Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NIMROD: 3, by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH Poet's Biography First Line: And nimrod came to bathsheba the queen Last Line: And on the polished stone wrote his own name. Subject(s): Nimrod (bible) | ||||||||
And Nimrod came to Bathsheba the Queen, And spoke with her; but of that golden speech There is no likeness upon earth to show How mild its sound, how beauteous its shape. But when the dying swan fulfills at eve His passion on the lake and music swells With aching sweetness all his snow-white plumes, And he, that never, never shall return, Like music burning floats into the sun; Or when upon a sleek and polished water The moon all night performs her dance serene In solitary loveliness; or if Smooth hands should serve to beautiful strange guests Pale-colored honey in a golden dish; Or if a water carrier, in the dusk, Should in his earthen jar such water lift As stars had shined on, in the wilderness, And she who drank it said -- it tasteth sweet; Oh then, with singing sound and moving shape, There would be written on our mortal air An old immortal alphabet from which Wrapped in her dark and sacred hieroglyph An awful visitor with shape unseen Would move with music and would take the breath, And there would shine along her ancient script The solemn beauty of that either speech. For there is not a tongue upon the earth To tell how in that city famed of old The stately ministers of lovely sound Had laid their hands on music and built up A gracious architecture of sweet tone; Or how their great and gorgeous grammar raised Its pillars, arches, corridors, and domes, Beneath whose roofs ethereal thoughts like doves Melodiously breathed; pale visions swept With eyes enraptured; and in music stoled, Before the altars, with rituals rich and slow, Angelic meanings served before the Lord. And Nimrod said to Bathsheba, the Queen, "Am I not great? When I my voice east forth Does it not roar like thunder? Shall I lay My hand upon the earth and it not break Like potter's clay dried up? When I go forth Does not the ground smoke? Who has seen my face And, having seen it, not covered up his eyes, Crying, 'Great Nimrod'? Are my feet not set Like cedars in the desert? Is not my breast Unto my people as a spring that gushes Out of a rock? When mine eyes glance abroad Do they not pluck up terror as the eagle Bears up the ram? I lifted up my voice And cried unto the Lord -- yes -- unto Heaven I shook my spear; yes -- unto them that boasted Upon the seats of the angels, in high places I shook my strong spear! And the Lord was vexed And He sent down a whirlwind strewn with eyes. And it did roar and spread itself and I Did cast it howling underneath my feet. The whirlwind did I cast beneath my feet. The whirlwind burst its belly under me -- Yes, God's strong whirlwind! Behold, am I not great? Am I not dreadful as the unicorn? Am I not a palace hung with blazing shields.? Am I not Nimrod?" And Bathsheba spoke, And unto Nimrod said, "Oh, thou art He." And Nimrod said to Bathsheba, "Why then! The whirlwind fell beneath me. I am one That with a dagger stabs the empty gale And scourging air with whips shall make it bleed! Then was deep space astonished! For the Lord Camped mightily upon the plain. His tents Were of thick cloud. His war horses were there, His chariots of dust, His fighting angels; And He did lead on me His cohorts vast, His fierce battalions. He swept down on me His monstrous meteors. And I laughed at God. And riding in thunder down the mountain side Unto the lightning I did cry -- Thou Fool. And I raised up my strong bow and I shot Mine arrow at the Gods. And when it fell I saw it red with blood. For I did slay His strong white horse that plunged upon the gale. His fierce horse did I slay that spouted forth Pale smoke of vengeance; and the storm white angel That drove him unto battle, between its wings Upon its starry bosom -- did I wound. Groaning in Heaven His great angel bleeds. Am I not as a city girt about With forests of tall spears? Am I not spread? Am I not one whose visage flames like brass? Am I not Nimrod?" And Bathsheba stirred Upon his breast her pale and beauteous face And unto Nimrod answered, "Thou art He." And Nimrod spoke to Bathsheba and said, "Lo, who hath built this citadel? Who reared These furious bastions glittering on the plain? Who wailed it round about with dreadful brass? Who founded its deep fortress and decreed, Swollen abroad with splendor, terrific domes? Who planted it with green and pleasant trees? Was it God did it? Who conceived the town? Whose finger sleeked the brazen corridors? From whose imagination then did spring These bright mailed armaments of towers that sweep Their rugged radiance towards the sun? Lo, now Did God disturb His placid hours of ease And wearying of His Heaven descend to build That monstrous chamber roofed with blood-red wings? Did the Lord shape it? Verily I think He was not moved from off His sacred throne To come into the plain, and make for us A thatch amid the wilderness, or build Unto His sons a comfortable roof. When was it that He left the triumphing And being grieved for us in our distress Harnessed His meteor to the groaning rock And dragged it for us? When, with blazing ax Of His sharp lightning did He split in twain Impregnable strong stone for us? And when Did He make derricks of the desert