From The Legend of the Centuries

  Conscience

  When Cain, dishevelled, angry, in the middle of a storm,

  Fleeing with his children wrapped in hides to keep warm,

  Was running from Jehovah, he arrived at the base

  Of a solitary mountain in the middle of a waste

  As night came down and darkness gave the shadows depth.

  His wife, exhausted, and his children, out of breath,

  Said to him, ‘Let’s lie down here and go to sleep.’

  Cain dreamed at the mountain’s foot, unable to sleep.

  Lifting his head, he looked up and saw an eye

  Entirely open, in the depths of the sky,

  Which stared at him fixedly from out of the night.

  ‘I am too close,’ he said, shuddering at the sight.

  And so he woke his sleeping sons along with his wife

  And set out again, as if fleeing for his life.

  He marched for thirty nights; he marched for thirty days.

  He travelled, silent, pale, afraid of noises, in a daze,

  Furtively, without looking back or stopping once,

  Without rest, without sleep, until he came after months

  To the coast which would be the Assyrian shore.

  ‘Let us stop here,’ he said, ‘This refuge is secure.

  We’ve reached the world’s limits. Let us rest – or try to.’

  But as he went to sit, he glanced across the sky’s blue

  And saw the eye hanging in the last place he had looked.

  Fear sent him into convulsions. As he shook

  He shouted ‘Cover me!’. With their fingers on their mouths,

  All of his children watched their father’s trembling hands.

  Cain said to Jab, whose sons would later move about

  As nomads under tasselled tents across the sands,

  ‘Spread out the canvas of your tent over here.’

  And so they put together a floating barrier.

  In order to secure it, leaden weights were fastened on.

  ‘You can see nothing now?’ asked Zillah, sweet as dawn,

  The blond child, daughter of his daughters and his sons.

  ‘I still see that eye!’ was Cain’s terrified response.

  Then Jubal, father of those men who travel from

  Market towns blowing horns and banging on their drums,

  Said, ‘I know how to build a wall.’ So he designed it,

  Had it made from bronze, and put Cain behind it.

  But Cain said, ‘The eye is still out there, hovering.’

  Enoch said, ‘Let’s build a score of towers in a ring

  So terrifying no one will dare to come close.

  Let’s build a city with a large gate we can close.

  Let’s build a city, and we’ll seal him inside.’

  And so the forefather of blacksmiths, Tubalcain,

  Constructed an inhuman city, tall and wide.

  While he was building it, his brothers on the plain

  Were hunting down the children of Enosh and Seth.

  They ripped out the eyes of every person they met.

  And every night they fired their arrows at the stars.

  Granite replaced the canvas walls. And iron bars

  Were used to join the huge blocks of this citadel.

  The city looked as if it were a city from hell:

  Its towers caused a night to fall on outlying fields.

  Its walls were like mountains. For they built them not to yield

  To anything. They scrawled above its gate: ‘No Gods allowed.’

  And when they had finished walling in and walling out

  They put Cain in the towers’ most secure and guarded wing.

  But he remained listless, and only seemed to stare.

  ‘Has the eye disappeared?’ asked Zillah, trembling.

  Cain answered back to her, ‘No. It’s still there.’

  And then he said to them, ‘I want to live underground

  Like a hermit in his tomb – in some place without sound

  Where no one will see me, and I won’t see them as well.’

  And so they dug a ditch, and Cain replied, ‘You’ve done well.’

  Then he went down into the black crypt alone.

  And when he was sitting in the darkness on his throne,

  And they had sealed the vault in which he would remain,

  The eye was in the tomb there and looked straight at Cain.

  Booz endormi

  Booz s’était couché de fatigue accablé;

  Il avait tout le jour travaillé dans son aire;

  Puis avait fait son lit à sa place ordinaire;

  Booz dormait auprès des boisseaux pleins de blé.

  Ce vieillard possédait des champs de blés et d’orge;

  Il était, quoique riche, à la justice enclin;

  Il n’avait pas de fange en l’eau de son moulin;

  Il n’avait pas d’enfer dans le feu de sa forge.

