The Sonnets of James Nayler
Message from the Translators
Just as we humans speak various languages, the Holy Spirit uses many tongues to communicate with us: the languages of the Bible, of music, of poetry, of nature, of Love. God chooses the language that will most fully enter into the heart of each person and transform it. For some English-speakers whose hearts respond to the language of poetry, Kenneth Boulding's sonnets have been a treasure for more than fifty years. God has used them to bring pacifists to Christ, and Christians to pacifism, revealing through these poems the Spirit that bears no evil in itself, and whose life is everlasfing love.
One of the translators, a Christian since childhood, first read these sonnets very recently, and found in them a cadence and a frankness both intellectual and spiritual, which spoke deeply to his soul. The other has loved these poems for more than twenty years, and through them she came to know the love and grace of Christ. Our attempt to share this Quaker heritage with our Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters has been a great privilege and joy.
In translation it has not been possible to convey the rhythm and melody of the original, but we hope we have captured many of the surprising images and much of the deep meditation which has produced these sonnets. From our first prose draft, we have been aware that to compress the translation into the elegant forma] limits of the classic sonnet would require serious distortions of meaning. We have rather chosen to use fourteen lines of free verse, so as to cling as closely as possible to the images, the thought, and the voices of Nayler and Boulding. In some cases we have had to depart from the literal meaning of the text, in order to be faithful to what we have received as the fundamental message of the verse.
.ii
It was the interest of Cuban Friends which originally inspired this translation, especially the desire of Jorge Pena, himself a poet, to read the work of other Quaker poets. Ram6n Gonzålez-Longoria gave invaluable assistance with the first prose draft. We are particularly grateful to bida Fernåndez for her careful reading and for her editorial and poetic discemment in both languages.
We wish to thank the Boulding family and Pendle Hill for their generous permission to publish this translation, and the Wider Quaker Fellowship of the Friends World Committee for Consultation for their support and encouragement.
Above all, we thank God for the spiritual renewal which this task has given us. We pray that this translation may serve as an instrument of Divine Love to continue calling all of our souls to the "resurrection and etemal holy life" of which Nayler bore witness.
About The Author
Kenneth Boulding was bom in 1910, in Liverpool England. Raised a Methodist, he was attracted to the Religious Society of Friends by the Peace testimony and the meeting for worship, and joined Friends when an undergraduate at Oxford. Starting as a chemist, he became an economist, came to America as a graduate student to the University of Chicago in 1932, and emigrated in 1937. By the time of his death in 1993, Kenneth had become a magisterial figure in the field of social science. He taught at universities on three continents; authored more than thirty books and hundreds of arficles, pamphlets, and chapters of numerous topics; and received honorary degrees. He married Elise Biorn Hansen in 1941; they have five children and thirteen grandchildren, and have both been active from the beginning in the peace research movement, and in many Friends meetings and organizations.
Other Pendle Hill pamphlets by Kenneth Boulding:
# 17 New Nations for Od
# 136 The Evolutionary Potential of Quakerism
# 153 The Mayer/Boulding Dialogue on Peace Research
# 266 Mending the World : Quaker insights on the Social Order
INTRODUCTION
It is now more than fifty yea.rs since lhe Nayler Sonnets were pubfished, and since I began uniting them as a young Instructor at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. The first five or six were written in Hamilton, in the stress of the first few months of war in Europe in 1939 to 1941. The 'Miting was interrupted in May of 1941, when I met my wife-to-be, Elise Biom Hansen, and the muse turned to celebrations of love, in a quite different series of sonnets that has continued through our fiftieth wedding anniversary and beyond (see Sonnets on Courtship, Marriage & the Family). But the war did not go away, and the Nayler sonnets returned to creep in among the love sonnets. It was at fisk University in the years 194243, inspired partly by the spread of the war around the world, partly by experience of living in a warm and friendly but beleaguered black community, that I finally finished the Nayler sonnets.
