Canticle on the Octarchy
XXXVIII
I have two daughters who as yet have not known man:
I will bring them out to you.
Grandeur has limits on earth, and the words of the rabbi’s description
Soared to a height unexpressed in the visual tale on arrival:
Babylon Great in appearance produced but a needable friction
Next to the favor’ble language it brought in recalling-revival:
Though it was vast in its miles, I found it somewhat depleted;
Many were bustling, cooking and crying but naught was romantic,
Where were the fiery eyes of the fugitive gods uncompleted?
Even the stories of towers and temples and idols gigantic,
Once in the light of my eyes were but fables and proved nonexistent,
Hardly impressing me that, for a man to betray in his varied,
Ludicrous methods his God, but a pittance is this in the distance!
Circling ’round it with fervor, the city for which we have tarried,
Building it mortar-and brick to be smitten and struck and be broken,
This is the thing we have sold each soul for, and thus I am burning,
Thinking it much as I wasted my life at the first for a token,
Scraps of the whinges of lust, we are equally damned in our earning
Lest we are saved by our God, and the remnants of lust and its merit
Bring on the scorched condemnation, and casting their vision with glass eyes,
Angels beheld such things with a longing to covet and bear it;
What can be said for a man but his wish to be secret, amass lies,
Build in himself great cities of brick to distract and defocus
Rather than span in himself wide fields for the pleasure of labor?
What is a man but a miser’ble pile of furious locusts
Raging with filthy desires, material drives and behavior,
Always depending on sense, thus chance, as it gives him impression;
Wonder indeed we are capable even to make of it merry,
Carry on wherefore in darkness of conscience and hopeless oppression
Suffered as creatures, as creatures, as finite and burdened to carry,
Thinking the walls of the cities are made to protect from the dreadful,
Though it is more apt saying a wall is to cease locomotion
Out-from and not into cities, for man can but leave with his head full
Seeing the terrors and startling measures of civilized notion,
Gorged on the fat of the land, and he sees it with lustful intention,
Thinking it better belongs as his own, for the city is shared all,
Shared to the masses, but even to strangers, beyond their retention,
Whereas our fathers were rich but itinerant, called by a rare call,
Tarrying here for the honors of trade, but I see in an instant
Thanks to the rabbi the fact great Abraham saw in the dual-cave,
That to sojourn and to journey is life in an image insistent,
Cities are graves: he only was stopped to acquire a new grave,
Then he continued traversing the land of eventual promise,
Wherefore the people to come from his seed were so also required,
During the feast of Sukkoth, to return to conditions as modest,
Whereby remembering this fact; thus I am neither inspired,
Wondrous nor piously stupor’d by Babylon’s walls or its blue gates,
Finding it flattering none, shame even residing beside it,
Cities themselves are the idol of idols, excuse to accrue weights,
Cheat on the wages of others, demand on the rights to decide it,
Fight to erect walls circling cities and leaving them stunted,
Sealing the roads to the center as a sentinel room for their treasures,
Though in his day, might Abraham reckon the emperor hunted
Then he could see in the quarry-pursuing the measure of measures
Whit’ling a man to the nub, for in this we are image-entrusted:
Seeking a violence and victory; Nimr’d, condemned to a folk-hell,
Living in stories from rabbis is nothing beside as he lusted,
Babylon standing alone in his wake, and as bones it is spoke well,
Not of him, rather of those he beset, for the kingdom’s occurring
Hangs on the wings of its foes, and to hear it with lucidness fluent,
Loving the light, but I now can suspend my contemplative spurring,
Where I reflect on the rabbi’s discussion: for Israel truant,
Holiness tends to contract, and by Abraham’s passages mystic
Sullying spreads as a plague in extremities over creation,
Which is contained by the law but undone by imprecedents licit
Where the permissions become law, law fails thus for salvation;
Law as a fixture is good to instruct but its punishments, what of!
