For G.C.S.
Between the mountains of spices
the cities thrust up pearl domes and filigree spires.
Never before was Jerusalem so beautiful.
In the sculptured temple how many pilgrims,
lost in the measures of tambourine and lyre,
kneeled before the glory of the ritual?
Trained in grace the daughters of Zion moved,
not less splendid than the golden statuary,
the bravery of ornaments about their scented feet.
Government was done in palaces.
Judges, their fortunes found in law,
reclining and cosmopolitan, praised reason.
Commerce like a strong wild garden
flourished in the street.
The coins were bright, the crest on coins precise,
new ones looked almost wet.
Why did Isaiah rage and cry,
Jerusalem is ruined,
your cities are burned with fire?
On the fragrant hills of Gilboa
were the shepherds ever calmer,
the sheep fatter, the white wool whiter?
There were fig trees, cedar, orchards
where men worked in perfume all day long.
New mines as fresh as pomegranates.
Robbers were gone from the roads,
the highways were straight.
There were years of wheat against famine.
Enemies? Who has heard of a righteous state
that has no enemies,
but the young were strong, archers cunning,
their arrows accurate.
Why then this fool Isaiah,
smelling vaguely of wilderness himself,
why did he shout,
Your country is desolate?
Now will I sing to my well-beloved
a song of my beloved touching her hair
which is pure metal black
no rebel prince can change to dross,
of my beloved touching her body
no false swearer can corrupt,
of my beloved touching her mind
no faithless counsellor can inflame,
of my beloved touching the mountains of spices
making them beauty instead of burning.
Now plunged in unutterable love
Isaiah wanders, chosen, stumbling
against the sculptured walls which consume
their full age in his embrace and powder
as he goes by. He reels beyond
the falling dust of spires and domes,
obliterating ritual: the Holy Name, half-spoken,
is lost on the cantor’s tongue; their pages barren,
congregations blink, agonized and dumb.
In the turns of his journey
heavy trees he sleeps under
mature into cinder and crumble:
whole orchards join the wind
like rising flocks of ravens.
The rocks go back to water, the water to waste.
And while Isaiah gently hums a sound
to make the guilty country uncondemned,
all men, truthfully desolate and lonely,
as though witnessing a miracle,
behold in beauty the faces of one another.