Canticle of Loosened Bonds
XLVI
When the seventy years shall begin to be accomplished in Babylon,
I will visit you: and I will perform my good word in your favour,
To bring you again to this place.
See, o Edessa, o city of towers with waters foundations,
Wherefore we walked in a day from across Earth, found a direction
Taking us six-cent miles defying the meek expectations
Might we have thought, to the edge of the cedars by Tigris reflection
Visible near to its ranges of mountains and heavenly white host
Scattering showers of life-soaked rains north-west from our tropic
Where we had entered, and washing ourselves and in drink we had rightmost
Cared for our bodies with water and found we had been us myopic
Twice to our world, for at first we ignored great pageantries guarded,
Summer in bloom and a fanned oscillation of flora unmasking
Showing their wonderful colors, and rivers, so watery-hearted,
Snaking a path in the loam from its mount ice-swollen uncasking
Leading to either the River or Twin, in the dance dialectic
Cleaving in twain Near Asia, and touched by the seasonal leaves’ grace
Carried it down to a grave of renewal, a destiny septic
Cleansing the world of its scattered debris, its contours to the lees’ place
Foliaged cedars aloft, in their perfect and haunted formation
Blocking the blue of the heavens, but not our appearance, for coming,
Numbering twelve and a hundred, were horsemen of militant station
Coming to water their mounts, and their tassels and weapons and drumming
Royal occasion, suggested, a hunt by the season for princes,
Rode up with hostile intent, but no weapon was drawn for inspection,
Seeing our hopeless condition: we shared not tongues but from fringes
Trotted a soldier with tassels, Judean it seemed, whose detection
When we had spoken was keen on our language, for this he explained us:
Brethren, afar have you come to Edessa so barren and needful,
Whence was your start? and I said to him Babylon, that it be famous,
Far and misleading, and then he responded, As traveled by eagle,
This would be possible; this is a curious thing, I confess you,
Lonesome and light, and concerning indeed is it since we are warring
Jews of a kind, so if possible, come with us, that we may bless you,
Bidding your journey along if hostility is not us aforeing,
More than acceptable, this we agreed, but the fact was sufficient
Many a time we were tied by our hands and we asked it forgotten:
This Jew, named Ananias, said It is well, on condition,
Let us relieve you of weapons and travel equestrian-trodden,
Equal and same to our tastes, and we want to negotiate little
That we be free and in hands most equal, so both of us saddled,
Carried we were back from the wood of Edessa and seated in middle
Lest we be lost, I had nothing to say to the man with me straddled
While we withdrew from the wood, and the afternoon’s solar container
Bled from its blues to a fig-red, made us beyond any doubting
Weather was fair for a time; Ananias relayed us the retainer,
Which I had counted a hundred and twenty, were dutif’ly scouting,
Running the wood for their new King Abgar for hunt in the autumn,
Sooner than what I expected, for though I was still, and am, Abel,
Time as had space were dislodged, and as though to confirm was a solemn,
Sensible sign: see! ibex with coat of a delicate sable,
Leaping along in the bare wood, horn’d, territorial strutting,
Shewn to be spirit, no animal merely, an element mystic,
Look! disappearing to cedars in mist, horns nary ajutting,
Watched us remove to Edessa, and whether to warn, or it wished it,
None of the Parthians saw it, and one on a mutual bearer
Turned to inspect me my staring, but gone had the sight to surroundings;
When we arrived at the walls, I had suddenly harbored a terror:
Maybe the King would admit to his treasury many our foundings,
Like my retrieved sword (carried by others for royal assurance);
Passing along the congestion of populous streets in a fervor
Watching the hunters, with gold-trimmed armor and helmet’s concurrence
Marking the resolute horsem’n as each hand-picked and no server,
Men of renown, for indeed, each bore with his burdens a weapon
Fair to behold, bows shaped as if petrified eagles and falcons
Colored from wear, and as such they were mighty, no vandal could threaten:
These were the veterans, gold were their wounds and their scars, their medall’ons;
Marched to the palace, a stone-brick organ with shadowy corr’dors
Painted in white-gold murals, depicting the beast we encountered:
Sky-blue head and its horns branched; most were relieved of their orders,
Leaving a few with us: then, King Abgar descended from downward
Where he was seated, and said: I am sixth of the regents
Honoring Abgar the First with his name, and I reign with a meekness
Fitting the Kingdom Between both Persia and Rome, and my regions
Come to me thankful, so I ask you whomever be briefest,
What had you drinking from springs in the shade of my woods’ demarcation?
Which I began, We were chased, but see! in the dark, in the terror,
Leaving behind from the Zealots we came from the kin of our nation,
Added Baruch, It was random, Your Majesty, which as our bearer
Saved us and led us to water, and found us your men, undefended,
Staying your hand from our pitiful state, but you find us resourceful,
Being we routed and starving, to pledge us to what you f’nd splendid
Lest we be ignorant, lest we be bid to be thankless, remorseful,
Meekly determine our judgment, and Abgar considered: A king has his morals,
Duties perhaps, to the stranger, and Zealots impede us to stagger
Even today, so I sympathize; even so thinking our quarrels,
This is the case: I cannot be parading with regency’s swagger
Leading you out: you shall come from the city to hunting apartments
Manacled, till I should levy a judgment in pertinent writing
Which shall be merciful, thinking it such, but until it has parchments
Think of me fearfully, think it be better to die from your fighting
Rather be lost in my forests, and swiftly he took to enchainment,
Having us taken in shackles from palace with soldiers’ parading
Whilst we, Baruch and I, hardly pretend to be pleased with arraignment
Life had remained with us mercif’ly, while Edessa was fading
Thence on horizon of evening, we came to a place of seclusion
Hidden in hills and the gnarls of red oaks dwarfed by the cedars
Sentinel-standing on mountainous feet in the hilly profusion,
Weaving their articles, whereto a song-bird passerine teeters
Calling its mournful reproach, our captivity shared in remembrance
Whether by custom, we men are within, or in birds’ understanding
Whose intellection is naught; and I thought of it nothing for vengeance,
Rather I thought him but calm, indisposed as a king to demanding,
Though in the heat of apartments I chanced to regret our egression
Out in the open, the soggy and musty interior haunted
Seemed me unfitting for princes and kings, for the autumn’s oppression
Seeped into skin and so dried us we, parched and reliably daunted
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