Today the world is changing even more rapidly than in 1945 when the first edition of the sonnets was brought out by the Fellowship Press. Wars multiply in both hemispheres, but so do visions of a more humane and peaceful world order. These sonnets were first 'Mitten to express the hope that lies beyond despair, and their re-publication today is an affirmation of the same hope.
wish to express my deep appreciation to the Fellowship of Reconciliation for having kept the sonnets in print over so many decades, to friends known and unlmown who have written to share what these sonnets have meant to them, and to Quaker Home Service of Lnndon Yearly Meeting, and to Pendle Hill Publications for sponsoring this third edition in my 83rd year, making it possible for süli another generation to read the sonneG in the ever-continuing human joumey from despair to hope.
Kenneth E. Boulding
Boulder, Colorado
29th October, 1992.
PREFACE
I have written these sonnets, partly as a purely personal act of meditation and devotion, but partly also in the hope that they may call the attention of others to the depths of Buth in the passage which inspired them. It may be wondered why in this age of free (and occasionally easy) verse anyone should bother to compress his thought into the archaic strait-jacket of the conventional sonnet. Nevertheless, as metal must be run into a tight mould before it can become a bell, so the intellectual and aesthetic effort required to compress an explosive idea into the formal of a sonnet may cause the truth within the words to ring all the more clearly. Every one of Nayler's phrases is packed with significance, and the attempt both to expand and ex&act this significance, and to compress it into the sonnet form has been a joyful and illuminating spiritual experience for me. I dare not hope that the sonnets can convey much of this experience to others. I can hope, however, that they may lead others to dig in the same mines of fruth.
James Nayler was bom near Wakefield, in Yorkshire, England about the year 1616. He fought in Cromwell's army against the Scots, and afterwards became a powerful preacher and one of the early leaders of the Society of Friends. "I was struck with more terror by the preaching of James Nayler than was at the battle of Dunbar," wrote James Gough, another early Friend.
In 1656 he was led into certain excess of conduct by the hysterical enthusiasm of some of his followers, and allowed himself to be led into Bristol on a horse while his followers strewed in the way and shouted "Holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth." For this blasphemy, as it was considered, he was cruelly punished by an illegal action of Parliament, being severely whipped, branded with the letter 'B' on his forehead, and having his tongue bored through with a red hot iron. After his punishment he was imprisoned in one of the horrible "holes" of the time, but he recovered his judgment, was eventually reconciled with Friends and came to condemn his previous behaviour. He was released from prison in September 1659.
In October 1660 he set off from London northwards on foot, intending to visit his wife and children in Wakefield. On the way he was robbed, and found bound in a field. He was taken to a Friend's house, where he died.
lhe passage which forms the basis of these sonnets was spoken by him about two hours before his death. It is a classic expression of a spirit too close to the source of fruth to have a name. It carries a message of peace to a world at war, a clear wind of pure Yuth amid the fogs of propaganda and deceit, an intimation of that love which is indeed God. There are times and places in history when we feel the wings of the spirit brushing very close to earth. The tragedy of James Nayler is such an occasion. Even while we cannot approve the pitiful and absurd behaviour of his followers, yet we can agree with them in this: that here we are close indeed to the spirit of Christ. It deserves to be read slowly, and deeply, so that its Yuth will bum through the plausible lies which form the principal fumiture of our minds.
"There is a spirit which I feel that delights to do no evil, nor to revenge any wrong, but delights to endure all things, in hope to enjoy its own end. hope is to outlive all wrath and contention, and to weary out all exaltation and cruelty, or whatever is of a nature contrary to itself. It sees to the end of all temptations. As it bears no evil in itself, so it conceives none in thoughts to any other. If it be betrayed, it bears it, for its ground and spring is the mercies and forgiveness of God. Its crown is meekness, iß life is everlasting love unfeigned; and takes its kingdom with entreaty and not with contention, and keeps it by lowliness of mind In God alone it can rejoice, though none else regard it, or can own its life. It is conceived in sorrow, and brought forth without any to pity it, nor doth it murmur at grief and oppression. It never rejoiceth but through sufferings: for with the worlds joy it is murdered. I found it alone, being forsaken. I have fellowship therein with them who lived in dens and desolate places in the earth, who through death obtained this resurrection and etemal holy life. "
----James Nayler
1
THERE A SPIRIT WHICH 1 FEEL
Can I, imprisoned, body-bounded, touch
The starry garment of the Oversoul,
Reach from my tiny part to the great Whole,
And spread my Little to the infinite Much,
When Truth forever slips from out my clutch,
And what I take indeed, I do but dole In cupfuls from a rimless ocean-bowl
That holds a million million million such?
