The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [95]
Welcome; you are what will greet us all at last,
On that conclusive evening we find, alone,
The landscapes of our lives dissolve to shadow.
97
Dusk descends; all things seem to move far off;
Above, the evening star shines out,
A gracious lantern. And then the mist rises,
And the trees, the fences,
The remote farmhouse chimney, blur and dissolve.
Now in the eastern sky I see the moon,
The gleam and glow of the ochre moon,
And out of the evening obscurity come the willow branches,
Silver and slim.
Moonlight trembles through the play of moving shadows,
And its coolness calms the fretful heart.
98
Night embraces the woods,
From these hills the day has gone down to the west.
Flowers sleep and stars reflect their peace in the lake.
Leave me here, where the shadows of the forest firs cover me;
Let the night breeze breathe around me like the breath of dreams,
For here over the dark crest of the hill lies sorrow:
Beyond it, the battlefield where long ago
They laid the hacked and broken bones of men
Who died before they lived, far from home.
I shall sit here in the shadows and remember them.
99
When evening comes and the world grows quiet
And the heart too,
When your hand lies weary on your knee
And you can hear the tick of the pendulum from the clock on the wall
Which has not made itself heard all day,
When dusk lies in the corners and the nightjar flies outside;
Then you think of the gleam of the setting sun
Looking one last time through the window,
The sound of children on their way home, laughing,
To their supper and sleep,
You think perhaps the day was glad after all,
And tomorrow might be gladder.
100
I would be well content if allowed
The use of past experience,
To use the wisdom gleaned from follies past,
Acknowledged now;
To try life again, in hope
Of fewer errors on second proof.
But my heart said: could you, in truth?
Will you pardon time wasted,
Morality violated, talent abused,
Judgement ill-made, mercies not done,
Opportunity lost?
It is an evil incident to man
To leave unexamined the springs of useful truth,
And to walk the world with eyes shut,
Mind closed, ears stopped,
Heart gated against the greater good.
And one can walk thus only in the trodden way.
101
They sent me a present from Annam:
A red cockatoo,
Coloured like the peach-tree blossom,
Speaking the speech of men.
They had done to it what they always do
To the learned and eloquent:
They took a cage with stout bars
And shut it inside.
102
My bed has been put behind the unpainted screen.
They have shifted the stove next to the blue curtain.
My grandchildren read to me sometimes from their books:
The servants heat my soup on the brazier outside.
With a quick pencil I answer goodwill notes from my friends,
I feel in my pocket for coins to pay the doctor.
When all these trifling things are done
I lie back on my pillow, and sleep with my face to the south.
103
Until forty one is distracted by the five lusts;
After seventy one is prey to a hundred diseases.
But at fifty and sixty one is free from all ills.
Calm and still, the heart enjoys rest.
I have put behind me love and greed,
I have put behind me profit and fame;
I am not yet decrepit or decayed;
Strength of limbs remains to me,
And I can seek the river and walk the hills;
My heart still loves hearing the flute and strings,
My stomach enjoys the new wine and the feast.
Do not complain of three-score:
It is the time we obey ourselves best.
104
Do not braid up your hair.
Let it fly unconfined,
Let its ravisher, the wind,
Wanton with it:
Like a clew of golden thread
Unravelled, let it free.
Do not wind up that light in ribands,
Or over-cloud it, like the night;
But let the sun’s colour in it
Shake loose and scatter abroad,
Like day.
105
Into the isolated fields two figures passed,
Walking slow, into the frozen wood.
Their lips are tight, their eyes dead,
No one hears what they said.
Into the frozen fields two shadows passed,
To remember or deny the forgotten past.
Do