Moses

Voices thunder, voices of deeds not done: Lo, on the air are scrawled in abysmal light Old myths never known and yet already forgone, And songs more lost, more secret than desert light: Martyrdoms of uncreated things, Virgin silences waiting a breaking voice— As in a womb they cry, in a cage beat vain wings Under life, over life: is their unbeing my choice?

Dull wine of torpor—the unsoldered spirit lies limp. Ah! If she would run into a mould, Some new idea unwalled To human by-ways, an apocalyptic camp Of utterest and ulterior dreaming, Understood only in its gleaming, To flash stark naked the whole girth of the world.

I am sick of priests and forms, This rigid dry-boned refinement: As ladies’ perfumes are Obnoxious to stern natures, This miasma of a rotting god Is to me. Who has made of the forest a park? Who has changed the wolf to a dog? And put the horse in harness? And man’s mind in a groove?

I heard the one spirit cry in them, “Break this metamorphosis, Disenchant my lying body; Only putrefaction is free, And I, Freedom, am not. Moses! Touch us, thou!”

There shall not be a void or calm, But a fury fill the veins of time— Whose limbs had begun to rot, Who had flattered my stupid torpor With an easy and mimic energy, And drained my veins with a paltry marvel More monstrous than battle; For the soul ached and went out dead in pleasure.

Is not this song still sung in the streets of me?

A naked African Walked in the sun Singing—singing Of his wild love.

I slew the tiger With your young strength (My tawny panther) Rolled round my life.

Three sheep, your breasts And my head between, Grazing together On a smooth slope.

Ah! Koelue! Had you embalmed your beauty, so It could not backward go Or change in any way, What were the use if on my eyes The embalming spices were not laid To keep us fixed, Two amorous sculptures passioned endlessly? What were the use if my sight grew And its far branches were cloud-hung, You small at the roots like grass; While the new lips my spirit would kiss Were not red lips of flesh, But the huge kiss of power? Where yesterday soft hair through my fingers fell A shaggy mane would entwine; And no slim form work fire to my thighs, But human Life’s inarticulate mass Throb the pulse of a thing Whose mountain flanks awry Beg my mastery—mine! Ah! I will ride the dizzy beast of the world My road—my way.

SCENE II.: Evening before Thebes. The Pyramids are being built. Swarms of Hebrews labouring. Priests and Taskmasters. Two Hebrews are furtively talking. KOELUE passes by singing.