And yet, some Thing that moves among the stars,
And holds the cosmos in a web of law,
Moves too in me: a hunger, a quick thaw
Of soul that liquifies the ancient bars,
As I, a member of creation, sing
The buming one-ness binding eveMhing.
THAT DELIGHTS TO DO NO EVIL
Shall I be good because of some reward,
Because the virtuous act pays dividends
In candy bars, the approving nods of friends, In many tongues to praise, and hands to applaud, In riches, honors, lavishly outpoured?
Or, since to min all things earthly tend,
Shall I be good to gain the greatest end,
The crown of bliss that Heaven may afford? Ask the sweet spring upon the mountain top What makes his sinless water flow so free:
[s it the call of some far-distant sea,
Or the deep pressure that no crust can stop?
No conscious end can drag us out of sin,
Unles clear goodness wells up from within.
11
NOR TO REVENGE ANY WRONG
Now I am veined by an eroding doubt, Insidious as decay, with poison rife.
Is love indeed the end and law of life,
When lush, grimacing hates so quickly sprout?
I thought in ignorance I had cast out
The sneaking devils of continuing sfrife, But as the cancer thwarts the surgeon's knife, So does revenge my sword of reason fiout.
But though hate rises in enfolding flame
At each renewed oppression, soon it dies:
[t sinks as quickly as we saw it rise,
While love's small constant light burns still the same Know this: though love is weak and hate is strong, Yet hate is short, and love is very long.
IV
BUT DELIGHTS TO ENDURE ALL THINGS
How to endure, when all around us die
Nations and gracious cities, homes and men,
And the sweet earth is made a filthy den
Beneath whose roof black, belching vultures fly:
How to endure the darkness, when the sky
Is totally eclipsed by evil, when
Foul grinning Chaos spreads its reign again And all good things in senseless ruin lie.
Must we be hard as a stone? It wears to dust.
As stiff as oaks? But they untimely break As pitiless as steel? [t tums to rust,
And time from Pyramids Will ruins make. In violence, decay, starvation, need,
What can endure? Only the living Seed.
IN HOPE TO ENJOY ITS OWN IN THE END
Small flowers there are beside the stoniest way,
And on the seeming-endless joumeying
Some breaths of air are sweet, and some birds sing,
And some new goal is reached in every day.
Yet for the unknown end we wait and pray,
When the last knot of this world's tangled sting
Is straightened out, and every evil thing
Redeemed in heaven's undisputed sway.
We know not how the day is to be bom,
Whether in clouds of glow, tongues of flame, As once at Pentecost the Spirit came, Or whether imperceptibly as dawn:
But as the seed must grow into the tree,
So life is love, and love the end must be.
ITS HOPE IS TO OUTIVE ALL WRATH AND CONTENTION
Who weeps for Babylon, Who moums for Tyre,
Who worships proud imperious Caesar now? The wreath, woven to fit a tyrant's brow So soon is trampled in oblivion's mire.
Buried the ash of Moloch's dreadful fire,
Withered and lost Astarte's golden bough, And tumed beneath the lonely peasant's plough Lie splintered shards of heathen altars dire.
Victorious lava sears the mountain side,
And leaves a cicafrice among the green, But sun and frost and rain, and rooe unseen Advance the slow, resistless verdant tide.
Through all events runs one repeating rule,
That life may grow, but wrath and hatred cool.
Vil
AND TO WEARY OUT ALL EXALTATION AND CRUELTY
What patience must we cherish, to out-wear
The sleepless hosts of hell, who lie in wait
Against our slightest weakness, early, late, With perseverance more than we can bear.
