 | |
| |
| I |
| |
| Now it is autumn and the falling fruit |
| and the long journey towards oblivion. |
| |
| The apples falling like great drops of dew |
| to bruise themselves an exit from themselves. |
| |
| 5 | And it is time to go, to bid farewell |
| to one's own self, and find an exit |
| from the fallen self. |
| |
| II |
| |
| Have you built your ship of death, O have you? |
| O build your ship of death, for you will need it. |
| |
| 10 | The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall |
| thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth. |
| |
| And death is on the air like a smell of ashes! |
| Ah! can't you smell it? |
| |
| And in the bruised body, the frightened soul |
| 15 | finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold |
| that blows upon it through the orifices. |
| |
| III |
| |
| And can a man his own quietus make |
| with a bare bodkin? |
| |
| With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make |
| 20 | a bruise or break of exit for his life; |
| but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus? |
| |
| Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder |
| ever a quietus make? |
| |
| IV |
| |
| O let us talk of quiet that we know, |
| 25 | that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet |
| of a strong heart at peace! |
| |
| How can we this, our own quietus, make? |
| |
| V |
| |
| Build then the ship of death, for you must take |
| the longest journey, to oblivion. |
| |
| 30 | And die the death, the long and painful death |
| that lies between the old self and the new. |
| |
| Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised, |
| already our souls are oozing through the exit |
| of the cruel bruise. |
| |
| 35 | Already the dark and endless ocean of the end |
| is washing in through the breaches of our wounds, |
| already the flood is upon us. |
| |
| Oh build your ship of death, your little ark |
| and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine |
| 40 | for the dark flight down oblivion. |
| |
| VI |
| |
| Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul |
| has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises. |
| |
| We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying |
| and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us |
| 45 | and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world. |
| |
| We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying |
| and our strength leaves us, |
| and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood, |
| cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life. |
| |
| VII |
| |
| 50 | We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do |
| is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship |
| of death to carry the soul on the longest journey. |
| |
| A little ship, with oars and food |
| and little dishes, and all accoutrements |
| 55 | fitting and ready for the departing soul. |
| |
| Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies |
| and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul |
| in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith |
| with its store of food and little cooking pans |
| 60 | and change of clothes, |
| upon the flood's black waste |
| upon the waters of the end |
| upon the sea of death, where still we sail |
| darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port. |
| |
| 65 | There is no port, there is nowhere to go |
| only the deepening black darkening still |
| blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood |
| darkness at one with darkness, up and down |
| and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more |
| 70 | and the little ship is there; yet she is gone. |
| She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by. |
| She is gone! gone! and yet |
| somewhere she is there. |
| Nowhere! |
| |
| VIII |
| |
| 75 | And everything is gone, the body is gone |
| completely under, gone, entirely gone. |
| The upper darkness is heavy as the lower, |
| between them the little ship |
| is gone |
| 80 | she is gone. |
| |
| It is the end, it is oblivion. |
| |
| IX |
| |
| And yet out of eternity a thread |
| separates itself on the blackness, |
| a horizontal thread |
| 85 | that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark. |
| |
| Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume |
| A little higher? |
| Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn, |
| the cruel dawn of coming back to life |
| 90 | out of oblivion. |
| |
| Wait, wait, the little ship |
| drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey |
| of a flood-dawn. |
| |
| Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow |
| 95 | and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose. |
| |
| A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again. |
| |
| X |
| |
| The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell |
| emerges strange and lovely. |
| And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing |
| 100 | on the pink flood, |
| and the frail soul steps out, into the house again |
| filling the heart with peace. |
| |
| Swings the heart renewed with peace |
| even of oblivion. |
| |
| 105 | Oh build your ship of death, oh build it! |
| for you will need it. |
| For the voyage of oblivion awaits you. |
