My heart in the East and I at the farthest West: how can I taste what I eat or find it sweet while Zion is in the cords of Edom and I bound by the Arab? Beside the dust of Zion all the good of Spain is light; and a light thing to leave it. And if it is now only a land of howling beasts and owls was it not so when given to our fathers -- all of it only a heritage of thorns and thistles? But they walked in it -- His name in their hearts, sustenance! -- as in a park among flowers. In the midst of the sea when the hills of it slide and sink and the wind lifts the water like sheaves -- now a heap of sheaves and then a floor for the threshing -- and sail and planks shake and the hands of the sailors are rags, and no place for flight but the sea, and the ship is hidden in waves like a theft in the thief's hand, suddenly the sea is smooth and the stars shine on the water. wisdom and knowledge -- except to swim -- have neither fame nor favor here; a prisoner of hope, he gave his spirit to the winds, and is owned by the sea; between him and death -- a board. Zion, do you ask if the captives are at peace -- the few that are left? I cry out like the jackals when I think of their grief; but, dreaming of the end of their captivity, I am like a harp for your songs. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BOSTON COMMON: 1774 by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES CHANCES OF REMEMBRANCE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN LOVED ONCE by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE INDIGO BIRD by JOHN BURROUGHS TO THE MOST PRINCELY AND VERTUOUS THE LADY ELIZABETH by THOMAS CAMPION FRAGMENT by GAIUS VALERIUS CATULLUS |