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europe When at the turn of the year over the beaten down continent, the homeland of turmoil, of brotherly hatred, of insurgency, of sin, the homeland of bold thoughts, of burning words, of beauty, when at the turn of the year the bells ring out, bells that have come home, have been heaved to the top of failing towers the great bells— when the high foehn-driven water roars to fill the space under bridges, when the trains pipe up and the ships sound their bustling sirens, when the unknown voice calls Happy New Year up to the silent window, then a heart will bow to its beloved, will whisper almost silently Love me for ever, for all the days to come, and will be snatched away by the bell-wind, storm-wind, over the boundaries of itself, high over the city, over the silent countries, and will hear prayers and many prophecies, which arise and call out the day when peace will be plenty, when the righteous man will flourish, when the outlaw will be gone, his lair impossible to find. And they speak, of a seed that will grow up golden from the bodies of the dead, of gardens which flourish without walls and which will bear fruit, of a single world where no one knows fear, of eternal peace. 66
page 69
But there is another prediction, taken ancient from Nostradamus, of horses from Asia going down to drink from the Rhine, of a bloody river that must flow before the kingdom does come, of cities that must crumble and fields that must be made desert before the kingdom comes, of armies that will burst from the east and from the west in fury and clash like the waves of the spring tide, in violence, and pull back away from each other like waves of the spring tide. But where they have been, is dead. It is steppe, where they have been, bee-buzzing, no-man’s-land, primeval— and this is where he aims, the dream wanderer, with the bell-wind, storm-wind, over the shuddering continent, the homeland of turmoil, of brotherly hatred, of insurgency, of sin, the homeland of bold thoughts, of burning words, of beauty. He tastes again the coasts at Brittany’s margin, where laurel and rose bend in the Atlantic gales, down to the waters of the Golden Horn, from Midgard to the Pillars of Hercules. And a shape out of time hurtles towards him, nightmare ghosts from the Elbe, girls with wings like swans, Poseidon’s black steed, and he sees castles, sees temples and cloisters, vaulted roofs, palaces, and always the ploughman in the fields at autumn and always armies on the march, bearing weapons. And voices rise up to him, fervent choruses, demanding joy and demanding love and always and always the same sullen terribly abandoned voice, the voice of Prometheus. 67

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europe

When at the turn of the year over the beaten down continent, the homeland of turmoil, of brotherly hatred, of insurgency, of sin, the homeland of bold thoughts, of burning words, of beauty, when at the turn of the year the bells ring out, bells that have come home, have been heaved to the top of failing towers the great bells— when the high foehn-driven water roars to fill the space under bridges, when the trains pipe up and the ships sound their bustling sirens, when the unknown voice calls Happy New Year up to the silent window,

then a heart will bow to its beloved, will whisper almost silently Love me for ever, for all the days to come, and will be snatched away by the bell-wind, storm-wind, over the boundaries of itself, high over the city, over the silent countries,

and will hear prayers and many prophecies, which arise and call out the day when peace will be plenty, when the righteous man will flourish, when the outlaw will be gone, his lair impossible to find. And they speak, of a seed that will grow up golden from the bodies of the dead, of gardens which flourish without walls and which will bear fruit, of a single world where no one knows fear, of eternal peace.

66

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