The troop ran panting, and the lone man rushed ahead
and put his heavy heart in order with good advice 1335
to take both yes and no and make them both bear fruit.
As his eyes fluttered, all at once the dark clouds scattered,
the unmelted snows gleamed once again, and from the crags
of the blue shore thundering waterfalls foamed and fell.
The waters flew in huge fistfuls, dashed down the rocks, 1340
and the archer rushed down toward the sea to touch it first,
but as he plunged his hands in water and wet his lips
he cried out in surprise and his heart leapt with joy,
for this was not salt water nor the sea’s salt spume—
his hands now cupped the sacred river’s reverent wells! 1345
He braced his body on a mossed rock in an awed silence: 1346
at last he held the sweet fruit of his longed-for goal;
the deathless waters leapt with joy and licked him now
like that old faithful dog who saw his long-lost master.
Broad-bottom in the glittering waters hopped and splashed: 1350
“Drink of the deathless waters, lads, set your minds free!1351
All that we’ve seen and suffered were but dreams of air,
thirst never parched us, hunger never stripped our bones,
nor did we ever quarrel on the bare desert sands.
Our piper, bless him, stretched once by the riverbank, 1355
took up his reed and made our brains sway in the breeze,
and thus with his sweet piping strains our journey’s ended.”
The friends all laughed and in their water-mother swam
until their flesh and souls were cooled, their pains forgotten,
and when they stretched, replete, the many-willed man rose, 1360
his eyes rimmed with new anguish, his lips pale as mist,
as though the wells were now behind him, dry, depleted,
and he climbed up toward unappeasable new thirsts.
He cocked his cap askew on his gray head, and spoke:
“Lads, though we’ve come to our first cliff and our first duty, 1365
I now discern a cliff that beckons further still;
but let’s cajole our flesh awhile—it, too, is a god,
warm and short-lived, to which a daily worship suits.
Set up lean-tos of branches, fix hearth-rings of stone,
plant slanting tented boughs and set the caldrons boiling, 1370
then when you’ve eaten, stretch on beaches, pair by pair,
because too many loved friends dropped along the road
and it’s time, lads, to breed again and save our stock.
But I shall climb alone to this high mountain’s peak,
for I have much to say to my old lion-heart, 1375
and as all wedded pairs shape sons in the dark night,
so shall we shape our holy city in these wilds
with guardian laws and battlements of our firm hearts.
When it has well formed in my mind and straddles space,
I shall descend, and we shall seize both trees and stones, 1380
and all that hovers in air, and plant it firm in earth.
Farewell! I shall return when seven days and nights have passed!”
He spoke, then leapt from rock to rock on agile toes
and like a young man scrambled toward the rose-lit peak
while his friends at the mountain’s root in silence watched 1385
him wedging through the mountain’s dense and twisted paths
as his long shadow fell along the morning slopes.
“Dear God, help him to bear his savage solitude,”
his people murmured anxiously, and wished him well,
and glutton wiped his eyes in stealth that none might see him weep. 1390
As the archer climbed, and the arena of his eyes spread wide,
solitude struck him like a sea and cooled his mind:
“A thousand welcomes, Solitude, O large-eyed mother
of all disdainful, proud young men, you with your small,
small wreath of wormwood on your snake-coiled, pure-white hair!” 1395
He spoke, then heard a scurrying sound, and turned his head;
the leopard cub with tail erect and panting tongue
rushed up his knees and scrambled to the lone man’s shoulders.
Odysseus laughed and fondled her white belly slowly:
“How kind of you to come, O Lady Heart, with your new teeth!” 1400
XIV
What joy to climb the mountain’s holy solitude
alone, in its clear air, a bay leaf in your teeth,
to hear the blood pound in your veins up from your heels
and speed on past your knees and loins to reach your throat
and there spread like a river to wash your mind’s roots! 5
Never to say, “I’ll go to the right,” “I’ll go to the left,”
but let the four winds range the crossroads of your mind,
and as you mount to hear God breathing everywhere,
laughing beside you, walking, kicking at sticks and stones;
to turn, and like a hunter out for grouse at dawn, 10
see not a single soul, not even a wing in air,
though all the mountain slopes about you cackle and caw.
What joy, when earth shakes like a flag in the dawn’s mist,
and your soul sits astride a steed sword-sharp and strong,
your head a castle of great power, while from your chest 15
the sun and moon hang down like gold and silver charms!
To hunt for that uncatchable high bird, to leave behind
your mind, and jangling life, and joy, that faithless slut;
to say farewell to virtue, to all-numbing love,
to leave behind the moldy and worm-eaten earth 20
the way new cobras shed their flimsy skins on thorns.
The lackwits laugh in taverns and the girls grow pale,
the landlords shake their velvet caps with threatening looks
and envy your red apples, soul, but dread the cliff,
but you strike up a gallant tune and like a bridegroom 25
walk straight toward solitude with bridal gifts in hand.