How can we wait the many a weary year
Before the rock of pride, and cruel hate, Into a fruitful earth disintegrate
Under the tears of love and near-despair?
Who then can blame us if we lose our trust
In love's slow ways, and hastily rush to blast
The rock to pieces — but to find at last
When smoke has cleared, not earth, but barren dust.
Only by endless rain the soil is given,
And endless patience is the way of heaven.
OR WHATEVER OF A NATURE CONTRARY TO ITSELF
If God be All in All, must all be good? What then of evil? Of the shriek in the night,
The slavering jaw, the glinting eye, the plight
Of mouse, fawn, coney? If this mystery could
By some veil-rending flash be understood,
Would Darkness shine with its own holy light,
Wrong but reflect the under-side of Right,
And Life exult beneath Death's sheltering hood?
Are there no contraries at the heart of things?
The double thread winds deep, beyond the reach Even of faith's white beam: and whether breach Or union comes at last, no prophet sings.
Yet — if in this life love can weary out
The staunchest evil: does God lie in doubt?
rx
IT SEES TO THE END OF ALL TEMPTATIONS
What is the end of greed but emptiness, And what the end of a determined lust
But staleness, unfulfillment, sick disgust,
A debt of pride unpaid, and no redress?
Always we give the more, and gain the less
In bargaining with the ambassadors of dust:
Who, knowingly, would rate their contract just Ten future "No's" for one sweet present 'Yes"!
Need we but sight to run from every shame,
The sight that sees the future opened bare Or does a doom, writ with a darker name Condemn us to a tunnel of despair?
Not sight alone, but Will, by love made free Can make us walk the pilgrim way we see.
x
As IT BEARS NO EVIL IN ITSELF
If soul be soil what may not grow therein?
The indifferent ground cares not what plant it feed: Both the good grain and the lean poisoned weed
Out of its fecund womb their life may win.
Can there then be a soil that grows no sin,
That nourishes no thought of pride or greed, And bears no plant not fruiting for the need
Of the good gardener and his humble kin?
Not in man's world, where saviors do not save;
Where painless, glib goodwill for humankind
Serves but to rub the sores it cannot bind,
And Liberators leave man more a slave,
But out of harrowed heart and broken Will
Ground is prepared at last that grows no ill.
So n CONCEIVES NONE IN THOUGHTS TO ANY OTHER
Is there indeed a river that can clean
The stable of my thought? Can I not hide, Behind the glittering wall of outward pride In virtuous act, the dismal inward scene?
Not what we think, but what we do has been
The standard of the world: so have I tried To wall out God with deeds. And yet inside My soul blazes His light despite my screen.
Ah! Blinding Union! Now falls away
The shelly life of outward righteousness. Torrential seas of brightness round me press,
Tuming my secret night to open day; Till in the fullness of Thy light no room Is left for any cherished walléd gloom.
XII
IF n BE BETRAYED, IT BEARS n
It is not hard to turn the Other cheek
Afier an insult, or hot tempered blow,
And easier still it is, if we but Imow
How deadly are the weapons of the meek:
But treachery! That's evil at its peak,
Not to be suffered: easier far to go
The second mile with enemies, than show
Love to deceifful friends — Faugh! How they reek Of cowardice, and the stale grey stench of fear!
Can [ bear this, and bear it to end?
Yet, Lord, do I not name myself Thy friend, And then betray Thee oft, with word or sneer Or silence — and Thou bearest it, content To wait in long love on my betterment.
Xlll
FOR ITS GROUND AND SPRING IS THE MERCIES AND FORGIVENESS OF GOD
My Lord, Thou art in every breath I take, And every bite and sup ta.ste firm of Thee. With buoyant mercy Thou enfoldest me, And holdest up my foot each step I make.
Thy touch is all around me when I wake,
Thy sound I hear, and by Thy light I see
The world is fresh with Thy divinity
And all Thy creatures flourish for Thy sake.
For have looked upon a little child
And seen Forgiveness, and have seen the day With eastern fire cleanse the foul night away; So cleansest Thou this House I have defiled. And if I should be merciful, I know It is Thy mercy, Lord in overflow.
