Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NEBUCHADNEZZAR: OR EATING GRASS, by EDGAR LEE MASTERS Poet's Biography First Line: Nebuchadnezzar the king called ha-rashang Last Line: This peace with heaven. Subject(s): Nebuchadrezzar Ii (630-562 B.c.) | ||||||||
Nebuchadnezzar the King, called Ha-Rashang, Which is to say, the wicked, by the Jews; I, King of Babylon, the beautiful, The mighty who have spread the prospering code Of Hammumrapi, and the obelisk Of diorite whereon the code is stamped, Kept in the Temple of Marduk, myself The lover of progress, beauty, breathe this prayer: Peace to all peoples, nations, languages That dwell in all the earth, and also peace Be multiplied to you; this I record Upon these bricks of Babylon, and as well My glory and my madness. First attend: What would the gods, the god Jehovah even Have me to do, me gifted with this strength, This wisdom, skill in arms? Sit in a hut Of mud beside the Tigris, be a marsh Of spirit, sleeping, oozzing, grown with flags? Or be Euphrates rushing, giving life And drink of life to fields? What should I do? Suffer this Syra to dream and drool? Jerusalem to boast, dispute and trade, And vaunt its favoring heaven, or go forth And smite Jerusalem and Tyre and take them, And lead their peoples back to Babylon, And make them work and serve me, build canals, Great reservoirs, my palace, city walls, The Hanging Gardens, till my Babylon In all this would become a wonder, terror And worthy of my spirit, hope and dream; A city and a kingdom in the world Become the external substance, form and beauty, Administration, order of a soul Lordly and gifted -- mine, my Babylon, My dream expressed! That which I did they tried To do and failed in doing, even themselves Would rule as I have ruled, build as I builded, Win glory as I won it; to that end Did they invoke their gods, and in the mouths Of gods and of Jehovah put the curses And wails of failure. I have triumphed, now My gods are full of song; I have maintained My kingdom and my spirit, driving out The aggressor Necho, who came forth from Egypt, Syria and Palestine to take from me, Him I destroyed at Carchemish -- my spirit Have I regained and healed. And now in age, These eighty years of life gone over me, And rulership of forty years, I sit Within the level sun-light of my age, And at this close of day upon my roof And view my Babylon; but without fear Madness will come upon me ever again. The glory of my kingdom has returned, My honor and my brightness have returned; My counselors and lords have come to me; I am established in my age, and excellent Majesty is added unto me. All this Though here upon this roof, upon this spot, My madness came upon me, when I looked Over the roofs and temples of my city And said: Is not this Babylon, the great, That I have builded for my kingdom's house By the might of my power and for the honor Of my great majesty? Why was it so? First genius and the dream, then toil and pain While hands lay stone on stone, and as the stones Rise from the earth, where naked slaves cry out, Wheel, lift and grunt; and mortar, scaffolding, Pillars of cedar strewn confusedly, Your dream is blurred, even while your city rises Out of the dream. I was like to a woman In the pain of travail, who is mad with pain, Scarce knows her friends or what is being done, Nor needs to know, since nature orders all, Delivers her, but lets the mid-wife lift The infant to her breast. Even so with me, I had conceived this Babylon, nourished it In the womb of my genius where it grew, came forth Whole like a child at last from scaffoldings, Confusion, waste of mortar, stone and bronze. And when it was accomplished, then my madness Came on me in a moment of clear seeing That this which was within me, was without me; Was substance and reality before me; Was even myself gone out of me, as the child Goes from the mother -- then my madness came Not when I saw it first, for I had seen it Both from this roof and from the Hanging Gardens, And from the temple of Bel, and in the streets; But seen it without knowing, as the mother Exhausted, dulled with agony may know The child is born, without the consciousness, The wonder and the rapture of the child, As the miracle that was of her, but now Is a miracle external and a life, A beauty separate, that walks from her And has its life and way, herself and hers, But different and its own. And so it was When I beheld my Babylon, saw my dream Spread out before me, clear and definite, A beauty separate, my very soul Torn out of me and fashioned into stone, Having its life and way, myself and mine, Yet being itself, its own. If I had seen Myself divided and become two men, My other self come toward me, stand, extend His hand to me, my terror were not more Than this to see my Babylon. In that moment My madness came upon me. But before, Some nights and days before this I had lain In troubled dreams upon my couch, had dreamed Of