Moses on Sinai
Once more my solitudes;
Once more the quiet business of the earth.
After the savage heat,
To come to this again;
After the scorn and shouting ignorance,
To feel the comfort of the whispering grass,
The sun's concern, the smoothing little winds,
The green and silent sympathy of trees.
Here I am cool again. . .
Last week—or was it yesterday—I sat
Here, on this very rock, another man;
A disillusioned leader, a lost hope,
A doubter struggling with a dogmatist.
Laws? Were there laws enough? Too many or … or too few? …
With Nature's own commands what call was there
For me to fix and formulate?
Man was not made to live with barren laws—
And yet to live without them? …
At the foot
Of this impassive hill the tablets lay;
The broken fragments shining at the sun.
Was this the end of liberty, to break
And splinter at an idol's golden feet?
Had I been led to lead them all to this? …
Glad to escape the mill-race of my thoughts
My mind ran back to Egypt, to the fields
Where, as a boy, I saw my people working
Dumbly and in their chains.
At first I could not see their faces, they
Were turned away from me and toward the ground;
All that I saw was backs, great, oily backs
And broad and bleeding shoulders;
Arms that were made to thresh like flails
And bodies scarred with whips and lined with hate.
And then I saw their eyes—such dull and large
Pathetic eyes that showed the soul of man
Stunted into a child's by slavery.
My people! Cowed and broken in their youth!
A race of leaders stumbling in the yoke;
Ox-like, submissive—could these things be Jews?
These, the appointed scatterers of the flame?
Something leaped up and roused me like a cry,
Tightening every nerve with one resolve—
To square those shoulders, straighten up that back;
Send the proud vigor singing through the blood;
To wake the kings and prophets in their bones,
To set my people free!
How slow they crept,
Those plodding years, when I ranged through the land,
Appealing, storming, urging and reviling
At little gatherings and gaping crowds,
In markets, alleys and the open fields,
“Workers rebel! Rise and strike off your chains!
There is no freedom till the hands are free!”
And to this rallying call they came at last,
Slowly and doggedly,—but still they came;
Night after night they met, year after year.
Singly, in groups, by hundreds, till they stood
A race of toilers strengthened by a dream,
A mighty army gathered by a word
And waiting for the word to be a deed,
To call them into action. Then it came,
The summons—and they followed like a fire,
Followed it out of Egypt, out of bondage;
A sudden strike toward liberty.
Out of the land
They walked and left the harrow in the field,
The huge stone swinging in the idle crane,
The mortar in the trough, the rusty clay
Heaped up before the buildings—left it all
And went into the desert, heads erect,
Out of the darkness toward a struggling dawn.
A while the vision drove them; they breathed deep,
Filled with the whole adventure of the flight,
The gaiety of action, the relief
Of stretching spaces after servitude. . .
And then the murmurs started, grumblings rose;
Even the elders argued and complained:
Why had I brought them here; why had they come
To this dry plain? What spell had made them leave
Their clustered homes where they at least could hear
The happy noise of trade; the pleasant hum
A city makes at night; the sound of wheels;
Or smell all day the sweet and acrid smells
Of crowded streets made pungent by the blend
Of wines and parchment, perfume, dust, and spice.
Or let the eye grow dizzy with the blaze
Of brilliant silks, where every flaming booth
Flung out its colors like a flag of joy.
Lead us, they pleaded, back to this—
Back to the cheer and comfort of our bonds;
We are not ready for our bleak release.
A happy slave, they cried, is better than
A miserable freeman. Take us back.
Anger surged through me first. I clenched my fists
And swore they needed to be whipped, not led.
Unworthy and ungrateful, they should go
Back to their burdens, back beneath the yoke,
Teamed with their brother beasts. You fools, I stormed,
You cattle, you shall bellow louder still;
You shall go back to Egypt—and alone!
And then I saw their eyes again, those deep
And frightened eyes. I knew them all
For what they were—children and gropers; yes,
A tribe of children stumbling through the night.
They needed hands to help them, posts to guide
White clouds by daylight, fires through the dark.
Something to shape their desperate want—a Law!
So, on this very rock, I sat and carved
Their human need. Sharpening dull desires
To ten commandments, ten austere beliefs
That they could aim at, cling to, struggle toward.
What days I worked—choosing and cutting down,
Making a god of laws to fit their minds;
One they might grasp and cherish as their own. . .
And then I brought the tablets down the hill.
As I went down, the skies became a torch;
The world poured gold about my feet, a shower
Of sunlight turned the fields to topaz lakes
Washed with a foam of daisies; sudden rocks
Sparkled with brilliance from a thousand facets
And the whole plain shone like a yellow sea.
And what were these that danced, like bronze in motion,
The sunlight glancing from their polished thighs,
Those golden men about a golden calf,—
They were my people! … All the glory died,
The sunlight tarnished, and I only saw
A herd of silly tribesmen singing songs
And romping round an idol mostly brass,
Hailing the rough-cast fetish as a god.
Foolish and savage! Would they never learn!
I thundered at them, elbowed through the mob
And hurled my tablets at their shining toy.