blast, Or of His falling stars link mighty chains? When? When? Nay then, I think He was not stirred To sweat with us when we did heave the stone. I have not seen Him when the sun was hot Upon the desert perish of slow thirst. Hath He smelted bronze in a furnace? Hath He been Scourged with the slaves? For when the sunbaked clay Upon the plain was red with blood, I think It was the footprint of some starveling child That strove with a burden, but not ever yet Because Jehovah bled. Yet when He saw My great bright citadel, the Lord was wroth, And in the darkness spied upon my speech. Yes -- seized upon my utterance! His ears Snatched up my words as the avenging eagle Bears up its prey. Yes -- plunged on them through space And feeding on their fatness He grew wroth. For a great city shined upon my brain. And I did dream of vast and spheral hails, Broad, deep, high-arched, like Heaven's inverted dome. And I would build such towers as should search The countenance of the sun. And I would storm God's fortress with my great acropolis, And drive his frightened angels out, and thence, To do my bidding and to help me build Upon the earth a citadel more vast; A precipice so high that I might leap Into sheer gulfs of Heaven! Then, having plunged Through that abyss of brightness, I would scale Its secret ramparts, dare its highest wall, Triumph above its batteries, show my face With laughter on its pinnacles, then rush Into its central silence, and, from the Book Bring down to earth -- against His will -- God's Word. Therefore I would inscribe upon a stone, 'Great Nimrod!' For behold, upon the earth Am I not mighty? Am I not one who dreams But when he wakens seeks not any man To speak with cunning counsel but with deeds Interprets his own dream? Am I not one Whose name is as a silver shawm blown loud? Am I not Nimrod?" And Bathsheba raised, Shining as does the terrible chrysoprase, Her pale and awful beauty from his breast And unto Nimrod said, "Lord, thou art He." Then Nimrod in his rage did spread abroad And in his violent robes gathered such wrath As hidden in dark clouds shall shake the sky. The thick locks on his head in anger reared And bristled as with sparks. His challenging eyes Swept the dark air with such velocities As when with onslaught fierce a thundering drove Of neighing steeds stampede the plain. His brow Was black with deep and swollen veins. His hands Were stretched aloft as if to snatch from Heaven God's thunderbolts. So Nimrod speechless stood, With such a silence as should scourge the air More fearfully than does the hurricane. So Nimrod stood; and Bathsheba, the Queen, Gazing upon his presence was appalled; And casting down her beauty at his feet Spread out the yellow harvest of her hair Upon the stone. Not like a woman now, But having seen an omen in mid air, A portent and a devastating doom, A part of groaning nature she fell down, Her broad and simple flanks like the white herds Submissive on the plain, her bones like rock, The sinew of the earth -- like earth she lay, The dark, the elemental, the chastised -- And waited for his wrath. And Nimrod spoke. "Break, break, ye clouds, and cast upon the earth Your progeny of fierce, angelic lights. Rage, rage, ye stars that never more should creep Like hounds about God's footstool. Heave, thou earth, And cast thy broth at Heaven. Ye mighty hills, Tremble I say, for sickness of His feet. Howl, thou meek air! Thou earth, sky, sun, moon, wind, Ye forests, clouds! Oh all ye visible things, Be purged of God. For I, that am a man, Having observed the ways of the Most High, Am utterly astonished. God was wroth. He was afraid because I sought to build A citadel so huge it should confound His High Archangels. So he drew a cloud Of angry darkness round about his throne And restless amid rest he cast about, Eternal, jealous, how he should subdue Our mortal glory. Then the Lord came down, Invisible, in radiance panoplied. And when I saw His front, I was amazed. Then was He pleased. Then was His mind set up. Then did His countenance boast and in His heart Unto His watching hosts He cried -- Ha! Ha! For He is one that having not ever sown Shall reap the harvest. And He was consumed, When He beheld great Babel, as with fire Is the dry flax. Then did He smoke with rage, And in His dark and monstrous heart decreed That those who sweat, who bled, who died, should cry To Him, enthroned in the eternal ease, 'Behold, God did it!' And He said to me, 'Lo, now thou art confounded and cast down. Go thou into the chamber and on the stone Write thou Jehovah's name.'; Then Bathsheba Arose before him and upon him shone Her pale and awful beauty. Her large eyes Cast darkness forth upon the air and filled it With premonition of a doom august. And she spoke to him as the Sovereign Night Utters forth stars that shape the destinies Of other worlds. "Lo, who shall war with God? Hast thou such spears as those that from the sky Cleave earth straight through? Hast thou a war horse shod With flame? Whose mane is thunder? Canst thou shake The stars with murmuring? Or by thy nod Confound great waters? Canst thou do this? My Lord, Thou art vainglorious. Think upon the flood. Remember Adam. For upon my dreams Such awful portents ride as meteors Astride the blast. I see! -- I see! -- I see! -- And there is doom upon the land and wailing, And direful confusion! Make peace with God. Else where this citadel is reared