XIV
ITS CROWN Is MEEKNESS
How every virtue casts a mimic shade
Of subtle vice, so like in form and face That shadow oft usurps the royal place Of substance, in unholy masquerade.
So rotten pride, in pity's grab arrayed,
Drops hidden poison in the springs of grace, And selfishness transmutes to metal base
The gold of love, by lesser love betrayed.
But most of all, the very crown of good,
Unconquerable Meekness, is pursued
By the grey ghost compliance, bland and lewd,
And cowardice seeks to stand where courage stood.
Yet no deceit of words can hide for long
The seed of life, the meekness of the strong.
xrv
SU CORONA ES LA MANSEDUMBRE ...
Cada virtud tiene una sombra, remedo de vicio astuto, tan fiel en forrna y rostro que a menudo usurpa el regio lugar de la sustancia, en mojiganga impfa.
Podrido, el orgullo se disfraz.a de misericordia, para gotear veneno encubierto en surtidor de gracia. Y el egofsmo transmuta en vil metal el oro del amor traicionado por un amor menor. Pero, colmo de colmos: la corona del bien, la mansedumbre invencible, es perseguida por el fantasma gris de la docilidad sosa y lasciva, y la cobardfa pretende pararse en el puesto del valor. Mas no hay mentir ni tapujo que sofoque la mies: semilla de Vida, mansedad de fuertes.
xv
ITS LIFE IS EVERLASTING LOVE UNFEIGNED
Caught in a mirrored maze of bright deceit,
Peopled with images, that but reflect
The groping movements of the intellect,
Till bounds are smudged where fact and shadow meet,
The mind is lost, until with quickened beat
Love scents a wind, blowing from God, unchecked,
And senses, deeper kaid that sight, direct
To the free air our once-bewildered feet.
But love must be made pure to be our guide;
Not trader's love, that seeks more in retum,
But love that with clear, slender flame will bum Though it be spent for nought, spumed, crucified, Until to one vast song our spirit lifts:
To love for Love alone, not for His gifts.
xv
SU VIDA ES EL AMOR ETERNO Y NO FINGIDO.
Atrapada en un laberinto de espejos y engafios lucientes, deslumbrada por los reflejos de un intelecto a tientas, en borrosa frontera de realidad y sombra, la mente estå perdida; hasta que, con pulso acelerado, el amor olfatea ese soplo de Dios, y aquel sentido mås hondo que la vista dirige al aire libre los pasos aturdidos.
Pero el amor ha de ser puro para que nos gufe; no amor de mercader que busca su ganancia por el canje, sino un amor que arde en llama Clara y fina aunque se gaste despreciado, crucificado, hasta que nuestro espfritu se alce a un inmenso cånticoi a amar por el Amor, no por Sus dådivas.
XVI
AND TAKES ITS KINGDOM WITH ENTRE.AW AND NOT WITH CONTENTION
Are there no arrnies, no angelic hosts, Invincibly arrayed in awful might,
To battle with the shapeless forms of night, The slimy writhing ranks that Satan boasts?
Has Heaven no navies to assault the coasts
Of Hell's hard Kingdom, cliffed with vulcanite?
Can Hell be taken with thin wisps of light,
Handwringing, cooing, pale, entreafing ghosb?
What Kingdom yet has been by wooing won?
What King for words has willed his crown away? Then with what right of reason dost thou say
Thou hast a Kingdom where there can be none? Ah! — but what know ye, ye blind lords strife, About the secret Kingdom of Man's life!
XVI
TOMA SU REINO CON SÚPLICAS Y NO POR CONTIENDA ...
¿No hay ejército, no hay hueste angelical invencible en formación espantosa desplegada para lidiar contra disformes formas de la noche, contra tropas rastreras que ostenta Satanás? ¿No tiene el Cielo annada para asaltar las costas de acantilada vulcanita del durísimo Reino del Infierno? ¿Puedes tomar el Infierno, armado con filamentos de luz, fantasmas pálidos, murmurantes, implorantes?