I looked to see the idol fall—instead
It was the stone that broke; the tablet crashed
And split in fragments, scattering the laws
At their astonished feet. Was it a sign;
A symbol for the future? Could man live
Always with threatening strictures and taboos?
Or must the stony admonitions break
Upon the golden frenzy of his joy? …
But now the tumult ceased, the cymbals fell,
And even Miriam floating among the girls
As lightly as the moon among the stars,
Gray frightened at my frown, and ran to me,
Joining the trembling and bewildered crowd.
Some half-unconscious sense of sudden shame,
A swift revulsion from their lusty mirth
Swept them above themselves and so toward me.
Caught between-anger and astonishment
I looked at them, while youths and bearded men
Turned red and clung about my knees and cried,
“Lift up thy rod, oh Moses, we beseech,
And smite us for our sins. Give your commands
And we shall follow them and keep the Word
That drives us on with power and punishment.
Go up into the mountain and bring down
Your laws for us again.”
Bewildered still,
I left them clustered meekly at the base
And started up the rocky climb once more.
II
And now—here in my spacious solitudes
With sagely nodding flowers at my feet,
And the untroubled skies above me, I am cool;
Soothed by a new and quiet confidence.
Seeing the lawless victories of the earth,
The sweet rebellion of the vagrant rose,
The calm and sweeping triumph of the grass,
The tiger's leap, the mating of the birds,
The strength of streams, the heedless laugh of winds,
And all the happy anarchy of life,
I saw the world held in compassionate hands;
And in its singing beauty I could feel
The great beneficence that stirred it all.
I knew that Life was good—and needed nothing more. . .
And yet these laws: my people needed them
For they were children still, the loosened bonds
Had freed their hands, but not their hearts;
Their souls were yet in bondage, yet enslaved;
They still were chained to lust and apathy,
Chained to a wheel of fantasies and fears,
Chained to themselves. They were not ready for
The blaze of freedom with its fierce white light.
There should be strengthening struggle; they must learn
Control before they could go uncontrolled.
Doubt and disaster first, before the time
When every man may take the old commands
And break them lightly as a hoop of straw;
When men can walk upright and hand in hand
With their desires, fearless, frank, and high;
True to their own ennobled impulses.
Obedient only to the law of Beauty,
Growing as clean and freely as a tree;
Sharing the mandates heeded by the sun,
And kept, in splendor and authority,
By all the tides and every rushing star.
The time would come—but not for those alive.
Meanwhile—the Law.
Here is a smooth, flat stone.
It takes the chisel nicely and the words
Will stand out bright and boldly. To begin:
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee
Out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. . .
Once more the quiet business of the earth.
After the savage heat,
To come to this again;
After the scorn and shouting ignorance,
To feel the comfort of the whispering grass,
The sun's concern, the smoothing little winds,
The green and silent sympathy of trees.
Here I am cool again. . .
Last week—or was it yesterday—I sat
Here, on this very rock, another man;
A disillusioned leader, a lost hope,
A doubter struggling with a dogmatist.
Laws? Were there laws enough? Too many or … or too few? …
With Nature's own commands what call was there
For me to fix and formulate?
Man was not made to live with barren laws—
And yet to live without them? …
At the foot
Of this impassive hill the tablets lay;
The broken fragments shining at the sun.
Was this the end of liberty, to break
And splinter at an idol's golden feet?
Had I been led to lead them all to this? …
Glad to escape the mill-race of my thoughts
My mind ran back to Egypt, to the fields
Where, as a boy, I saw my people working
Dumbly and in their chains.
At first I could not see their faces, they
Were turned away from me and toward the ground;
All that I saw was backs, great, oily backs
And broad and bleeding shoulders;
Arms that were made to thresh like flails
And bodies scarred with whips and lined with hate.
And then I saw their eyes—such dull and large
Pathetic eyes that showed the soul of man
Stunted into a child's by slavery.
My people! Cowed and broken in their youth!
A race of leaders stumbling in the yoke;
Ox-like, submissive—could these things be Jews?
These, the appointed scatterers of the flame?
Something leaped up and roused me like a cry,
Tightening every nerve with one resolve—
To square those shoulders, straighten up that back;
Send the proud vigor singing through the blood;
To wake the kings and prophets in their bones,
To set my people free!
How slow they crept,
Those plodding years, when I ranged through the land,
Appealing, storming, urging and reviling
At little gatherings and gaping crowds,
In markets, alleys and the open fields,
“Workers rebel! Rise and strike off your chains!
There is no freedom till the hands are free!”
And to this rallying call they came at last,
Slowly and doggedly,—but still they came;
Night after night they met, year after year.
Singly, in groups, by hundreds, till they stood
A race of toilers strengthened by a dream,
A mighty army gathered by a word
And waiting for the word to be a deed,
To call them into action. Then it came,
The summons—and they followed like a fire,
Followed it out of Egypt, out of bondage;
A sudden strike toward liberty.
Out of the land
They walked and left the harrow in the field,
The huge stone swinging in the idle crane,
The mortar in the trough, the rusty clay
Heaped up before the buildings—left it all
And went into the desert, heads erect,
Out of the darkness toward a struggling dawn.
