ALMUSTAFA, the chosen and
the beloved, who was a dawn unto his own day, had waited twelve
years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and
bear him back to the isle of his birth.
And in the twelfth year, on the
seventh day of Ielool, the month of reaping, he climbed the hill
without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld his ship
coming with the mist.
Then the gates of his heart were
flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his
eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul.
But as he descended the hill, a
sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart:
How shall I go in peace and
without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I
leave this city.
Long were the days of pain I have
spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and
who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without
regret?
Too many fragments of the spirit
have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of
my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw
from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off
this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.
Nor is it a thought I leave
behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with
thirst.
Yet I cannot tarry longer.
The sea that calls all things
unto her calls me, and I must embark.
For to stay, though the hours
burn in the night, is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a
mould.
Fain would I take with me all
that is here. But how shall I?
A voice cannot carry the tongue
and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the
ether.
And alone and without his nest
shall the eagle fly across the sun.
Now when he reached the foot of
the hill, he turned again towards the sea, and he saw his ship
approaching the harbour, and upon her prow the mariners, the men of
his own land.
And his soul cried out to them,
and he said:
Sons of my ancient mother, you
riders of the tides,
How often have you sailed in my
dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper
dream.
Ready am I to go, and my
eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I
breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast
backward,
And then I shall stand among you,
a seafarer among seafarers.
And you, vast sea, sleeping
mother,
Who alone are peace and freedom
to the river and the stream,
Only another winding will this
stream make, only another murmur in this glade,
And then I shall come to you, a
boundless drop to a boundless ocean.