Classic Poem

In the Tent of Holofernes

HOLOFERNES [ alone with Judith ].

Thou art the woman! Thou hast come to me! —
O not as I thought! not with senses blazing
Far into my deep soul abiding calm
Within their glory of knowledge, as the vast
Of night behind her outward sense of stars.
Now am I but the place thy beauty brightens,
And of myself I have no light of sense
Nor certainty of being: I am made
Empty of all my wont of life before thee,
A vessel where thy splendour may be poured,
After the way the great vessel of air
Accepts the morning power of the sun.
Now nothing I have known of me remains,
Save that within me, far as the world is high
Beneath this dawn that gilds my spirit's air,
Some depth, more inward even than my soul,
Troubles and flashes like the shining sea.
O Jewish woman, if thou knewest all
The hunger and the tears the punisht world
Suffers by cause of thee, and of my dream
That thou wert somewhere hidden in mankind!
I could not but obey my dream, and toil
To break the nations and to sift them fine,
Pounding them with my warfare into dust,
And searching with my many iron hands
Through their destruction as through crumbs of marl,
Until my palms should know the jewel-stone
Betwixt them, the Woman who is Beauty, —
Nature so long hath like a miser kept
Buried away from me in this heap of Jews!
Now that we twain might meet, women and men
In every land where I have felt for thee
Have taken desolation for their home,
Crying against me, — and against thee unknowing
Ah, but I had given over to despair
The mind in me. I ground the stubborn tribes,
I quarried them like rocks and broke them small
And ground them down to flinders and to sands
But never gleamed the jewel-stone therein,
Naught but the common flint of earth I found.
And in a dreary anger I kept on
Assailing the whole kind of man, because
Some manner of war my soul must needs inhabit
Like a man making himself in drunken sleep
A king, my soul, drunk with its earthly war,
Kept idle all its terrible want of thee,
Believed itself managing arms with God;
Yea, when my trampling hurry through the ear
Made cloudy wind of the light human dust,
I thought myself to move in the dark danger
Of blinding God's own face with blasts of war!
Until my rage forgot his crime against me,
His hiding thee, the beauty I had dreamt.
Yea, and I filled my flesh with furious pleasure,
That in the noise of it my soul should hear
No whispering thought of desperate desire.
Nevertheless, I knew well that my heart's
Sightless imagination lifted his face
Continually awake for news of thee.
But 'twas infirm and crazy waking, like
As when a starving sentry, put to guard
The sleep of a broken soldiery that flees
Through winter of wild hills from hounding foes
Hath but the pain of frozen wounds, and fear
Feeding on his dark spirit, to watch withal.
And lo,
As suddenly, as blessedly thou comest
Now to my heart's unseeing watch for thee,
As out of the night behind him into the heart,
Drugg'd senseless with its ache, of that lost soldier,
An arrow leaps, and ere the stab can hurt,
His frozen waking is the ease of death.
So I am killed by thee; all the loud pain
Of pleasure that had lockt my heart in life,
Wherein with blinded and unhearing face
My hope of thee yet stood and strained to look
And listen for thy coming, — all this life
Is killed before thee; yea, like marvellous death,
Spiritual sense invests my heart's desire;
And round the quiet and content thereof,
The striving hunger of my fleshly sense
Fails like a web of hanging cloth in fire. —
Tell me now, if thou knowest, why thou hast come!
JUDITH . Sufficeth not for us that I have come? —
Let not unseemly things live in my mouth;
Yet I would praise thee as thou praisest me,
But in a manner that my people use,
Things to approach in song they list not speak.
And song, thou knowest, inwrought with chiming strings,
Sweetens with sweet delay loving desire:
Also thine eyes will feed, and thy heart wonder. —
Balkis was in her marble town,
And shadow over the world came down.
Whiteness of walls, towers and piers,
That all day dazzled eyes to tears,
Turned from being white-golden flame,
And like the deep-sea blue became.
Balkis in her garden went;
Her spirit was in discontent
Like a torch in restless air.
Joylessly she wandered there,
And saw her city's azure white
Lying under the great night,
Beautiful as the memory
Of a worshipping world would be
In the mind of a god, in the hour
When he must kill his outward power;
And, coming to a pool where trees
Grew in double greeneries,
Saw herself, as she went by
The water, walking beautifully,
And saw the stars shine in the glance
Of her eyes, and her own fair countenance
Passing, pale and wonderful,
Across the night that filled the pool.
And cruel was the grief that played
With the queen's spirit; and she said:
" What do I here, reigning alone?
For to be unloved is to be alone.
There is no man in all my land
Dare my longing understand;
The whole folk like a peasant bows
Lest its look should meet my brows
And be harmed by this beauty of mine.
I burn their brains as I were sign
Of God's beautiful anger sent
To master them with punishmen
Of beauty that must pour distress
On hearts grown dark with ugliness.
But it is I am the punisht one.
Is there no man, is there none,
In whom my beauty will but move
The lust of a delighted love;
In whom some spirit of God so thrives
That we may wed our lonely lives?
Is there no man, is there none?" —
She said, " I will go to Solomon."
HOLOFERNES . I shall not bear it: dreamed, it hath made my life
Fail almost, like a storm broken in heaven
By its internal fire; and now I feel
Love like a dreadful god coming to do
His pleasure on me, to tear me with his joy
And shred my flesh-wove strength with merciless
Utterance through me of inhuman bliss. —
I must have more divinity within me. —
Come to me, slave!
JUDITH . Thou callest someone? Alas!
O, where 's my veil? — Cry him to stay awhile! —
HOLOFERNES . Thou troubled with such whimsy! — But 'tis no one,
A mere sexless thing of mine.
JUDITH . He is coming!
I threw my veil — where? — I must bow my face
Close to the ground, or his eyes will find me out;
And — O my lord, hold him back with thy voice!
Hold him in doubt to enter a moment, while
I loosen my hair into some manner of safety
Against his prying.
HOLOFERNES . Slave, dost thou hear me? Come! —
I marvel, room for such a paltering mood
Should be within thy mind, now so nearly
Deified with the first sense of my love.
HOLOFERNES . Wine! The mightiest wine my sutlers have;
Wine with the sun's own grandeur in it, and all
The wildness of the earth conceiving Spring
From the sun's golden lust: wine for us twain!
And when thou hast brought it, burn anear my bed
Storax and cassia; and let wealth be found
To cover my bed with such strife of colour,
Crimson and tawny and purple-inspired gold,
That eyes beholding it may take therefrom
Splendid imagination of the strife
Of love with love's implacable desire.
JUDITH [ still kneeling ]. I must lean on thee now, my God! A weight
Of pitiable weakness thou must bear
And move as it were thine own strength; tell my heart
How not to sicken in abomination,
Show me the way to loathe this vile man's rage,
Now close to seize me into the use of his pleasure,
With the loathing that is terrible delight.
So that not fainting, but refresht and astonisht
And strangely spirited and divinely angry
My body may arise out of its passion,
Out of being enjoyed by this fiend's flesh.
Then man my arm; then let mine own revenge
Utter thy vengeance, Lord, as speech doth meaning;
Yea, with hate empower me to say bravely
The glittering word that even now thy mind
Purposes, God, — the swift stroke of a falchion!
HOLOFERNES . Woman, beloved, why art thou fixt so long
Kneeling and downward crookt, and in thy hair
Darkened? — Ah, thy shoulders urging shape
Of loveliness into thy hair's pouring gleam!
JUDITH . Needs must I pray my Jewish God for help
Against my bridal joys. For I do fear them.
HOLOFERNES . I also: these are the joys that fear doth own.