Evil resists and exists to be smitten, so said was of Canaan,
Filling the higher with darkness, the lower with man and the blood of,
Shewing obedience forth for the sake of a stroke they had pain in,
Wherefore the law was for Moses the next and the last dispensation,
Writ to contain sin whence it be silenced forever and ever,
Lest it begrudge man more for his natural rule and mentation,
Sin in its exile sought him as lover and slave and endeavor,
Wherefore the greatest calamity swept deep over the nation
Seeing the law as supreme unto God and like Him eternal,
Waiting for man to obey it as means to His own exaltation,
Not as it came to us merely as something a gift and supernal,
Rather as needful by what is contained in the One Name,
Lord, to be Lord is to rule and so asking the relevant question
Israel found it necessity, made revelation a fun game
Where we are learning with God who designed, at the creature’s inception,
Cruelly injecting reality full of our mortal failure
Making the ground of necessity scarcely distinct from contingent,
Seeing the law as emergent and finding a way to it tailor
Toward the call of their flesh and to this we observe it as stringent,
Moreso with rulers and priests who decide it as something of stricture,
Not as if either was evil in substance, but each to their tolling
Take from the glory the office deserves and distorting the picture
Find in it only a plaguery spiral unfurling and rolling;
Here I identify man who with cares and perpetu’lly caring
Ever-retreats to his carelessly-mastered offices lorded
Wishing himself an excuse, his condition a putative faring
Turning his own to himself, for his mind and the tools it afforded
Beckons him toward an error, disordered and often considered,
Molding the world to the mind by diversity found — oppositions —
Which as perceived disagree, and their noise to his ears have but bickered
Even in God! what hope, then! swollen with startled munitions,
Where His pupation would foremost abolish the whole of creation;
What a nonsensical notion! I strike to it fast with a lead rod,
Chastening error as error, for when it conceals denotation
What is heretical makes for a swiftest rebuke from the dread God;
Now I have strayed from my story, but here I have naught to atone for,
Sharing the thoughts I oppose as a parable made from the truant;
Thus I resume, with the question I asked first: when he had grown more,
Abram did heard God, though it is not clear that he be fluent:
Wherewith I earlier mentioned the sound of his reasoning beckoned,
Mainly contrasting Terah who had something of paralyzed visions,
Though it is never observed in the order of things we have reckoned
What it is meant by the Word or the voice in the prophets’ decisions
Such as could lead to their mission, or raise from the nations conversions,
Which was the case for our fathers, retrieved thence, whence could be fostered
Somehow in time to be guided by angels as delicate surgeons
Ministered covenants free from the idols of demons-impostered
Thereupon fell for the same things, loving their ideals and fictions,
Worshipping what in their heads rang not as becoming, unthinking,
Fooleries tainted to images raunchy and mythic depictions
Merely inflating the ev’ryday; many have posited the shrinking,
Dewen contraction of God in the first, and in evil appearance
Hides in Himself this Name in a motor of motive despairing
Faintly awry and unheard in the noise of designed interference
Clanging the tides of His moment, His change, His eventful preparing,
What a disgrace! can we even begin to elaborate error,
Child, if God can be under our doctrines so callously hollow?
What can be meant if the Lord is a Being with mortal comparer
Reckoned among men being as beings with statutes to follow
Each as incumbent on God as on men? it is this contradiction,
Then, to be known and to know, that guides me back to the heathen,
Seeking the wisdom of earth to oppose and to bless malediction,
Finding the whats to extract from our rabbis in intricate treason
Treating the same, same questions; with wise dereliction and brooding
Hebrews have thrived in the wake of our tragedies, though we be bludgeoned,
Only by something of promise, for nothing is ever concluding
Lest it be ordered, and now as the oldest of nations’ curmudgeons
Now we are priv’leged to succor the children of westerners boorish,
Sharing the treasures we gained from the east with the wits of our right hand,
Nowhere inclined to investigate what else might we to nourish
Knowing the fact of enslavement is Joseph’s enrichment by night’s end,
Knowing the alien race of his fathers had naught for enjoyment
Save as the One God’s portion, but these are his children resistful,
Learning to say, like Abraham, Here I am, Lord, for deployment,
Learning to say, like Samuel, the same; and in histories wistful
Israel seeks for himself opportunities suited to tailor
Earthly prosperity over to spirit, but this resolution
Never had hope, for the body, the ship of the soul as its sailor,
Only confuses itself with the spirit, its tarnished pollution,
Wintering harbor of cold-pressed souls, its perfidious dwelling,
Wife of unfaithful demeanor and ruin of intellects placid;
Souls are the husbands of bodies and though tasked thus with its quelling
Find it too difficult tempering bodies with honey or acid,
Leaving it something of negligence over authorial manner,
Finding excuse, as the weary refrain from their duties (the prole’s mask)
Leaving their wives to their own ends, waving a permanent banner
Marking their noxious surrender, but what has the Lord had? His sole ask?
Care for the soul, and I turned for a moment and then he had vanished,
Gone from my sight; I with haste looked twice for the rabbi about me,
Surely departing for reason, perhaps he, decidedly famished,
Left for a spell or for drink, but the rabbi who spoke so devoutly
Found it acceptable then to depart with no word, recognition,
Nothing to share with his only companion to Babylon’s blue walls
Round the city of exiles twin, but with time its admission,
Soon I was lonesome again, and the morn came twixt in its dewfalls
Finding me hapless, alone but with hope by the words he had shared me,
Yea, I was tasked with a soul, would I willingly fail in its tending?
God was aware, and His genius determines a way to prepare me,
Might He be willing to spare me and guide me, to this no defending,
That I am always account’ble for what I have done or have wanted,
Waiting with patient infliction of time for the ends of my own ends,
Trenchant and terminal such things come in the guise of the haunted,
Though if I travel along I shall soon make more on-the-road friends
After I purchase my stock and attempt thus not to be callous
Toward the people I meet with the bitterness felt for destruction
Lain in my limbs and my face, for I feel a regret but no malice
Though to a stranger I sadly present a maligned introduction;
Wherefore I keep to myself all the words I recall of the princes,
Prophets and towers of Babylon linked to the story of plunder
Spake by the rabbi, I heard but a similar tale it evinces,
Myth if it suits it a name, on the recourse of men in their hunger
Prior to Law and before God made known widows and orphans;
Happy the man who has heard, for he finds in it cures for the passions,
Happy the peoples the Lord has declared for Himself as His portions,
One to the West in the land of the tragedies, pagans and Athens,
These are the poor Jews, Hebrews consigned to the greater dispersion;
One to the East in the land of the mystics and fallibly pious
Reaching for heaven, these rich Jews of no worldly excursion
Say to themselves: I belong to the land still, given their bias,
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
– xx – xx – xx – xx – xx – X
one • two
three • four
five • six