Collected Poems

by Anthony Burgess

  Joshua and his warriors, on a lower slope,

  Hidden among rocks, armed with rocks, saw the sign.

  The raiders came nearer, bold, seeing only

  Tired wanderer and cattle and flocks,

  And greed quickened their pace towards the prey.

  So Joshua signalled and shocked them with a quick fire

  Of arrows, till all the arrows were spent.

  Then came the hurling of stones, stone after stone

  After stone, for there was no shortage of rock.

  They had not expected this, the Amalekites:

  Howling, they turned tail, in spite of the

  Howls of the leaders, their retreat thickening and growing.

  And now was the turn of the hidden reserve,

  Lurking behind the non-combatant Israelites,

  Rushing on the rear, busy with rocks and daggers,

  Picking up daggers. Carnage, delectable spoils

  Of swords and spears, breastplates even, helmets,

  For the Amalekites were a warlike people.

  So as the Israelites trudged on their way,

  There was a breastplate on Joshua, and a helmet,

  And a dagger in a sheath – the general Joshua,

  Close to Moses, and Aaron some way behind,

  The office of Aaron somewhat less clear than it had been.

  They trudged towards Midian, and the heart of Moses

  Beat painfully as he said to himself: ‘Thick and strong

  It beats, the desert blood. In the women,

  As much as in the men. What law prevents her

  Yielding to some young red mouth of Midian,

  Black-bearded, a storm in the pulse? And, if she has waited,

  Believing me still to be among the living,

  There begins the double burden – that of a man

  With two families, two.’ There it was, then,

  At least, old territory, loved, fateful –

  The solitary tree on the hill, the sacred mountain,

  The wells of Midian and, yes, a group waiting,

  Waving. Moses ceased to be a leader,

  Breaking with an unwonted speed from the van of the progress,

  Becoming the husband and father. Joshua smiled,

  The Israelites waited in wonder. And so – Zipporah,

  Ghershom grown, Jethro old, the sisters

  (Some married, one dead), embraces, tears,

  And embraces and tears in the tent of Zipporah

  In the following dawn, Moses saying: ‘My love,

  It will take time for me. To be again what I was.’

  And she: ‘You have grown thin. You have lacked

  Too long the roasted firstlings and the broths

  Of herbs and mutton I cooked for you. Also the love.

  You are very thin.’ – ‘Also old? Also very old?’ –

  ‘I did not,’ she smiled, ‘say that. But you need time

  And rest to make those eyes lose their fierceness,

  Those hard lines round your lips melt to tenderness.’

  So they embraced, but a voice outside called: ‘Moses!’

  And Moses wearily smiled: ‘So it will always be.

  Israel lying in bed between us.’ He donned his robe

  And left the tent to hear news of fighting.

  ‘Reuben and Judah?’ he said. ‘Impossible.’

  ‘All too possible,’ Joshua said. ‘Tribal war.

  It was some matter of a woman.’ Bitterly, Moses:

  ‘A woman. A woman of Reuben and a man of Judah.

  Is that the story?’ Joshua said: ‘A man of Reuben,

  Single, and a married woman of Judah.’ –

  ‘So,’ said Moses, ‘they’ve developed a taste for war.’ –

  ‘We shall all’, said Joshua, ‘need to develop that taste.’ –

  ‘But.’ Moses cried: ‘this is not a matter

  Of repelling invaders. It is brother against brother.

  Do not the followers yet see that we must be one,

  One, one, not a loose parcel of tribes?’

  Joshua said: ‘To be truthful, the possession of weapons

  Drove to the use of weapons.’ – ‘It is always so’,

  Sighed Moses. ‘You must construct an armoury.

  You must keep our weapons clean and locked away.

  If we are to fight with nations – then, so be it.

  But we are not to make war amongst ourselves.

  How many are dead? – ‘Only one dead,’ said Joshua.

  ‘A very small war. Caleb and I soon stopped it.’ –

  ‘Brother killed brother’, sighed Moses. ‘Cain and Abel

  Back to life, or death. And was the man… ?’

  ‘The man,’ Joshua said, ‘was the single

  Man of Reuben, no longer able to love the

  Married woman of Judah.’ So they walked through the camp

  And saw the adulterer, pitifully broken and rent,

  Lying on the ground, and assembly fearful

  As Moses spoke: ‘This is no war but murder.

  The law says that you shall not kill, but we

  Make an exception to the law. For if the enemy

  Seeks to kill you, then you may justly,

  And out of the need of nature, kill him first,

  If you can. But what is your enemy?

  He is someone remote, of strange tongue, of evil intention.

  You will meet many such enemies, believe me,

  Before you cross to the land of the Lord’s promise,

  And even thereafter there will be enemies enough.

  But we are one, of common custom and speech,

  And – note this, note it well – chosen together,

  As one people, as one family, for the special favour

  And the special chastening of the Lord our God.

  Therefore I say this to you: that the deed

  That was done was no brave deed of warfare

  But a foul act of murder. And if there was a murder,

  There must of necessity be one accused of murder.

