Part 10 (1/2)

”No, you are never cruel. If once or twice I found you so, I could applaud and sing.

Jealous of -- What? You are not very wise.

Does not the good Book tell you anything?

”In David's time poor Michal had to go.

Jealous of G.o.d? Well, if you like it so.”

The Old King's New Jester

You that in vain would front the coming order With eyes that meet forlornly what they must, And only with a furtive recognition See dust where there is dust, -- Be sure you like it always in your faces, Obscuring your best graces, Blinding your speech and sight, Before you seek again your dusty places Where the old wrong seems right.

Longer ago than cave-men had their changes Our fathers may have slain a son or two, Discouraging a further dialectic Regarding what was new; And after their unstudied admonition Occasional contrition For their old-fas.h.i.+oned ways May have reduced their doubts, and in addition Softened their final days.

Farther away than feet shall ever travel Are the vague towers of our unbuilded State; But there are mightier things than we to lead us, That will not let us wait.

And we go on with none to tell us whether Or not we've each a tether Determining how fast or far we go; And it is well, since we must go together, That we are not to know.

If the old wrong and all its injured glamour Haunts you by day and gives your night no peace, You may as well, agreeably and serenely, Give the new wrong its lease; For should you nourish a too fervid yearning For what is not returning, The vicious and unfused ingredient May give you qualms -- and one or two concerning The last of your content.

Lazarus

”No, Mary, there was nothing -- not a word.

Nothing, and always nothing. Go again Yourself, and he may listen -- or at least Look up at you, and let you see his eyes.

I might as well have been the sound of rain, A wind among the cedars, or a bird; Or nothing. Mary, make him look at you; And even if he should say that we are nothing, To know that you have heard him will be something.

And yet he loved us, and it was for love The Master gave him back. Why did He wait So long before He came? Why did He weep?

I thought He would be glad -- and Lazarus -- To see us all again as He had left us -- All as it was, all as it was before.”

Mary, who felt her sister's frightened arms Like those of someone drowning who had seized her, Fearing at last they were to fail and sink Together in this fog-stricken sea of strangeness, Fought sadly, with bereaved indignant eyes, To find again the fading sh.o.r.es of home That she had seen but now could see no longer.

Now she could only gaze into the twilight, And in the dimness know that he was there, Like someone that was not. He who had been Their brother, and was dead, now seemed alive Only in death again -- or worse than death; For tombs at least, always until today, Though sad were certain. There was nothing certain For man or G.o.d in such a day as this; For there they were alone, and there was he -- Alone; and somewhere out of Bethany, The Master -- who had come to them so late, Only for love of them and then so slowly, And was for their sake hunted now by men Who feared Him as they feared no other prey -- For the world's sake was hidden. ”Better the tomb For Lazarus than life, if this be life,”

She thought; and then to Martha, ”No, my dear,”

She said aloud; ”not as it was before.

Nothing is ever as it was before, Where Time has been. Here there is more than Time; And we that are so lonely and so far From home, since he is with us here again, Are farther now from him and from ourselves Than we are from the stars. He will not speak Until the spirit that is in him speaks; And we must wait for all we are to know, Or even to learn that we are not to know.

Martha, we are too near to this for knowledge, And that is why it is that we must wait.

Our friends are coming if we call for them, And there are covers we'll put over him To make him warmer. We are too young, perhaps, To say that we know better what is best Than he. We do not know how old he is.

If you remember what the Master said, Try to believe that we need have no fear.

Let me, the selfish and the careless one, Be housewife and a mother for tonight; For I am not so fearful as you are, And I was not so eager.”

Martha sank Down at her sister's feet and there sat watching A flower that had a small familiar name That was as old as memory, but was not The name of what she saw now in its brief And infinite mystery that so frightened her That life became a terror. Tears again Flooded her eyes and overflowed. ”No, Mary,”

She murmured slowly, hating her own words Before she heard them, ”you are not so eager To see our brother as we see him now; Neither is He who gave him back to us.

I was to be the simple one, as always, And this was all for me.” She stared again Over among the trees where Lazarus, Who seemed to be a man who was not there, Might have been one more shadow among shadows, If she had not remembered. Then she felt The cool calm hands of Mary on her face, And s.h.i.+vered, wondering if such hands were real.

”The Master loved you as He loved us all, Martha; and you are saying only things That children say when they have had no sleep.

Try somehow now to rest a little while; You know that I am here, and that our friends Are coming if I call.”

Martha at last Arose, and went with Mary to the door, Where they stood looking off at the same place, And at the same shape that was always there As if it would not ever move or speak, And always would be there. ”Mary, go now, Before the dark that will be coming hides him.

I am afraid of him out there alone, Unless I see him; and I have forgotten What sleep is. Go now -- make him look at you -- And I shall hear him if he stirs or whispers.

Go! -- or I'll scream and bring all Bethany To come and make him speak. Make him say once That he is glad, and G.o.d may say the rest.

Though He say I shall sleep, and sleep for ever, I shall not care for that . . . Go!”