A while the vision drove them; they breathed deep,
Filled with the whole adventure of the flight,
The gaiety of action, the relief
Of stretching spaces after servitude. . .
And then the murmurs started, grumblings rose;
Even the elders argued and complained:
Why had I brought them here; why had they come
To this dry plain? What spell had made them leave
Their clustered homes where they at least could hear
The happy noise of trade; the pleasant hum
A city makes at night; the sound of wheels;
Or smell all day the sweet and acrid smells
Of crowded streets made pungent by the blend
Of wines and parchment, perfume, dust, and spice.
Or let the eye grow dizzy with the blaze
Of brilliant silks, where every flaming booth
Flung out its colors like a flag of joy.
Lead us, they pleaded, back to this—
Back to the cheer and comfort of our bonds;
We are not ready for our bleak release.
A happy slave, they cried, is better than
A miserable freeman. Take us back.
Anger surged through me first. I clenched my fists
And swore they needed to be whipped, not led.
Unworthy and ungrateful, they should go
Back to their burdens, back beneath the yoke,
Teamed with their brother beasts. You fools, I stormed,
You cattle, you shall bellow louder still;
You shall go back to Egypt—and alone!
And then I saw their eyes again, those deep
And frightened eyes. I knew them all
For what they were—children and gropers; yes,
A tribe of children stumbling through the night.
They needed hands to help them, posts to guide
White clouds by daylight, fires through the dark.
Something to shape their desperate want—a Law!
So, on this very rock, I sat and carved
Their human need. Sharpening dull desires
To ten commandments, ten austere beliefs
That they could aim at, cling to, struggle toward.
What days I worked—choosing and cutting down,
Making a god of laws to fit their minds;
One they might grasp and cherish as their own. . .
And then I brought the tablets down the hill.
As I went down, the skies became a torch;
The world poured gold about my feet, a shower
Of sunlight turned the fields to topaz lakes
Washed with a foam of daisies; sudden rocks
Sparkled with brilliance from a thousand facets
And the whole plain shone like a yellow sea.
And what were these that danced, like bronze in motion,
The sunlight glancing from their polished thighs,
Those golden men about a golden calf,—
They were my people! … All the glory died,
The sunlight tarnished, and I only saw
A herd of silly tribesmen singing songs
And romping round an idol mostly brass,
Hailing the rough-cast fetish as a god.
Foolish and savage! Would they never learn!
I thundered at them, elbowed through the mob
And hurled my tablets at their shining toy.
I looked to see the idol fall—instead
It was the stone that broke; the tablet crashed
And split in fragments, scattering the laws
At their astonished feet. Was it a sign;
A symbol for the future? Could man live
Always with threatening strictures and taboos?
Or must the stony admonitions break
Upon the golden frenzy of his joy? …
But now the tumult ceased, the cymbals fell,
And even Miriam floating among the girls
As lightly as the moon among the stars,
Gray frightened at my frown, and ran to me,
Joining the trembling and bewildered crowd.
Some half-unconscious sense of sudden shame,
A swift revulsion from their lusty mirth
Swept them above themselves and so toward me.
Caught between-anger and astonishment
I looked at them, while youths and bearded men
Turned red and clung about my knees and cried,
“Lift up thy rod, oh Moses, we beseech,
And smite us for our sins. Give your commands
And we shall follow them and keep the Word
That drives us on with power and punishment.
Go up into the mountain and bring down
Your laws for us again.”
Bewildered still,
I left them clustered meekly at the base
And started up the rocky climb once more.
II
And now—here in my spacious solitudes
With sagely nodding flowers at my feet,
And the untroubled skies above me, I am cool;
Soothed by a new and quiet confidence.
Seeing the lawless victories of the earth,
The sweet rebellion of the vagrant rose,
The calm and sweeping triumph of the grass,
The tiger's leap, the mating of the birds,
The strength of streams, the heedless laugh of winds,
And all the happy anarchy of life,
I saw the world held in compassionate hands;
And in its singing beauty I could feel
The great beneficence that stirred it all.
I knew that Life was good—and needed nothing more. . .
And yet these laws: my people needed them
For they were children still, the loosened bonds
Had freed their hands, but not their hearts;
Their souls were yet in bondage, yet enslaved;
They still were chained to lust and apathy,
Chained to a wheel of fantasies and fears,
Chained to themselves. They were not ready for
The blaze of freedom with its fierce white light.
There should be strengthening struggle; they must learn
Control before they could go uncontrolled.
Doubt and disaster first, before the time
When every man may take the old commands
And break them lightly as a hoop of straw;
When men can walk upright and hand in hand
With their desires, fearless, frank, and high;
True to their own ennobled impulses.
Obedient only to the law of Beauty,
Growing as clean and freely as a tree;
Sharing the mandates heeded by the sun,
And kept, in splendor and authority,
By all the tides and every rushing star.
The time would come—but not for those alive.
Meanwhile—the Law.
Here is a smooth, flat stone.
It takes the chisel nicely and the words
Will stand out bright and boldly. To begin:
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee
Out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. . .
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