  Let him come forward.’ There was silence for a space,

  And eyes turned to the ground, and the eyes of Moses

  Saw that dead man as he had once been, alive,

  Embracing lustily, and remembered his own words,

  Gentle, warning, in vain. Sly, shamed eyes

  Fixed on one young man, who now came boldly,

  And Moses said, gently enough: ‘What have you to say?’ –

  ‘I acted under order,’ the youth said.

  ‘We were ordered to attack the enemy.’

  Moses said: ‘There was no enemy.

  A man killed a man and that is murder.

  And what is the punishment for murder?

  Let us hear from the heads of the tribes concerned.’

  These came forward, doubtful, and Moses asked again:

  ‘What is the punishment for murder?’ The head of Judah

  Said, full of the old way: ‘The washing out of

  Blood by compensation. Let the young man

  Or his parents make good the loss of

  An able-bodied member of our tribe.

  Let us then have a warrior or a slave.

  Or cattle. Or sheep. We can discuss the details now.’

  But Moses cried: ‘No! No! We cannot and must not

  Value human life in terms of possessions.

  For human life is precious and irreplaceable

  And cannot be treated as a kind of money. So I say again:

  What is the punishment for murder?’ The leader of Reuben

  Said, cunningly as he considered: ‘If we cannot

  Put a value on human life, then we cannot

  Compute the punishment.’ And Moses answered: ‘That is

  Right. And yet also wrong. For human life

  Can be valued only in its own terms. So I say:

  A life for a life. Which means: a death for a death.’<
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  The silence was full of fear, and Joshua spoke

  To break the silence, resolve the fear: ‘How shall the

  Murderer – What I mean to say is: how

  Is it to be done?’ Moses answered, sighing:

  ‘Joshua, Joshua, to think of that now. Did you suppose

  I intended his immediate execution for

  His life is still a precious life.

  The judges of his guilt must, as I see it,

  Learn to revel in their own confusion, thinking:

  Did he do it or did not? Can the witnesses

  Be trusted? Did not perhaps the dead man

  Drop dead in fright when he saw the knife approaching?’

  And he looked on the butchered body and trembled, saying:

  ‘You have hardly begun to conceive, any of you,

  Of the preciousness of a human life.’ Of this he spoke

  To Jethro, in the pasture below Horeb,

  Soothed by the old shepherd’s trade, and Jethro said:

  ‘Give them the law, then delegate, delegate.

  Change now, now. This will not do,

  This wearing out of one poor brain and body

  In the service of so many. Organise, delegate.

  And first, get rid of your hereditary chiefs.

  Heredity is not enough, it does not of necessity

  Qualify a man to rule. Then remember this:

  The basis of good government is the ten,

  The ten, the ten. Good junior officers –

  Each one in charge of ten. Then senior officers,

  Each one in charge of fifty. Then you climb

  The ladder – very good men charged with a hundred.

  And then at last the cream – the superb, the

  Incorruptible leaders of a thousand.

  God-fearing men, trustworthy, humorous,

  Preferably young men. There is no great virtue in age.’ –

  ‘Men like Joshua, you mean,’ Moses said.

  ‘He is one who carries the new fire.

  But first I must tend his fire for him. Also,

  Warm my own hands by it.’ – ‘Joshua?’

  Jethro said. ‘Is he married?’ Moses said not,

  And Jethro sighed with a faint hope. ‘All this,’

  Moses said, ‘will strike them as – subversive.’ –

  ‘Good,’ said Jethro, ‘good.’ – ‘Something like the

  Organisation of an army.’ And Jethro: ‘So it is. You

  Are an army. But an army of human souls:

  Let none forget that. You will be fighting

  Your way towards this land of milk and honey.

  The zest is all in the fighting. It will be a long time

  Before the cows and goats are born that will yield that milk,

  And for that honey – the bees must gather. A bland diet,

  Very bland.’ And then the mountain shook,

  As out of sleep, and Moses said: ‘It sounds

  As if I am to be summoned. Ah, God help me.’

  Jethro smiled. ‘That, my son, is a prayer

  You will be able to deliver in person.’ And Moses smiled,

  And looked towards the rumbling of the mountain.

  That day, with pain, he climbed it, saw the bush

  That had once burned, but this time heard the voice

  Come from the very peak, saying: ‘Say this

  To the house of Jacob, this to the people of Israel.

  Say: If if if you will obey my voice

  And keep my covenant, you shall be to me a

  Kingdom of priests and a nation of holiness.

  But the choice is theirs, the choice, I say, is theirs.

  And if they choose this covenant with me,

  Then let them spend two days in the holy rites

  Of purifying themselves. On the third day

  I will come in a thick cloud on the mountain top.

  What I speak with you the people shall hear,

  And may also believe you for ever. And the words of the covenant

  Shall be set down on stone imperishable,

  That they may be beheld by the eyes of men.’

  The peak was silent, and so Moses descended

  To the world of his waiting people, bidding craftsmen

  Prepare two tables of stone for the covenant, speaking

  Patiently, but with no hesitation,

  No sense of the words being whipped from him, to his leaders:

  ‘Thus I leave to you the duties of

  Administering, of ordering, or judging.

