The Triple Goddess (176 page)

Desperate times require desperate measures, and now the time for them was over it was enough that he would share the common fate.

He picked up the pen again. As the Word had begun it all, so the Word would end it, and the Giver deserved to be thanked even as he took His gift away. “
Vanitas vanitatum, dixit Ecclesiastes;
“
vanitas vanitatum, et omnia vanitas
.”

The hand was steady, the writing assured, and the lines that Hugo Bonvilian had absorbed long ago, from a single reading aloud from the Good Book by his mother, rolled forth, transformed into psalmic paraphrase

Like a tree by the water-side

You planted me where I reside:

I did not question the reason;

I will bring forth my fruit in due season.

As I have certain precious things

I keep hidden beneath my wings,

In turn I hope that I may lie

Treasured as the apple of your eye.

One day perhaps I will see your face:

Till then you are wrapped in a place

Of secrets and oblivion;

Dark water round a dark pavilion.

At dawn the sun comes from his room,

Ebulliently like a bridegroom,

To tell us how rich we can be

If we are in your sweet company.

I cry during the day; you take

No notice of my nights awake;

You lit the candle of my heart

But now it burns low and melts apart.

Dogs and men have surrounded me;

My soul cries for delivery

From the wicked; I am forlorn,

Threatened by lion and unicorn.

Those who once loved me hang aloof;

To my neighbours I am a reproof;

My friends fear me; to relatives

I am part of them that no longer lives,

A broken vessel; but my heart

Is hot and I feel the fire start

To kindle; and somewhere among

My confusion I have found my tongue.

My heart shall not turn back on the way;

My steps are not about to stray

Even in this shadow of death;

Even when threatened by dragons’ breath.

My tongue is a ready pen that writes

Good matter that my heart indites

Of parables that bent my ear;

My harp plays dark words for you to hear:

King’s daughter, gladdened with glory

In palaces of ivory,

Clothed in wrought gold, infused with myrrh,

And mixed with aloes and cassia;

Purge me with hyssop; make me clean;

Wash me whiter than a snow-scene;

You broke my bones, but now your voice

Of joy and gladness makes them rejoice

With those bright words that betoken

Happiness; words that were spoken

As confidently as the sun

Rises in the world to make its run.

I often think how much I would love

To fly: to have wings like a dove;

To take me far away; to flee

Into the wilderness; to be free.

But there is nowhere that you cannot look;

Nothing you do not note in your book;

You have bottled every tear I shed;

Every flitting, you know where I head.

The only safety that I know

Is with you under the shadow

Of your wings: I know I can last

There hidden until this tyranny is past;

Until the streets are clear again;

Until another time is come

When the dogs of darkness no longer go

Grinning through the city, to and fro.

Whose power is so great that he

Builds mountains for eternity?

Who stills the raging of the sea

And cures the people’s insanity?:

The same who sends soft drops of rain

In little valleys on the plain,

And blesses the furrows of earth

And wilderness places that give birth.

The folds will be full of sheep, and

The little hills and valleys stand

So thick with corn that they resound

As they sing and laugh and dance around.

Though you slept among pots and pans

You will fly up on silver spans

Like the covert feathers of a dove

Wings that golden high above.

You have taken captivity

Captive, and given enmity

A chance to soften and uplift

Itself: you brought this heavenly gift.

Men who hate me have made a mire

Where I am stuck fast and will soon tire

And sink without delivery

Where the waters will run over me.

Do not let me drown; save me from death!

Do not let the floods cut off my breath!

Do not let the deep waters swallow

Me here where you alone may follow.

The desire to enter your court

Consumes my soul and every thought;

To find a house is nothing more

Than any nesting sparrow seeks for.

There is nothing that I would not be

Or would not do in your house gladly,

If only you would grant me access

Far from these tents of ungodliness.

For a thousand years in your sight

Pass by as a watch in the night;

They are as sleep or yesterday

As soon as you scatter them away.

My days are gone like the shadow

Of a flower in the meadow.

The days of man die down like grass;

They suddenly fade and quickly pass.

In the morning I grew up green

And was delighted to be seen;

By evening I was cut; alone;

I dried and withered where I was mown.

Let all the oceans lose their poise

And clap their hands and make a noise;

Let the fields and hills and trees all shout

And turn our own joyful world about.

Now I rejoice that I was born;

I am exalted like the horn

Of a unicorn bathed in oil;

Nothing can ever make me recoil.

It is so long since I was a child;

I am a pelican in the wild;

Or a desert owl; or a roof-

top sparrow all aloof.

Now I eat ashes for my bread

And drink the tears that I have shed.

The wind still blows where I used to be

But the place does not remember me.

Who else would know how to invoke

The heavens around me like a cloak,

And ride the wind effortlessly

In a chariot over the sea?

Deliver me, for I am weak;

My heart is hurt, I cannot speak;

I am one you should never know,

Hidden in smoke, a parting shadow.

Unless you protect my house;

Unless you are there to douse

The flames; unless you are there

To guard me, I have wasted my care.

Rising early and working late;

The careful food upon my plate;

The extra effort that I make

To be successful: I need to take

More interest in myself than this

Or I am surely going to miss