Selected Poems (Aiken)/Tetélestai
TETÉLESTAI
I
How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead,The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust?Is there a horn we should not blow as proudlyFor the meanest of us all, who creeps his days,Guarding his heart from blows, to die obscurely?I am no king, have laid no kingdoms waste,Taken no princes captive, led no triumphsOf weeping women through long walls of trumpets;Say rather, I am no one, or an atom;Say rather, two great gods, in a vault of starlight,Play ponderingly at chess, and at the game's endOne of the pieces, shaken, falls to the floorAnd runs to the darkest corner; and that pieceForgotten there, left motionless, is I. . . .Say that I have no name, no gifts, no power,Am only one of millions, mostly silent;One who came with eyes and hands and a heart,Looked on beauty, and loved it, and then left it.Say that the fates of time and space obscured me,Led me a thousand ways to pain, bemused me,Wrapped me in ugliness; and like great spidersDispatched me at their leisure. . . . Well, what then?Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust,The horns of glory blowing above my burial?
II
Morning and evening opened and closed above me:Houses were built above me; trees let fallYellowing leaves upon me, hands of ghosts;Rain has showered its arrows of silver upon meSeeking my heart; winds have roared and tossed me;Music in long blue waves of sound has borne meA helpless weed to shores of unthought silence;Time, above me, within me, crashed its gongsOf terrible warning, sifting the dust of death;And here I lie. Blow now your horns of gloryHarshly over my flesh, you trees, you waters!You stars and suns, Canopus, Deneb, Rigel,Let me, as I lie down, here in this dust,Hear, far off, your whispered salutation!Roar now above my decaying flesh, you winds,Whirl out your earth-scents over this body, tell meOf ferns and stagnant pools, wild roses, hillsides!Anoint me, rain, let crash your silver arrowsOn this hard flesh! I am the one who named you,I lived in you, and now I die in you.I your son, your daughter, treader of music,Lie broken, conquered . . . Let me not fall in silence.
III
I, the restless one; the circler of circles;Herdsman and roper of stars, who could not captureThe secret of self; I who was tyrant to weaklings,Striker of children; destroyer of women; corrupterOf innocent dreamers, and laugher at beauty; I,Too easily brought to tears and weakness by music,Baffled and broken by love, the helpless beholderOf the war in my heart of desire with desire, the struggleOf hatred with love, terror with hunger; I,Who laughed without knowing the cause of my laughter, who grewWithout wishing to grow, a servant to my own body;Loved without reason the laughter and flesh of a woman, Enduring such torments to find her! I who at last &Grow weaker, struggle more feebly, relent in my purpose,Choose for my triumph an easier end, look backwardAt earlier conquests; or, caught in the web, cry outIn a sudden and empty despair, 'Tetélestai!'Pity me, now! I, who was arrogant, beg you!Tell me, as I lie down, that I was courageous.Blow horns of victory now, as I reel and am vanquished.Shatter the sky with trumpets above my grave.
IV
. . . Look! this flesh how it crumbles to dust and is blown!These bones, how they grind in the granite of frost and are nothing!This skull, how it yawns for a flicker of time in the darkness,Yet laughs not and sees not! It is crushed by a hammer of sunlight,And the hands are destroyed. . . . Press down through the leaves of the jasmine,Dig through the interlaced roots—nevermore will you find me;I was no better than dust, yet you cannot replace me. . . .Take the soft dust in your hand—does it stir: does it sing?Has it lips and a heart? Does it open its eyes to the sun?Does it run, does it dream, does it burn with a secret, or trembleIn terror of death? Or ache with tremendous decisions? . . .Listen! . . . It says: 'I lean by the river. The willowsAre yellowed with bud. White clouds roar up from the southAnd darken the ripples; but they cannot darken my heart,Nor the face like a star in my heart! . . . Rain falls on the waterAnd pelts it, and rings it with silver. The willow trees glisten,The sparrows chirp under the eaves; but the face in my heartIs a secret of music. . . . I wait in the rain and am silent.'Listen again! . . . It says: 'I have worked, I am tired,The pencil dulls in my hand: I see through the windowWalls upon walls of windows with faces behind them,Smoke floating up to the sky, an ascension of sea-gulls.I am tired. I have struggled in vain, my decision was fruitless,Why then do I wait? with darkness, so easy, at hand! . . . But tomorrow, perhaps . . . I will wait and endure till tomorrow!l . . . .Or again: 'It is dark. The decision is made. I am vanquishedBy terror of life. The walls mount slowly about me'In coldness. I had not the courage. I was forsaken.I cried out, was answered by silence . . . Tetélestai! . . .'
V
Hear how it babbles'—Blow the dust out of your hand,With its voices and visions, tread on it, forget it, turn homewardWith dreams in your brain. . . . This, then, is the humble, the nameless,—The lover, the husband and father, the struggler with shadows,The one who went down under shoutings of chaos, the weaklingWho cried his 'forsaken!' like Christ on the darkening hill top! . . .This, then, is the one who implores, as he dwindles to silence,A fanfare of glory. . . . And which of us dares to deny him?