even time and death cannot threaten our work
If we work to defeat death and time.
I have seen this in colours, marble, brick.
In ink I have seen it: the defeat of death and time.
So long as eyes can see, so do works remain.
We are not fools that strive to climb
Above the inevitabilities, to leave our mark on them.
If we arrive late at novel and lofty attempts,
And can stay only a short time,
Nevertheless we depart, though reluctant, with satisfaction:
This was the promise if we would try,
That trying is the triumph itself.
91
For a moment a solitary white sail shows
Where the azure gleam of sea touches sky.
What did the sailors leave behind in their homes
So distant? What do they seek by travelling so far?
I feel, for I cannot hear from here,
The creak of masts, and flapping canvas.
I feel, for I cannot touch from here,
Straining ropes and salt-damp railings.
The billows rise and the impatient wind
Hurries the waves before it.
What does the sea desire? Storms:
It does not wish the sun’s caress,
But awaits with longing the wild rough gale
And the lashing squall.
Where then will be that lone white sail,
Far off where sky meets sea?
92
In the mist the road’s stones glimmered,
Then suddenly I stepped from its obscurity
Into bright night, with sparkling stars
And a pale northern horizon where the sun cannot set.
Above, a grave and wonderful sky,
Beneath, a sleeping earth, bathed
In cool blue light:
This was all I sought, all I needed.
I have no regrets for the past,
I wish only freedom and rest,
I would fall asleep by a tree
For ever, not needing dawn or day:
And with all this, rolling round, would be one.
93
The clouds are exiles as I am,
Adrift as I am, wandering at the wind’s behest
In long strings of vapour,
White or bruised to blue by bellies of rain
Waiting to be emptied, with high heads or strange shapes
That children make play of: as I am.
In the wastes of the sky where the wind crosses
Or blows or pulls, the wandering exiles unresisting,
My thoughts float as they do, at the command of vagaries.
The clouds have no homeland, only banishment:
As I do.
94
Though it is hard to die, it is good to die:
I shall ask no one’s pity,
And no one will pity me.
I won no glory with my lyre,
Nor added lustre to my family’s name;
I am as far from my kin
As on the day I began to live.
All ties are broken, all past regrets forgotten.
There is no one to ask forgiveness,
Because there is no forgiveness to give.
95
Here on the steppe is a forgotten grave.
It is not a memorial to anyone now,
Except to an affection that once was,
That lifted and piled stones one on another,
Many stones, so that wolves could not feed here,
Nor vultures. On the cold steppe there is a song
Sung for ever by the wind, neither ballad nor lament,
But the steppe song, that sings to those who live and die
With its huge horizon before their faces,
And its pure air that carries the wolf’s howl
Far to the world’s edge.
The stones’ only visitor now is the steppe wind
Singing to them neither ballad nor lament.
96
Welcome, solitude: companion of the wise and good,
From whose piercing eye fools flee and villains hide.
I love to walk with you, and listen to your whispered talk,
To your innocence and truth, that melts
All but the most obdurate hearts.
You wear a thousand pleasing shapes,
Yours is the balmy breath of evening
When the landscape swims away in shadows,
Yours is the secrecy of the hermit’s cell
Where is never cause for deceits,
Even