Collected Poems by Anthony Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) 📕

of bull’s horns

And the plucking of the harp and the breathing of the flute,

A celebratory song from Miriam, a dance from the maidens,

Extolling their God of life:

His strength is the strength of the bull that charges in thunder,

His wonder is in the flow of the seed of men.

Again and again, above in the skies and under

The skies, in the gold noon and the moon’s gold,

His power and his wonder are told.

Halleluiah, halleluiah.

Outside their tent, in fireglow, Eliseba,

The wife of Aaron, spoke to Aaron: ‘So no news.’ –

‘As I have said before,’ said Aaron, ‘we do not

Talk of news.’ – ‘I thought perhaps Joshua

Might have come down – with news, or whatever I am to call it.’ –

‘Joshua has his orders.’ – ‘And you have yours.’ –

‘And I have mine,’ said Aaron. ‘Orders to give orders.

My order was to keep order. Which I am doing.’ –

‘Yes,’ said Eliseba, ‘which you are doing’. –

‘You have some strange thought in that head of yours,’

Aaron smiled, and she said: ‘No strange thought.

A very natural thought. You keep order

Until Joshua is ready to come from that mountain.

Then Joshua keeps order.’ – ‘But this is nonsense’,

Aaron said. ‘Joshua has his work. I have mine.’ –

‘Whatever it is,’ she said, and he: ‘I am his voice.

Joshua is his right arm. That has been understood,

Clearly, ever since the war.’ – ‘War?’ she said,

In feigned puzzlement. ‘Oh, the little desert skirmish

With those unwashed desert people. General Joshua.

Joshua the great warrior.’ – ‘Joshua’ Aaron said,

‘Is a good man and good leader. Believe me,

We shall need good military leaders before that time comes

When we settle down in peace. What have you against him?’ –

‘Nothing,’ Eliseba said. ‘I just wonder sometimes

How I fit in – How you, I mean – ‘ He was stern, saying:

‘What you mean, I think, is that you have not been

Accorded the respect you consider your due.

You want the deference you consider owing

To the wife of a great man. The consort

Of a great man. Did I ever pretend to be

A great man? There are no great men here,

Believe me. Not even my brother. He is under orders

More than anyone. He is thrown into that position

Against his will. Against his will, do you understand?

We ask very little. To build our nation. That means

Law, law and more law. What we are doing

Is waiting for that law to be hammered out,

Painfully. When we have law we will have judges.

I shall be a judge – is that great enough for you?

Eliseba, the judge’s wife. Will that do?’

But she said: ‘You misunderstand me. You

Misunderstand my meaning. Ah, I am not even sure

I understand it myself. But, let me say this:

Once there seemed so much to look forward to.

Now there seems to be nothing.’ – ‘Nothing?’ he cried.

‘Nothing to come out of Egypt a free people,

Free, I say. Nothing the wonders, miracles?’ –

‘Miracles,’ Eliseba echoed. ‘Or is it trickery?

There are some who are saying it was trickery,

His trickery. That he knew a strong wind

Would blow back the waters. It’s happened before, they say.

And the water in those rocks, and the quails, the manna.

Cunning, clever – but it was all supposed to be

The power of this God. His God. And where is this God?’ –

‘You forget,’ said Aaron wearily, ‘the miracles in Egypt.

God was in those, God is in everything –

In the strength of the wind and the lightning and the sea.

And now he talks to my own brother, gives him the law,

Makes a covenant with our people. Beware,

Beware of blasphemy, woman.’ Eliseba, unabashed,

Said: ‘You say that to everyone. And now you say it

To your own wife. Blasphemy blasphemy blasphemy.

But what I say is this: What comes next?

We move on to some other place full of sheep,

After General Joshua has kindly won more battles for us,

And then we obey the law, smelling of sheep-dung.

Is that life?’ Aaron said: ‘We are the builders.

We are the beginners. We will make kingdoms

Greater than Egypt when the time comes. But

That time is not yet.’ And Eliseba answered:

‘We will look up at the sky, pretending we see

A God who is not really there – who only lives

In the mind of your brother Moses. Have you ever thought

That your brother may be mad – that he’ll starve to death

Up there, brooding on his God? And that we have to wait

While he starves to death or wanders away on the

Other side of the mountain, forgetting us,

All the big promises. Not that they are so big,

Those big promises. Looking after sheep

And bearing children and having lots of laws

And an invisible God grumbling all the time.’ –

‘I think,’ said Aaron sighing, ‘we should go to bed.’ –

‘Bed,’ said Eliseba. ‘Bed and work and bread

And goat’s milk. And occasionally, if we are good,

A song and dance from your sister Miriam. Life.

At least in Egypt there was – ah, it is no matter.’ –

‘In Egypt’, Aaron cried, ‘there was misery,

Whips and pyramids and filthy stone idols. Misery.’ –

‘Also’, she said, ‘baked Nile fish and palm wine.

What are you going to do, Aaron –

Aaron of the golden mouth, what are you going

To do? The people are unhappy, Aaron.’

‘They have no right,’ he muttered, ‘to be unhappy.

They must be patient. Patience, the great thing is patience.’ –

‘And where did patience,’ she said, ‘ever lead them?

What did patience ever get them? They want to live.

He may never come back, Aaron of the golden mouth.

What are you going to do? This is your kingdom.’

So she left him alone by the fire and he looked

Bitterly after her. They want to live.

Next day a strange thing, a new thing, though small.

One of the idle appeared before the children

With little figures of stone, crudely carved,

And a crude platform of wood, and he set the figures

Acting on that stage, lending them his voices,

One voice a mouse-squeak, the other heavy, solemn,

A bearded voice, which rumbled: ‘Tell them all

That nobody is to work on the Sabbath, the Sabbath

Being my day, my day.’ – ‘Why not give us that day

And you have all the others? Then we should be able

To rest nearly all the time.’ The children