V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
|
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces | -1 | |
After the frosty silence in the gardens | 0 | |
After the agony in stony places | 1 | |
The shouting and the crying | 2 | |
Prison and palace and reverberation | 3 | |
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains | 4 | |
He who was living is now dead | 5 | |
We who were living are now dying | 6 | |
With a little patience
| 7 | |
Here is no water but only rock | 8 | |
Rock and no water and the sandy road | 9 | |
The road winding above among the mountains | 10 | |
Which are mountains of rock without water | 11 | |
If there were water we should stop and drink | 12 | |
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think | 13 | |
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand | 14 | |
If there were only water amongst the rock | 15 | |
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit | 16 | |
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit | 17 | |
There is not even silence in the mountains | 18 | |
But dry sterile thunder without rain | 19 | |
There is not even solitude in the mountains | 20 | |
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl | 21 | |
From doors of mudcracked houses | 22 | |
If there were water | 23 | |
And no rock | 24 | |
If there were rock | 25 | |
And also water | 26 | |
And water | 27 | |
A spring | 28 | |
A pool among the rock | 29 | |
If there were the sound of water only | 30 | |
Not the cicada | 31 | |
And dry grass singing | 32 | |
But sound of water over a rock | 33 | |
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees | 34 | |
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop | 35 | |
But there is no water
| 36 | |
Who is the third who walks always beside you? | 37 | |
When I count, there are only you and I together | 38 | |
But when I look ahead up the white road | 39 | |
There is always another one walking beside you | 40 | |
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded | 41 | |
I do not know whether a man or a woman | 42 | |
- But who is that on the other side of you?
| 43 | |
What is that sound high in the air | 44 | |
Murmur of maternal lamentation | 45 | |
Who are those hooded hordes swarming | 46 | |
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth | 47 | |
Ringed by the flat horizon only | 48 | |
What is the city over the mountains | 49 | |
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air | 50 | |
Falling towers | 51 | |
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria | 52 | |
Vienna London | 53 | |
Unreal
| 54 | |
A woman drew her long black hair out tight | 55 | |
And fiddled whisper music on those strings | 56 | |
And bats with baby faces in the violet light | 57 | |
Whistled, and beat their wings | 58 | |
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall | 59 | |
And upside down in air were towers | 60 | |
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours | 61 | |
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
| 62 | |
In this decayed hole among the mountains | 63 | |
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing | 64 | |
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel | 65 | |
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home. | 66 | |
It has no windows, and the door swings, | 67 | |
Dry bones can harm no one. | 68 | |
Only a cock stood on the rooftree | 69 | |
Co co rico co co rico | 70 | |
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust | 71 | |
Bringing rain
| 72 | |
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves | 73 | |
Waited for rain, while the black clouds | 74 | |
Gathered far distant, over Himavant. | 75 | |
The jungle crouched, humped in silence. | 76 | |
Then spoke the thunder | 77 | |
DA | 78 | |
Datta: what have we given? | 79 | |
My friend, blood shaking my heart | 80 | |
The awful daring of a moment's surrender | 81 | |
Which an age of prudence can never retract | 82 | |
By this, and this only, we have existed | 83 | |
Which is not to be found in our obituaries | 84 | |
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider | 85 | |
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor | 86 | |
In our empty rooms | 87 | |
DA | 88 | |
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key | 89 | |
Turn in the door once and turn once only | 90 | |
We think of the key, each in his prison | 91 | |
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison | 92 | |
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours | 93 | |
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus | 94 | |
DA | 95 | |
Damyata: The boat responded | 96 | |
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar | 97 | |
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded | 98 | |
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient | 99 | |
To controlling hands
| 100 | |
I sat upon the shore | 101 | |
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me | 102 | |
Shall I at least set my lands in order? | 103 | |
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down | 104 | |
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina | 105 | |
Quando fiam ceu chelidon - O swallow swallow | 106 | |
Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie | 107 | |
These fragments I have shored against my ruins | 108 | |
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe. | 109 | |
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. | 110 | |
Shantih shantih shantih | 111 | |
|