to-day, To-morrow wolves shall haunt and hooting owls Shall lodge them in the ruin. Then thou, cast out, Shalt stretch thy hands into a windy air And cry 'Lord, Lord!' upon an empty plain. Go thou, and on the brightly polished stone Write thy Lord's name.; Then Nimrod went from her He passed beyond the brazen door and stood Upon a massive landing flanked with stone, Bright paved with various-colored stone and arched With moon-white marble, hushed with many a shape Of pale and dancing creatures carved in light; Blossoms and garlands; wild and starry forms That ran soft-fooled through the tender stone; Deep fruitage, shadowy grapes, apples of snow, White shining pears, pomegranates richly pale; Dim hands and silver flagons -- and anon, Blushing with sweetness, all the soft white stone Smiled like a rose, where vaguely seen as though From some profound and spiritual air Their fair immortal shapes had melted through, With laughing eyes, with soft and cloudy hair, Angelic faces smiled and dimly shone. The portal was blood red and it was carved With haloes of fierce angels, burnished bright With glowing ribs of deeply crudded wings. And on the left a brazen cherub stood With locks outspread. His pinions were blood red. His breast was alabaster and his eyes Of topaz, flaming fearfully. In his hand He poised a jeweled spear before the Lord. And on the right a brazen cherub stood With locks outspread. His pinions were blood red. His breast was alabaster and his eyes Of topaz, flaming fearfully. In his hand He poised a jeweled spear before the Lord. 'Twixt massive balustrades of thick carved gold Downward there swept a huge Olympian stair Of grave, celestial whiteness like the moon. It swelled abroad, calm, beautiful, and bland. Descending into beauty yet more vast, It moved as some white-bosomed awful god Slowly matures his shape upon the air. So with large curves it did embody space. With godlike love embracing emptiness, In austere nuptials it sank down in bliss. For lo, there swelled upon the mortal sight A vast, a spheral chamber, as did seem The breeding place of immortality. Young angels here might lay a soothing hand On space made infinite and grieved time Become eternal. Here such calm was spread As doth inhabit greatness. The rich air Conceived such splendors as appeared to sweep Like divine blazing eagles the huge roof. From column unto column space swept on, Breathing, enraptured, god-like and austere -- Music made visible. And Nimrod gazed. And when he saw, globed forth beneath that dome, All human beauty sphered before his eyes, Even like mortality shrined in one tear; When he bethought him how upon a night He with imagination was consumed; Yes, even he that haunted with the wolves Among the rocks, naked upon the plain, Was seized with such great awfulness of dream As blows mortality from off our souls And leaves them to a high and god-like doom; And how -- even upon him, the warrior chief -- There swept upon his spirit, burning, bright, The knowledge of that chamber -- beautiful; Then he stretched out his arms upon the air And stood as one astonished. For behold, Spread like a glassy sea the radiant floor Was smoothed in golden pools of deep delight. The blazing walls of fierce and polished brass Were bright as bosoms of the cherubim, And angel-shaped strong columns lifted up A solemn dome of arched and blood-red wings. Then Nimrod moved along the placid floor Till, in the center of its vastness, set Upon a pedestal of blackened bronze, He came upon a huge and polished stone Like the shield of a great angel. On each side Two dreadful cherubim in brass did flame And their bright swords were crossed above to bid The Powers of Heaven hide before a name Soon to be graved forever upon stone. And Nimrod looked about him and he saw The dim and dove-like smoke of incense, rising, Float palely in the air before the shrine. And he beheld the fiery spread wings Of those four blazing cherubim, and read Upon the pedestal of bronze, strange script, That being translated cried, "Angels, Archangels, Ye generations of men; hereon is writ The name of him who built great Babel. Lo -- He is our stronghold. In the wilderness Our sweet well water gushing from a stone, Our sword, our buckler, and our blazing shield, Our rose in a fair garden.; And behold, That radiant chamber rushed upon his soul Like a great host of angels and he spread His gaze about him. And when Nimrod saw How empty was the broad and blazing space, And how no eye disturbed the air, he turned -- And on the polished stone wrote his own name. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NIMROD: 1 by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH NIMROD: 2 by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH NIMROD: 4 by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH NIMROD: 5 by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH NIMROD: 6 by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH NIMROD: 7 by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH THE PRIDE OF NIMROD by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES SONGS FOR MY MOTHER: 2. HER HANDS by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH SONGS FOR MY MOTHER: 3. HER WORDS by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH THE MONK IN THE KITCHEN by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH |
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