Lone man, you know that God avoids the herd and takes
the desert paths alone nor casts a shadow there;
you’ve learned all crafts; most wily man, and neither God’s
own traces nor man’s tracks can make you change your road; 30
you know the forest clearings where dark demons eat,
the wells which water the dread phantoms of the breast;
you hold all weapons in your mind, seize what you want:
ambush, bewitching spells, harehounds, or feathery shafts.
That day as you climbed up at dawn and walked with light, 35
both of your rude palms itched, your cunning eyes cast flames 36
and beat among the bushes everywhere to flush
that savage bird, your wild waste’s god, with its rich plumes.
Light-footed on the mountains, the cool hours passed
and leapt like kids among the crags with their bronze bells; 40
the sun paused in mid-heaven, the day cast off its yoke,
and twilight slowly settled on cool, azure mists
till with his friend, the light, the archer also stopped
on a sharp barren mountain peak with clawing crags,
precipitous and parched, no water and no grass, 45
wild nest well suited to his eagle-grappling mind.
At length the first star fluttered in the darkling air,
a golden housefly caught in the night’s spidery web
which slowly, slowly caught still more till the black dome
in marble traceries spread like webs after a rain. 50
“O night, I love yo
ur darkness, for it’s filled with stars,”
the archer murmured, as he hailed the astral flocks.
His mind, a carefree star, hung high in the black night
a moment, then plunged to earth once more, with flesh concerned:
“O drayhorse body, tomorrow morning your great task starts; 55
eat well, sleep deep, build up your strength, for if you knew
what I’ve in mind for you, your hair would stand on end.”
He spoke, then the sly master opened his wool sack
and with delight took out roast partridge, bread, and wine
and fed his hungry body to conserve its strength. 60
He licked the partridge to the bone, turned up his flask,
bent his head back and gulped the date wine till he felt
its strength spread like an octopus through all his veins.
The cub lay at his feet and chewed a mountain hare
which she had stalked and caught amid the beetling mountain crags. 65
As night increased and fires faded, the troop stretched out
along the dark foothills and tried in vain to sleep;
some heard the waters beating on their minds’ long shore
and had no heart then to surrender and sink in sleep;
others recalled the archer and quaked to think what he 70
might bring within his murderous palms on his return.
When he had eaten, he rose and sought a place to sleep,
and when he saw a cave’s low mouth in the stars’ light,
he wedged his body through, a sword in its dark sheath,
until the furry bat of sleep spread its black velvet wings. 75
He slept and dead men rose and swayed, the ghosts awoke,
the mountain’s bowels gaped, and phantoms, black and white,
slid silently along the plunging mountain crags:
“Who has an iron belt or marble hands, my lads,
or heart of pregnant tigress, let him take to arms! 80
The time is ripe, the archer sleeps, his mind is hushed;
who’ll cast a spell on his coiled brain before he eats us?”
Their voices leapt from peak to peak through the ravines,
but all ghosts of deserted wilds crouched in their caves.
As dark night crumbled, the rough tongue of savage day 85
licked at the breast, the throat and head of the lone man
till he awoke and hailed his mistress silently.
Throughout the earth cocks rose and crowed with swelling chests,
delighted birds among tree branches pecked the sun,
and Kentaur yawned and looked up toward the looming peak: 90
“Light strikes the summit, the lone man must be awake,”
he thought, then raised his head and like a faithful hound
sniffed for his master’s trace amid the scented air.
But the lone man still joyed to watch the flimsy light
pierce through the cave like slanting arrows and wake the walls. 95
“O sun, great sun, my brain’s high peak, my crimson flag,”
he murmured, and his banner-bearing mind rejoiced.
But as he gazed on the rock walls, his heart leapt up,
for all about him in thick paints a wild hunt burst:
striped tigers, bears and buffaloes and monstrous beasts 100
pounced frenziedly, with paws against their bellies pressed,
and a nude man, lean as an ant, with a huge bow
flung arrow after arrow on their quivering backs.
“Greetings, O my blood brother; hail, my ancient flesh!”
the lone man yelled as he leapt up to greet his friend, 105
then with glad heart he crawled into the feathery light of day.
Like bees who suddenly smell one early dawn that spring
had come in the warm night and filled their fields with flowers,
the thoughts of the world-wanderer buzzed with sweetest sounds.
Ah, what great joy to free the mind like a roebuck 110
and roam the fields with downy flanks and savage horns,
to take delight in the whole earth, its bridal doe!
If life were only an erotic toy, death but a myth,
our memory an unmounted virgin in our hearts
desirous of the past no more, wanting no future, 115
loving no other moment but the deathless present!
