Ezemony: Part I

Grow old along with me: The best is yet to be! 1 See! Ben Ezra stares Rubaiyat in the eye, In a debate so hot and ever fresh; Their porters seem in the semels to lie! Are they also gone or in tirades fresh? Sons, who amid you might their ways trace? 2 Sons, why don’t you to a sage listen? Won’t you chronicle these thoughts? Recounted in this hour of my pains? Tho’ blown to the dark deserts: The soul foils the heart of beasts! 3 Is it wine that tosses you all into theses laughters? Hark! my early resolve cracked under her: Beside her, he staggered and stammered as dying stars! Then, became he your mother’s man, leaving her; Ah! but for her, could he stay above a lubber? 4 Now, who sits there still laughing as FitzGerald? Why stares he at me like his toy? Seems to me, sons, you no more mark my words; But whisper: “Another clay breaks for joy In his hands – the Porter’s hands do cloy!” 5 You laughed not? Forget! Open the books of your heart, And feel; write with the pens of conscience! A tale must be told, though, a heart be so hot! Sons, who stay by the door: strangers or our kinds? Come in! … force the fools in, they dare my vehemence! 6 O heavens! you saw not them stand by the valance? You saw no indigent strangers by the door, sons? Poor vision, yours; or my soul wanders in some penance! Sit down and write, the soul looses balance, sons: Must a dark urgent hour be foiled by your radiance? 7 It pains much, then, that with play you still ply! The night is near my abode: my day has spent; Not for naught: I beget you! It saves the cry! Though the early resolve stays with me unspent; She cast a brief fool: no soul, no aim, no account! 8 Ah! the fool’s ale, that mocks the years whole! “To give – whom does one give?” she lyres, “No, no, just eat and drink, to the eternal hole, Made sweet and still if the clay within lies!” To the Rubais, this seems the Porter’s last sighs. 9 Sons, climb softly our mortal tree – use no livid grab! Come in and go out swift and matured: Grow and puke not in it like some Rubai drab! So high on this palm tree my spirit kindled, On trees of quest, tho’ obscure, as Ezra lettered. 10 Before each fall from the tree visions dull; Our few embers choke within the shy hut; For great signs must harp the fruit of each fall! The Siren sang full by your mother’s frost; A father’s howl also gave this heart some hurt!