¿Qué Reino se ha ganado cortejando?
¿Algún Rey abdica al trono por palabras? ¿Pues con qué razón, con qué derecho dices tú que tienes Reino, donde ninguno puede haber?
Ah! ¿Pero qué saben ustedes, ciegos dueños de la violencia, sobre el Reino secreto de la vida del Hombre?
AND KEEPS IT BY LOWLINESS OF MIND
No kingdom falls before it is betrayed By inward enemies — no outward foe
Can deal the last, and only fatal blow
That turns defeat to death. So am I preyed
Upon by subtle fears, lest I have laid
Thy Kingdom in me open to a slow
Unseen decay that yet may bring it low,
And desolate the joy that thou hast made.
For see — the stony citadel of pride,
My inmost stronghold, is rebellious still
Against the peaceful envoys of Thy will.
Ah, Lord, run through me with Thy sudden tide, For this proud heart can never be Thy throne Unless its pride be pride of Thee alone.
Y LO RETIENE coN LO HUMILDE DE SU PENSAR.
No se cae ningün reino sin traidores intemos.
No hay enemigo extemo que pueda asestar el golpe final para Ilevar la derrota hasta la muerte. Me remuerden, me taladran temores sutiles de ser yo quien ha expuesto Tu reino en mi ser a un desmoronar lento y oculto capaz de destruirlo, capaz de desolar el gozo que me diste.
He aquf que la pétrea ciudadela del orguklo, mi mås fntimo reducto, se rebela, y repulsa la paz que Tü me envfas.
Ah, Senor, invådeme con Tu marea repentina. Mi empedemido coraz6n nunca serå Tu tronö, a no ser que su orgullo s610 sea de Ti.
XVIII
IN GOD ALONE IT CAN REJOICE
I plunge me, shouting, in the fecund tide
Of vast creation; lave myself in light,
Dwell with imperial clouds, cloak with the night, and woo the earth as lover woos a bride; Through intricate kingdoms of pure sound I ride
On music, and on laughter, and invite
My joyful body-spirit to unite
With scent, taste, touch: all senses sanctified.
What then! In God alone I must rejoice?
Not in His creatures, His abounding gifts?
The veil of sensual goodness lightly lifts
And through the inward seam there drops a voice:
"Seek first the Kingdom — for thy joys are dim
Until thou findest all things new, in Him."
EN DIOS SÓLO SE REGOCIJA ...
Me lanzo, gritando, en el fecundo mar de la creación inmensa; me baño en luz; moro con nubes soberanas; me encapoto de noche; y cortejo a la tierra como amante a su novia; por laberintos de puro sonido me llevan la música y la risa; y convido: únase mi cuerpo-espíritu gozoso al aroma, sabor, color y tacto — santificados son los sentidos.
¿y qué? ¿Sólo en Dios debo regocijarme?
¿no en sus criaturas, ni en sus copiosas dádivas? El velo de la bondad sensual apenas se alza, y a través de la costura interior brota una voz: "Busca primero el Reino — porque tu gozo es tenue hasta que encuentres todo nuevo en El."
THOUGH NONE ELSE REGARD IT, OR CAN OWN ITS LIFE
Are not my friends built round me like a wall?
We stand together in a firm stockade
Around the cheerful fire our faith has made, Its light reflected from the eyes of all.
Beyond the glow, in night's unechoing hall Slide shadows, hideous offspring of the shade
Of unacknowledged doubt — but who's afraid
Of spectres, when there's fire, and friends at call? But ah! — let death, or faithlessness, or doubt
Pluck out the stakes of this protecting fence And leave me shivering in the bleak, immense, Dark Otherness — will not my fire go out?
Our gathered sticks are scattered: but the sun Warns many no more certainly than one.
XIX
NADIE MAs LE HACE VALER, NI PUEDE POSEER SU VIDA.
iNo son mis amigos mi rotundo resguardo, mi muralla? Nos sostenemos juntos, empalizada firme en tomo al fuego alegre por nuestra fe prendido cuyo ardor reverbera en los ojos de todos.