“I give you leave to play today, O flesh and mind,
to suck the cliff’s wild honey and the wild waste’s milk
until the shrunk skin peels and the hair falls to expose
the crimson apple of virginity newborn!” 120
Thus did the traveler talk now to that armorous pair,
his flesh and mind, who in their passion had given him birth.
His staff struck stones as he climbed toward the eagle crags;
that day he had no cares or friends, no lordly airs,
his chest laughed, his heart danced, his mind beat brilliant wings, 125
and his coarse bones played like far-distant dulcet flutes.
Amid green slopes he sang all day, a cuckoo bird
that summons the cool spring with wings still wet with dew;
stones sprang with grass to hear him, pear trees burst in bloom,
yellow-green lizards came to sun themselves on rocks 130
and the sage man lay down with them like their big brother,
like a huge, holy crocodile that guards his people.
Perhaps sleep took him for a moment and shook his brain,
the firm frontiers had fallen, truth and falsehood merged,
and raven earth adorned itself with peacock wings. 135
Stones bloomed with red carnations, reptiles swelled in size,
the sun descended like a lord dressed in gold robes,
holding his earth-wife in his arms dressed with the moon,
and passed out wings to worms, and flowers to the wild weeds.
Then his most secret wish came like a virgin maid, 140
smiling and full of light, lay by the archer’s side,
and like a partridge blinked her black eyes, sweet and wild.
But as the proud man stretched his arms to fondle her
a small, small naked worm crawled up his hairy chest
until he suddenly shuddered and sprang up in fright. 145
The setting sun had sunk in the field’s dusky shades,
and though he had not eaten, the full-sated man
returned to his wild den and slept like a small child
with drops of milk still lingering on its frothy lips,
laden with dreams within the deep and ringing cave. 150
At midnight a wood dryad, Nereid of the night,
sniffed that great virile form and stood at the cave’s mouth;
her hair was made of moon rays and her breasts of dew,
and as she slid into the cave and saw the mortal
she knew him for that heart-seducer, that world-swindler 155
who neither goddesses esteemed nor dread gods feared.
She suddenly screamed with fright and scattered all his sleep.
“A moonbeam must have struck my head and pierced my sleep
for in that very hour I dreamt of star-eyed Helen!”
He spoke, then swiftly turned on his left side to catch, 160
dear God, that dream with the large eyes before it flew away.
But in the dawn the lone man rose with empty arms
and only his gray beard still lightly smelled of musk;
the highest peaks were flushed with rose, the top crags smiled,
the seven-souled man’s head, armored with sun, flashed fire 165
until his mind beat at his inner doors and yelled:
“To arms, forebears and grandsons both, the war begins!
May all the souls and hearts that crouch in my egg-swarms
come out in sun, for Mind,
the King, calls all to council.”
Then he sat down cross-legged upon a monstrous rock, 170
scowled fiercely, and addressed his mind with sober speech:
“You shall sit crouched on this huge rock, O blind, black worm,
nor shall you raise your head—do you hear?—before you sprout
salvation’s wings to right and left of your bare back.”
Then he turned sweetly to his heart and begged with warmth: 175
“O heart, O decoy of God’s bird on the earth’s boughs,
summon that male wing, Lady, to descend on earth!”
Day climbed, and thistles on the sharp crags bloomed with light,
earth woke, stretched out and yawned, then moved her sluggish thighs,
gazelles returned to their dark haunts, hares to their burrows, 180
the glutted lions licked their manes and thought of pools,
and far away a bird upon a fir tree’s topmost tip,
or the mind’s peak—for who could tell the difference now?—
began with lustrous head to sing a gallant song,
and the sun gleamed like golden down on its warm breast. 185
In silence the archer felt the sun like honey pour
along his naked hairy chest, his sturdy thighs,
and as he sat cross-legged and planned the war’s assault,
a tart smell struck his nostrils till, at the rock’s roots,
seeing a fuzzy flower bloom like a sea-crab, 190
he stooped and filled his hands with its fat fragrant flesh.
He shut his eyes, and as he sniffed, his heart crashed down:
darkness and odors, old, old joys, and clanging doors—
he was a babe once more bounced on his nurse’s knees,
he stooped above her cloven breasts, those hidden clefts, 195
and sniffed the damp and earthen smell of female flesh
till with voluptuousness he paled, and his eyes glazed,
so that the nurse cried out and dashed him with rose water.
One other time had his brains gaped and filled with scent:
a bearded man had hugged him in his rough embrace 200
in the loud harbor—he was not quite two years old—
ah, how the rude sea laughed, how heady musk smells rose
of tar and cordage, rotting fruit and salty brine,
how all the hinges of his tender mind creaked wide
to admit for the first time the sea and its tall masts! 205
He slid from the man’s chest and rushed to the loud shore
until his entrails turned to waves and filled with foam
through which white seagulls darted and the shingles roared.