The Good Book (30 page)

The words of love we spoke

Have stored themselves in our history

To await in secret another time:

One day they will fall, as seeds, with rain to earth,

And grow green all over the world.

40

Another dawn will never come

That finds us waking together.

I know this, and little by little

Give up the love that wants such dawns again.

And yet: something within me laughs,

Laughs and shakes it head,

At the thought of ever giving up this love

That wants such dawns again.

41

You were the morning, I was a candle in the dawn.

I surrendered my heart to your smile on awakening.

Such was the pattern of your tresses on my breast

That they will make my grave a bed of violets.

I opened the doors of my desire to you,

And you crossed the threshold:

I am the slave of what I saw in you,

And though your beauty is displayed to everyone,

No one sees your amorous look as I do.

Oh beloved, if like a breeze you pass by my tomb

I will rise in that narrow pass and tear my shroud,

Summoned by the lightness of your footfall.

42

A hot afternoon; I lay drowsing on my bed, limbs spread

To catch the breeze of the half-opened window.

The light in my room was dim

As twilight in a dark green forest,

Or the glimmer before dawn;

Such light as shy girls like for modesty.

Behold then she came, in a loose slip,

Her hair tumbling down her gleaming neck.

I pulled her slip away, not tearing it though of gauze,

And she pretended to try keeping it about her;

But yielded effortlessly, and stood naked,

Naked before my eyes: not a flaw on her body.

What shoulders, arms, I saw and touched!

What breasts so formed for my caress!

How her belly curved beneath her slender waist,

How curved her flanks, her warm thighs!

I pressed her naked body against mine, and kissed:

Who does not know the rest? Drowsy with love we rested:

May many such afternoons be mine!

43

Ring, go to her, encircle her beautiful finger;

May she receive you with a glad heart and take you

Straightway, where I kissed;

Smoothly fit her finger, lucky ring.

I, envious of my gift, would take its place

To encircle her close;

Then when I wished to touch her breasts,

Or reach inside her tunic, I would slip from her finger,

However tight and clinging the fit,

And with wonderful art fall into her garment’s folds.

Again, to close a letter up, she would touch me to her moist lips

Before she pressed the wax that seals its secret.

She would wear me as she steps into the bath,

Though I think her naked limbs would rouse my passion.

A vain wish? Away then, little gift:

Show her what loyalty comes with you,

And what desire.

44

Forbear to wonder what the Cantabrian or Scythian meditate,

Divided from us by the unsleeping sea;

Leave thought for the necessities of life, which needs little.

Youth and beauty are swiftly away,

Old age turns its back on wanton loves.

The same glory does not remain in the flower,

Nor does the ruddy moon shine with the same face:

Why fatigue yourself with thoughts?

While we can, let us recline under the tall pine,

In a shade fragrant with roses,

And wait while the cups of ardent Falernian wine

Cool in the passing stream:

And let us call wanton Lyde from her house,

To hasten with her ivory lyre, her hair

Tied in a graceful knot

In the manner of the Spartan maids.

45

What slender youth, bathed in perfumes,

Embraces you among many a rose, O Pyrrha,

In a pleasant arbour?

For whom do you tie up your golden hair

In simple elegance?

Alas! how often will he lament your faithlessness,

Like a sailor who set out on a sparkling sea

Then sees, surprised,

The water roughening and darkened by gales!

He who now enjoys you,

Fondly thinking you golden, ever lovely,

Is ignorant of the treacherous future

That awaits him at your hands.

O wretched youth, to whom, he untried,

You now appear so dazzling!

As for me, I have hung up the dripping garments

In which I nearly drowned while in your arms.

46

Tell me, Lydia, why strong Sybaris

Shuns the sun-drenched field of exercise,

Why he rides no more among his comrades,

Mastering his Gallic stallion with iron bit?

Why does he avoid the yellow Tiber’s foam,

Why does he neglect to oil his limbs

For the wrestling-ground,

Or show his arms bruised with weapon practice,

He who once threw the discus, the javelin,

Further than all?

Is this the work of love, Lydia,

Or just the work of your charms?

47

It is poetry’s will that I celebrate her,

Her bright darting eyes, her breast faithful to mutual love;

Who can with grace step into the dance

Or join arms with the virgins of the festival?

