Lilith

Bring me the sherbet from the ledge and the fast-dried figs.

[The NUBIAN brings sherbet, figs, and a bowl of ice, and lays them down.]

[She looks curiously at him. He is an immense man with squat, mule-skinned features: his jet-black curled beard, crisp hair, glistening nude limbs, appear to her like some heathen idol of ancient stories.]

[She thinks to herself.]

Out of the lightning In a dizzying cloven wink This apparition stood up, Of stricken trunk or beast’s spirit, Stirred by Saul’s blasphemies; So Saul’s heart feared, aghast. But lo, he touched the mischance and life ran straight! Was it the storm-spirit, storm’s pilot, With all the heaving débris of Noah’s sunken days Dragged on his loins; Law’s spirit wandering to us Through Nature’s anarchy, Wandering towards us when the Titans yet were young? Perhaps Moses and Buddha he met.

[She speaks aloud.]

The shadow of these pomegranate boughs Is sweet and restful; sit and ease your feet. Eat of these figs; You have journeyed long.