  The task which will long absorb my time,

  My energy, and such poor brains as I have,

  Will be the task of making the law of our people,

  The law you will administer. The law

  Is like the blood-channels of the body, or shall I say

  That first there are the great trees of blood,

  And then the numberless branches and twigs. It is the

  Trunks that we must think of first, the solidities

  Which even the weak of sight can see. The branches

  And twigs can come later. First, we must remember

  That the great laws come from God. They are the laws for all men,

  And yet they are laws the world has not seen before.

  But I say this to you, that so long as men shall live –

  In freedom, unoppressed – it is on such laws

  That their lives must be based. They must know that

  These laws are sanctified by the Lord himself,

  And they must see the ground from which the great trees spring

  As the godhead that sustains them. God is not a

  Demon of the rivers, or of fire or air.

  He is not a stone idol – he is a spirit,

  And it is as spirit that men must worship him.

  So there shall be no making of gods of stone

  or wood or iron or silver. Nor shall the name of God

  Be thrown in the air like a ball or kicked like a pebble.

  The very name is sacred and its use shall be sacred.

  The day of rest, which is God’s day, shall be sacred –

  Given to the contemplation of the eternal,

  While the body rests from labour. It shall be a day

  For the family, and the family itself

  Shall be seen on that day as sacred. Nay, the family

  And the bond of marriage, and the children that are

  The fruit of that bond – shall always be bound in a garland

  Of love and honour. And what a man owns shall be sacred,

  Since it comes from God – be it his goods or his life.

  Both are inviolate – no killing, no stealing. Nay, more:

  No coveting of the things our brothers possess,

  For sin begins in desire. Above all, we are free,

  Free beings, copies of that God

  Who is the first and last free being – free

  Even to choose to enter the covenant

  With him, with him who made us. And now I ask:

  ‘Will you accept the covenant?’And again he asked

  Not the leaders alone but all the people:

  ‘Will you accept the covenant?’ The word bounced,

  Echoed – covenant covenant – and the reply

  Echoed and bounced all along the valley.

  The tablets in his arms, the graver’s tools

  In the hands of Joshua, who was to be with him

  The long climb of his absence, Moses began

  To climb the mountain, slowly, Joshua after,

  And the Israelites watched him leave – for how long? – their lives.

  But Aaron was with them, Aaron still, in Aaron’s hands

  The rule, in Aaron’s head the law, on Aaron’s

  Tongue the word. They watched, and Aaron watched,

  Till Moses was lost to view, then turned to their lives,

  Their grumbling wives, the cow in labour,
sheep

  With foot-rot, work and sleep, the common lot,

  Thinking of God and Moses and the covenant

  But not too much, having other things to do.

  10

  A RESTIVE PEOPLE

  Up high on Horeb, with the evening coming on,

  They looked at the rolling cloud that, somehow, beckoned,

  And Moses nodded slowly, saying to Joshua:

  ‘I must enter now. Do you understand? I must be

  Entirely alone with the voice of all things. Make you

  Camp somewhere down there, in the rocks’ shelter.’

  And Joshua asked: ‘How long will it be?’ Moses smiled.

  ‘The world and the seas and the stars were made in

  Six days. To make laws for the Israelites

  May take somewhat longer. A good deal longer.

  But I think we are well enough supplied.’ Joshua said:

  ‘It will be a bread and water matter.’ – ‘Bread and water

  Will suffice me. At dawn and at sundown.

  But you are a young man. Hunt by all means,

  But do not wander too far. Remember – if all this

  Should be too much for me – if – ’ But Joshua said:

  ‘You are not to talk in that manner.’ And Moses: ‘I

  Grow aware of my age. The laws of living and dying

  Will not be suspended for a mere

  Instrument of the Lord. There will be others.

  Already this one shows signs of wear. Remember,

  I say, that you are the next chosen.’ – ‘No,’ said Joshua,

  ‘There must be others before me – your brother – ’

  ‘Aaron,’ said Moses, ‘grows old too. And – I may say this –

  The faith wavers in the old and the ageing. They

  Dream too much of the past, a past of old gods.

  I must look to the young. To you. And now – ’

  Joshua saw the solemnity of the moment

  And sank to his knees. Moses blessed him, saying:

  ‘May your body be washed in the waters of the eternal.

  May the eternal dwell in muscle, nerve, sinew.

  Be near, Joshua, near, for you too are called.’

  So Moses entered the cloud and was lost to view.

  But Joshua, in moonlight, tending his fires, hearing

  Owls and the bark and squeal of hunter and hunted,

  Heard also a voice, and it was not the voice of Moses.

  ‘It is true’, he whispered to the fire. ‘All is true.’

  So time passed, and a time passed below

  Among the Israelites, neither exciting nor exacting,

  Feeding their flocks and their children, baking bread,

  Loving, quarrelling, sitting at night around fires,

  Talking of the past not the future. One such night,