  Sa barbe était d’argent comme un ruisseau d’avril.

  Sa gerbe n’était point avare ni haineuse;

  Quand il voyait passer quelque pauvre glaneuse:

  – Laissez tomber exprès des épis, disait-il.

  Cet homme marchait pur loin des sentiers obliques,

  Vêtu de probité candide et de lin blanc;

  Et, toujours du côté des pauvres ruisselant,

  Ses sacs de grains semblaient des fontaines publiques.

  Booz était bon maître et fidèle parent;

  Il était généreux, quoiqu’il fût économe;

  Les femmes regardaient Booz plus qu’un jeune homme,

  Car le jeune homme est beau, mais le vieillard est grand.

  Le vieillard, qui revient vers la source première,

  Entre aux jours éternels et sort des jours changeants;

  Et l’on voit de la flamme aux yeux des jeunes gens,

  Mais dans l’œil du vieillard on voit de la lumière.

  *

  Donc, Booz dans la nuit dormait parmi les siens.

  Près des meules, qu’on eût prises pour des décombres,

  Les moissoneurs couchés faisaient des groupes sombres;

  Et ceci se passait dans des temps très anciens.

  Les tribus d’Israël avaient pour chef un juge;

  La terre, où l’homme errait sous la tente, inquiet

  Des empreintes de pieds de géants qu’il voyait,

  Était mouillée encor et molle du déluge.

  *

  Comme dormait Jacob, comme dormait Judith,

  Booz, les yeux fermés, gisait sous la feuillée;

  Or, la porte du ciel s’étant entre-bâillée

  Au-dessus de sa tête, un songe en descendit.

  Et ce songe étail tel, que Booz vit un chêne

  Qui, sorti de son ventre, allait jusqu’au ciel bleu;

  Une race y montait comme une longue chaîne;

  Un roi chantait en bas, en haut mourait un Dieu.

  Et Booz murmurait avec la voix de l’âme:

  «Comment se pourrait-il que de moi ceci vînt?

  Le chiffre de mes ans a passé quatre-vingt,

  Et je n’ai pas de fils, et je n’ai plus de femme.

  «Voilà longtemps que celle avec qui j’ai dormi,

  O Seigneur! a quitté ma couche pour la vôtre;

  Et nous sommes encor tout mêlés l’un à l’autre,

  Elle à demi vivante et moi mort à demi.

  «Une race naîtrait de moi! Comment le croire?

  Comment se pourrait-il que j’eusse des enfants?

  Quand on est jeune, on a des matins triomphants;

  Le jour sort de la nuit comme d’une victoire;

  «Mais, vieux, on tremble ainsi qu’à l’hiver le bouleau;

  Je suis veuf, je suis seul, et sur moi le soir tombe,

  Et je courbe, ô mon Dieu! mon âme vers la tombe,

  Comme un bœuf ayant soif penche son front vers l’eau.»

  Ainsi parlait Booz dans le rêve et l’extase,

  Tournant vers Dieu ses yeux par le sommeil noyés;

  Le cèdre ne sent pas une rose à sa base,

  Et lui ne sentait pas une femme à ses pieds.

  *

  Pendant qu’il sommeillait, Ruth, une moabite,

  S’était couchée aux pieds de Booz, le sein nu,

  Espérant on ne sait quel rayon inconnu,

  Quand viendrait du réveil la lumière subite.

  Booz ne savait point qu’une femme était là,

  Et Ruth ne savait point ce que Dieu voulait d’elle.

  Un frais parfum sortait des touffes d’asphodèle;

  Les souffles de la nuit flottaient sur Galgala.

  L’ombre était nuptiale, auguste et solennelle;

  Les anges y volaient sans doute obscurément,

  Car on voyait passer dans la nuit, par moment,

  Quelque chose de bleu qui paraissait une aile.

  La respiration de Booz qui dormait,

  Se mêlait au bruit sourd des ruisseaux sur la mousse.

  On était dans le mois où la nature est douce,

  Les collines ayant des lys sur leur sommet.