images and trees, for daily cares Of empire and the fears of change and loss Had entered in my dreams. Cyaxeres Dreamed that a vine grew from his daughter's womb And overshadowed Asia, which denoted Her offspring should be clothed with majesty And rulership of Asia. As for me, My tree was felled, only the stump was left, Bound to the earth with brass and iron -- this Foretold what I am now, as Daniel said, Interpreting my dream. These dreams had come Which shook me for the thought of human life -- How frail and fleeting! But again to hear Curses about me for my work and genius Called by these Jews Ha-Rashang; and to feel Though I had chosen Daniel, Hananiah, Michael, Azariah for mine own, And to be taught to help me in the task Of my administration; even though I chose all men for duty, wisest use And in my great humanity and strength Had placed my subjects where they best could serve The beauty and the progress of my city -- Though, as I said, to feel that I had done All things for good and with no thought but good, Yet still to hear these curses and to see The worthlessness of human kind, the crowd, I bowed my head and prayed to Ishtar saying: Make me an animal and let me feed With beasts instead of these: So had I prayed Before my madness in that moment came. Then as to that, my madness: it was sunset, I walked upon my palace's level roof, And looked upon my Babylon; then I thought Of all my labors, how I had restored The temples of Borsippa, Uruk, Ur, Sippar and Larsa, Dilbat; made the plains Below the great Euphrates rich in corn; Brought plenty to my people, bread and wine To all my people; laughter, as it may be, Between our fated tears to all my people, And then I looked on Babylon lying there Beneath the evening's sunlight, safe behind Its sixty miles of walls unscalable, Rising four hundred feet, impregnable For near a hundred feet of width in stone. I saw its hundred gates of durable bronze; My eyes were lifted to the terraces Up, up above the river to the temple Of Bel who blessed my city, and I saw The temples built to Nebo, Sin and Nana, Marduk and Shamash, saw my aqueducts, The houses of my people, in between The palm grooves and the gardens bearing food Enough to feed the city if besieged; Beheld the Hanging Gardens which I built To soothe Amytis, who had memories Of mountainous Media, gazing on The Babylonian plains. So as I stood And looked upon my city, voices passed Below me muttering Ha-Rashang, and then This Babylon, my Babylon, lay before me As my genius realized, grown out of me, Myself become another, and a being Which once was me, but now no more was me, Was mine and was not mine; and with that thought Rising like Enlil, god of storm and thunder, Over my terrored spirit, I grew mad And fled among the beasts, where for a season I ate grass with the oxen, let the dew Fall on my body, till my hairs were grown Like eagle's feathers and my nails were grown Like claws of birds. In madness and in hate Of men and life, in loathing of my glory, My genius and my labors did I live; In loathing of these tribes who hate the mother Goddess of our ritual and belief; Tribes who have made religion of the hate Of procreative nature, curse the flame Of beauty, and of love wherewith I built This Babylon of glory, lust of life; Till nature cured me and I came again To rule my Babylon, my excellence Of majesty returned. What am I now, Bowed with these eighty years? My Babylon, What is it now to me? I am a father Whose son is aging, even has made his place And lived to see it fade, diminish. A son So old his sonship is a memory, Has almost ceased to be -- that's Babylon. And I, the father, know this Babylon As creature of my loins, yet indeed This city scarcely differs from the cities That lie afar, as aging sons are men Among the men of earth, but scarcely more To a father bent with time than other men. For in my riotous genius, like a vine I did put forth this branch, the vine decays, The branch will live a season. Out of genius And lust of life to madness, out of madness To this tranquillity, and this setting sun, This peace with heaven. | Discover our poem explanations - click here!Other Poems of Interest...THE CRUEL MISTRESS by THOMAS CAREW SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALEXANDER THROCKMORTON by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: FLETCHER MCGEE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: GEORGE GRAY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: MINERVA JONES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DAVIS MATLOCK by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DORA WILLIAMS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: EMILY SPARKS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: LAMBERT HUTCHINS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: LYMAN KING by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |
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