Would anyone change a single tress of her hair

For all the riches of Achaemenes,

Or the wealth of fertile Phrygia?

Especially when she turns her neck to meet your burning kisses,

Or with gentle cruelty denies what she would

With more delight

Have ravished than the petitioner:

And sometimes eagerly embraces for herself?

48

The caged bird owes no allegiance.

Where tonight she lies, no one can give us news;

Nor any knows, save the watching moon.

The wall is low around my garden;

The lists in the bailiff’s lodge are seldom checked.

Were we sometimes unkind?

When the shadows thickened among the pines

She crept away, concealed by silence.

The caged bird owes no allegiance,

The wind-tossed flower does not cling to the tree.

Where she lies tonight, no one can give us news;

Nor any knows, save the watching moon.

49

The mountain path is covered in fallen leaves,

So many, so many.

Looking for my lost lover I cannot find the path,

Walking the path I am like a boat in water,

Leaving no track behind.

Between the branches I see the evening sky;

When I gaze into the clouds I see

The smoke of her funeral pyre.

Our former life is now a dream;

The house we left

Has become a home for wildflowers and butterflies;

And its walls are covered in ivy.

50

Look to today.

You remember yesterday,

You envision tomorrow,

Today you live.

Live well today,

Yesterday is a good memory,

Tomorrow a good hope.

Neglect today,

Yesterday is remorse,

Tomorrow a trial.

51

Still and clear, the first weeks of May,

When trees are green and bushes soft and wet;

When the wind has stolen the shadows of new leaves

And birds linger on the last boughs that bloom.

Towards evening as the sky grew clearer yet

And the south-east was still clothed in red,

To the highest terrace we carried our jar of wine;

While we waited for the moon, our cups moved slow.

Soon, soon her golden shape rose from the forest in the east,

Swiftly, as though she had waited for us to come.

The beams of her light shone in every place,

On towers and halls dancing to and fro.

Till day broke we sat in her clear light

Laughing, singing, yet never growing tired.

In the city, where men scramble for profit and fame,

How many know such nights as this?

52

At my closed door autumn grasses grow.

What could I do to ease a rustic heart?

I planted trees, more than a hundred saplings.

When I see their beauty, as they grow by the stream-side,

I feel again as though I lived in the hills,

And many a time on public holidays

Round their railing I walk till night comes.

Do not say that their roots are still weak,

Do not say that their shade is still small;

Already I feel both in garden and house

Day by day a fresher air moves.

But most I love, lying at my window,

To hear in their branches the murmur of the breeze.

53

Green spring receives the vacant earth;

The white sun shines;

Spring wind provokes each sprout and flower

To burst and burgeon anew.

Do not hide in those dark caves where winter lurks, my thoughts!

O thoughts come back again! Do not stray!

Come back again:

Go not east or west, north or south!

O thoughts go not east,

For eastward a mighty water drowns earth’s other shore;

Tossed on its waves and heaving with its tides

The nameless terrors of the ocean ride,

Clouds gather low, fogs enfold the sea

And gleaming ice drifts past:

O thoughts go not east,

To where dangerous surges

Toss the fragile ships of men and flood them over,

Bearing them to the bottom of the deep!

O thoughts go not south, where mile on mile

The earth is burnt away and poisonous serpents

Slither through the flames;

Where on precipitous paths and deep in woods

Tigers and leopards prowl, water-scorpions wait,

And the king python rears his giant head.

O thoughts, go not south,

Where the slow-moving tortoise breathes disease

And beasts’ eyes glare from the black forest shade!

O thoughts go not west,

Where desert wastes of sand stretch endlessly;

And barbarians rage, swine-headed, hairy-skinned,

With bulging eyes, who in wild laughter shake their weapons

And prey on travellers lost in the waste of burning dunes.

O thoughts go not west where thirst and perils wait!

O thoughts go not north, to the frozen peaks

Where trees and grasses dare not grow;

Where a river runs too wide to cross, too deep to plumb,

And the sky is white with snow.

Go not north where cold winds cut and kill.

O thoughts seek not the north’s treacherous icy voids!