  Ruth songeait et Booz dormait; l’herbe était noire;

  Les grelots des troupeaux tombait du firmament;

  Une immense bonté tombait du firmament;

  C’était l’heure tranquille où les lions vont boire.

  Tout reposait dans Ur et dans Jérimadeth;

  Les astres émaillent le ciel profond et sombre;

  Le croissant fin et clair parmi ces fleurs de l’ombre

  Brillait à l’occident, et Ruth se demandait,

  Immobile, ouvrant l’œil à moitié sous ses voiles,

  Quel dieu, quel moisonneur de l’éternel été,

  Avait, en s’en allant, négligemment jeté

  Cette faucille d’or dans le champ des étoiles.

  Boaz Asleep

  Boaz lay down burdened with fatigue and the heat.

  He had been threshing in his granary all day.

  And then he made his bed in his usual place.

  Boaz went to sleep among the bushels of wheat.

  This ancient man possessed vast fields of wheat and corn.

  Although he was rich, he had a love of justice still.

  There wasn’t any mud in the water of his mill.

  There wasn’t any hell in the fire of his forge.

  His beard was streaked with silver, like a stream’s April surface.

  His sheaves were neither miserly nor filled with bitterness.

  Whenever he saw a poor woman gleaning wheat

  He’d say to his workers, ‘Let some ears fall on purpose.’

  This man walked far away from pathways choked with weed,

  Clothed in a white robe and his integrity.

  His sacks of grain, like public fountains, flowed plentifully,

  Always spilling over on the side of those in need.

  Boaz was a kind lord and loyal relative,

  Generous to everyone, though prudent every time.

  Women looked at Boaz more than all the young men.

  For the young man is handsome, but the old is sublime.

  Old men, returning to the source of life, forego

  The changing days and enter changelessness again.

  And though you see a fire in the eyes of young men,

  In the eyes of an old man you can see a glow.

  *

  And so Boaz slept among his own in the evening.

  The reapers lay like dark mounds piled in a row

  Next to the millstones one might mistake for ruins.

  And all of this took place a very long time ago.

  The tribes of Israel had a judge for a leader.

  Troubled by the footprints of giants in the mud

  Nomadic peoples wandered with their tents across an earth

  Still soft and dripping from the wake of the flood.

  *

  Just as Jacob slept and Judith slept, Boaz lay there

  Underneath a bed of leaves and gently closed his eyes.

  For when the gate of heaven opened over his head

  A dream went out and drifted downwards through the skies.

  And in this dream Boaz saw an oak tree grow out of

  The middle of his stomach and ascend into the blue.

  A nation climbed upward like the links of a chain:

  A king sung at the bottom and a God died above.

  And Boaz started speaking to his soul in a murmur,

  ‘How can this ever come to pass in my life?

  The number of my years has now gone over eighty.

  And I don’t have a son. And I no longer have a wife.

  It has been a long time since the one who shared my bed,

  O Lord, has departed from my side and gone to yours;

  And we are still very much a part of each other:

  She is half-living still and half of me is dead.

  How can I believe a race will yet be born from me?

  How is it still possible for me to have children?

  When one is young, every morning is triumphant:

  The day rises up from the night like victory.

  But when one is older, the winter makes one shiver.

  I’m alone and old now: night will fall on me soon.

  I’m already, God, bending my soul toward the tomb,

  The way a thirsty bull leans his head toward the river.’

  Boaz was speaking in a dream, as if drunk,

  Turning his swimming eyes toward God in his sleep.

  A cedar doesn’t smell a rose growing near its trunk,

  And Boaz didn’t see the woman lying at his feet.

  *

  While he was sleeping there, Ruth, a Moabite,

  Lay down with her breasts bared at Boaz’s feet,

  Hoping for some sort of unfamiliar ray

  In which understanding would flare up like a light.

  Boaz didn’t know that a woman was there,

  And Ruth didn’t know what God wanted from her.

  A cool scent drifted from the tufts of asphodels.

  The breaths of evening floated over Galgala’s hills.

  The darkness was nuptial, solemn, and august.