Afuera de la aureola de tenue luz, allå en la b6veda sin eco de la noche, resbalan sombras, horribles våstagos de la penumbra de duda denegada.
Pero, équién les tiene miedo a los fantasmas, acompaöado de amigos prestos y un buen fuego? Mas iay! — cuando la muerte, la traici6n, o la duda arranquen las estacas del protector cercado, y me dejen temblando en mundo ajeno, desierto, inmenso, oscuro — dno se apagarå mi fuego?
Las astillas se nos han desparramado; pero el sol calienta tanto a uno s610 como a muchos juntos.
IT IS CONCEIVED IN SORROW, AND BROUGHT FORTH WITHOUT ANY TO PIN IT
Must every flower reek of its mother dung,
And every joy spring rash from beds of pain?
Must every bliss be minted with a bane,
And songs of joy to mournful chants be sung?
What though the saints from misery's mass have wrung
Their drops of living water — can the chain Of golden love the pearl of price sustain
When all the weight of woe thereon is hung?
Lord, couldst Thou not have brought this life of Thine That we inherit, at a cost less great?
Was there no way to Thee, no Other gate
But sorrow's gloomy cave, where no lights shine But Thy small rush? Then did'st Thou give us night For stars, and give us suffering for Thy light?
Es CONCEBIDO EN LA ANGUSTIA, Y NACE SIN QUE NADIE LE TENGA LÁSTIMA ...
¿Apesta siempre la flor a su matriz de estiércol?
¿Retoña siempre el gozo en surco de dolor?
¿Todo deleite se emponzoña?
¿Resuenan con ritmos fúnebres las canciones de júbilo?
Aunque de la miseria los santos exprimen sus gotas de agua viva, ¿puede el amor, cadena de oro, sostener la perla de gran precio, cuando se le echa encima el peso de la angustia? Señor, ¿no pudiste comprar a menor precio esta vida tuya que heredamos?
¿No había otro camino, más que esta tenebrosa caverna de agonía sólo alumbrada por tu tenue pábilo? ¿Nos diste la noche para las estrellas, y el sufrimiento para sentir tu Luz?
XXI
NOR DOTH IT MURMUR AT GRIEF AND OPPRESSION
Must Christian Love move us to fat content
With the black dismal mass of man's distress?
And wrapped in God, must we then blandly bless
Wretchedness, pain, disease, as Heaven-sent
To prove our virtue, channel our intent
Away from Earth, where power and lust oppress
The ancient-suffering seed of gentleness,
And wealth and health always for nought are spent?
Ah, never, never! If this thing were frue, That we are cattle, tortured, that God's grace May shine — I would deny Him to His face.
And yet — and yet — If God should suffer too, And share, and love, and die — may we not see The paradox — blaze into Mystery?
XXI
TAMPOCO MURMURA BAJO LA AFLICCIÓN NI LA OPRESIÓN.
¿Nos lleva el Amor Cristiano a quedar lerdos, conformes bajo el peso tétrico y negro de la agonía humana? Y entregados a Dios, serviles ¿hemos de bendecir la miseria, el dolor, la enfermedad, como dones que el Cielo nos envía: pruebas de virtud que guían la intención más allá de esta Tierra, donde el poder y la codicia siempre oprimen la sufrida semilla de mansedumbre, y la salud y la riqueza se malgastan por nada?
iAh, jamás, jamás! Si fuera cierto que somos ganado, torturados para que Su gracia resplandezca, cara a cara, yo renegaría de Él.
Mas — sin embargo — si Dios también sufriera, si compartiera, si amara, si muriera —
¿vislumbraríamos detrás de tal escándalo el misterio encendido?
IT NEVER REJOICETH
THROUGH SUFFERINGS
Can grief be gift, love's gift, Divine Love's gift?
Not gentle grief over imagined loss,
But vital-tearing agonies, that toss
All bodily organs into a bottomless pit Of choking pain? Ah, dare we, dare we sift
The abyss of suffering, m-lly take our cross To the insane pit of pain, and there emboss Love's symbol on a door Hope cannot lift?
