Part 11 (1/2)

I the peaceful soul of the herds that tinkle half-hidden by the tall gra.s.s.

I the soul of the forest that sways in waves like the sea, and has as far horizons.

And also I was the soul of the willow tree that gives every spring its shade.

I the sheer soul of the cliffs where the mist creeps up and scatters.

And the unquiet soul of the stream that shrieks in s.h.i.+ning waterfalls.

I was the blue soul of the pond that looks with strange eyes on the wanderer.

I the soul of the all-moving wind and the humble soul of opening flowers.

I was the height of the high peaks...

The clouds caressed me with great gestures and the wide love of misty s.p.a.ces clove to me, placid.

I felt the delightfulness of springs born in my flanks, gifts of the glaciers; and in the ample quietude of horizons I felt the reposeful sleep of storms.

And when the sky opened about me and the sun laughed on my green planes people, far off, stood still all day staring at my sovereign beauty.

But I, full of the l.u.s.t that makes furious the sea and mountains lifted myself up strongly through the sky lifted the diversity of my flanks and entrails...

At sunset time drinking at the spring's edge I drank down the secrets of mysterious earth.

The sea and mountains, mist and cattle and yellow broom-flowers, and fis.h.i.+ng boats with lateen sails like dark wings against the sunrise towards Mallorca: delight of the nose and the eyes and the ears in all living perceptions until the poison of other-worldliness wells up suddenly in him and he is a Christian and a mystic full of echoes of old soul-torturing. In Maragall's most expressive work, a sequence of poems called _El Comte Arnau_, all this is synthesized. These are from the climax.

All the voices of the earth acclaim count Arnold because from the dark trial he has come back triumphant.

”Son of the earth, son of the earth, count Arnold, now ask, now ask what cannot you do?”

”Live, live, live forever, I would never die: to be like a wheel revolving; to live with wine and a sword.”

”Wheels roll, roll, but they count the years.”

”Then I would be a rock immobile to suns or storms.”

”Rock lives without life forever impenetrable.”

”Then the ever-moving sea that opens a path for all things.”

”The sea is alone, alone, you go accompanied.”

”Then be the air when it flames in the light of the deathless sun.”

”But air and sun are loveless, ignorant of eternity.”

”Then to be man more than man to be earth palpitant.”

”You shall be wheel and rock, you shall be the mist-veiled sea you shall be the air in flame, you shall be the whirling stars, you shall be man more than man for you have the will for it.

You shall run the plains and hills, all the earth that is so wide, mounted on a horse of flame you shall be tireless, terrible as the tramp of the storms All the voices of earth will cry out whirling about you.

They will call you spirit in torment call you forever d.a.m.ned.”