  Surely there were angels flying in the glimmering,

  For you could see, passing in the night now and then,

  Something that was bluish and appeared to be a wing.

  Boaz’s breathing was as soft as a child’s

  And blended with the water rustling in the copse.

  It was in the month when nature is mild.

  The hills were adorned with lilies on their tops.

  Ruth dreamed and Boaz slept. The dark grass seemed to sigh.

  The flock’s bells were tinkling vaguely in the breeze.

  An immense goodness fell from the height of the sky;

  It was at the hour when the lions drink in peace.

  Everything was resting in jerimadeth and Ur;

  The stars glazed the deep sky as far as you could see.

  A bright, thin crescent shone among these shadowy

  Flowers of evening, and Ruth wondered to herself,

  Motionless, half opening her eyes and looking far

  Into the night, what reaper of eternity – what kind

  Of god – had, leaving us, carelessly tossed behind

  This golden sickle in the dark field of the stars.

  Première Rencontre du Christ avec le tombeau

  En ce temps-là, Jésus était dans la Judée;

  Il avait délivré la femme possédée,

  Rendu l’ouïe aux sourds et guéri les lépreux;

  Les prêtres l’épiaient et parlaient bas entre eux.

  Comme il s’en retournait vers la ville bénie,

  Lazare, homme de bien, mourut à Béthanie.

  Marthe et Marie étaient ses sœurs; Marie, un jour,

  Pour laver les pieds nus du maître plein d’amour,

  Avait été chercher son parfum le plus rare.

  Or, Jésus aimait Marthe et Marie et Lazare.

  Quelqu’un lui dit: «Lazare est mort.»

  Le lendemain,

  Comme le peuple était venu sur son chemin,

  Il expliquait la loi, les livres, les symboles,

  Et, comme Elie et Job, parlait par paraboles.

  Il disait: « – Qui me suit, aux anges est pareil.

  Quand un homme a marché tout le jour au soleil

  Dans un chemin sans puits et sans hôtellerie,

  S’il ne croit pas, quand vient le soir, il pleure, il crie;

  Il est las; sur la terre il tombe haletant.

  S’il croit en moi, qu’il prie, il peut au même instant

  Continuer sa route avec des forces triples.» –

  Puis il s’interrompit, et dit à ses disciples:

  «Lazare, notre ami, dort; je vais l’éveiller.» –

  Eux dirent: – «Nous irons, maître, où tu veux aller.»

  Or, de Jérusalem, où Salomon mit l’arche,

  Pour gagner Béthanie, il faut trois jours de marche.

  Jésus partit. Durant cette route souvent,

  Tandis qu’il marchait seul et pensif en avant,

  Son vêtement parut blanc comme la lumière.

  Quand Jésus arriva, Marthe vint la première,

  Et, tombant à ses pieds, s’écria tout d’abord:

  – «Si nous t’avions eu maître, il ne serait pas mort.»

  Puis reprit en pleurant: – «Mais il a rendu l’âme.

  Tu viens trop tard.» Jésus lui di: – «Qu’en sais-tu femme?

  Le moissonneur est seul maître de la moisson.»

  Marie était restée assise à la maison.

  Marthe lui cria: – «Viens, le maître te réclame.»

  Elle vint. Jésus dit: – «Pourquoi pleures-tu, femme?»

  Et Marie à genoux lui dit: – «Toi seul est fort.

  Si nous t’avions eu, maître, il ne serait pas mort.»

  Jésus reprit: – «Je suis la lumière et la vie.

  Heureux celui qui voit ma trace et l’a suivie!

  Qui croit en moi vivra, fût-il mort et gisant!» –

  Et Thomas, appelé Didyme, était présent.

  Et le Seigneur, dont Jean et Pierre suivaient l’ombre,

  Dit aux juifs accourus pour le voir en grand nombre:

  – «Où donc l’avez-vous mis?» – Il répondirent: «Vois,»

  Lui montrant de la main, dans un champs, près d’un bois,

  À côté d’un torrent qui dans les pierres coule,

  Un sépulcre.

  Et Jésus pleura.