Canticle for a Startling Deed
XLVII
Thus saith the Lord:
Learn not according to the ways of the Gentiles:
And be not afraid of the signs of heaven,
Which the heathens fear.
Lo, in the times we endured, we have held to the faith of our fathers
Which has proposed God only, no other derivative Maker,
Though we have heard from the mouths of debased men many dishonors,
Saying the good is a god of the God — an imposter! a faker! —
Opposite one who is evil instead, him his elder and brother,
Wherewith the Lord has preferred him the younger and spurning the older,
What! we cannot be so quick to ascribe God’s works to another,
God who has made each thing with intent would be, over his shoulder,
Scoffing at those He had chosen as though we were not His ‘wn portion!
Nay, for no twin wroth powers inhabit the heavens above here,
Only the First, and His good will certain, permitting no fortune,
Sparks in the skies all creation, its good things measured, His love dear,
Trading with none and commanding the darkness of naught to His wishes
Bending it twain with supernal illuminate treasures and splendor,
Darkness! ah, darkness is not! an abyss, black, arid of fishes,
Arid of anyth’ng, darkness is no thing at all, not but an ember,
Residue even from washing the light from its selfless division
When it began and all lived, God who creates separation
Made of the world multiplicity, this was his righteous decision . . .
Trailing off afterward, neither we listened the ending oration
Searching for others attentive, that such sect Nazarean
Seemed to Baruch who was spoken of, thinking the pair of a twinned god,
Say, one good, one evil, arising from protean eon
Sounded alike to them; when this city belonged to Nimrod,
Dualism shewed to the many a path to be further enlightened,
Symbols the passages carved in eternity made for our thinking
Though, as it goes, we have fallen as lightning and narrow they tightened,
These great etchings of knowledge, and now in our impudent sinking
Souls can attain to divinity simple and pure by their seeking
Much as the cosmos is lit by the scattered allotment of stars’ stage,
Much as the rains are a nourishing spillage, celestial leaking,
Little but some all the same can be found from the slits of our barred cage
Seeing, as now I can see, and I see with eye and the mind too,
Wherewhich we sang psalms, shared a rejoice and departed unhurried
Though we were caught on the way: What! finding me, coming to find you!
Abgar was tickled, in retinue, though his expression was worried,
Pensive or eager perhaps, and Baruch was the first to be speaking:
Those good elders, they seem to perplex on juridical matters,
Which to my mind is no mark of revolt or hostilities-seeking,
Rather, they speak to their foes: Nazoreans, or similar chapters,
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