Thou sayest it - and yet the very tongue
That mouthed these words wa.s bored with blackening flame, Seared with twice-bitter tasting pain and shame. No greater song than this the saints have sung; That there is joy, greater than joy can know, Through suffering, on the far side of woe.
NUNCA SE REGOCIJA SINO A TRAVÉS DEL SUFRIMIENTO ...
é,Puede ser dådiva la aflicci6n, dådiva de amor, don del Amor Divino?
— no el duelo leve de imaginarias pérdidas, sino agonias que rasgan las entraöas, que echan todos los 6rganos a una fosa sin fondo de dolor sofocante. éNos atrevemos a peneffar el abismo del sufrimiento, Ilevar la cruz de veras hasta la fosa demente del dolor, y allf estampar la sefial del amor en el port6n que la esperanza no abre?
Tü 10 has dicho — aunque la misma lengua que form6 estas palabras fue perforada con llama calcinante, dos veces cauterizada con amargura de dolor y vergüenza.
Los santos nunca han cantado himno mayor:
Mås hondo que cualquier regocijo, hay un gozo a través del sufrimiento, mås allå de la aflicci6n.
XXIII
FOR WITH THE WORLDS JOY IT IS MURDERED
I will not shout for victory, nor praise
The bloody laurels of returning hosts;
Above the throaty cries I conjure ghosts Of slain to pave the ceremonial ways.
And neither will I moum defeated days,
When the stiff pomp that martial grandeur boasts
Cracks into chaos on forsaken coasts,
And the bald, craven head is stripped of bays.
Not with the world's joy will I raise my heart,
Nor with the world's grief bow it down to dust; I will not sell it an earthly mart,
For every earthly love is kin to lust.
The living soul must find securer worth In grief of Heaven than in joy of earth.
XXIII
Los GOZOS DEL MUNDO LO MATAN.
No gritaré por la victoria, ni alabaré los laureles sangrientos del vencedor ejército.
En medio de la algazara empiedro la calzada triunfal con el conjuro de la.s sombras de los cafdos. Tampoco lamentaré jornadas de derrota, cuando el rigor de la pompa marcial se desbarata en caos, en costas abandonadas, y la calva cobarde se deslaura.
Mi coraz6n no se elevarå por gozos mundanales, ni se humillarå por mundano duelo. No irå al mercado para ponerse en venta: pariente de la codicia es el amor del mundo. El alma viva siente mås seguro mérito en duelo de cielo que en gozo de tierra.
XXIV
I FOUND n ALONE, BEING FORSAKEN
There is no death but this, to be alone,
Outside the friendly room of time and space, Forsaken by the comfortable face
Of things familiar, human, measured, known.
Not in raw fires, nor in the imagined groan Of tortured body-spirits, do we frace
The shape of Hell; but in that dreadful place
Where in the vision nought but self is shown
And yet — he found it there, as on the cross When even God had fled, Love did not die:
So from the last despair, the extremest ay, Flows the great gain that swallows all our loss. And from the towers of Heaven calls the bell That summons us across the gulf of Hell.
XXIV
Yo LO ENCONTRÉ SOLO, EN EL ABANDONO.
No hay más muerte que ésta — quedarse solo fuera del hogareño tiempo y lugar, abandonado por el rostro consolador de cosas familiares, humanas, moderadas, conocidas.
Ni en fuego crudo, ni en gemidos de came y alma torturadas, vislumbramos la forma del Infiemo, sino en ese lugar aterrador donde sólo nos vemos a nosotros mismos. Sin embargo — él lo encontró allí mismo, como en la cruz cuando aún Dios había huido, el Amor no murió.
De ahí, de la última desesperación, del clamor más extremo, brota la gracia que aniega todas las pérdidas. De las torres del cielo tañe la campana que nos llama a través del abismo del infiemo.
xxv
I HAD FELLOWSHIP THEREIN WITH THEM
WHO LIVED IN DENS AND DESOLATE PLACES IN THE EARTH
Can I have fellowship with them that fed On desert locusts, or the husks of swine,
Slept without tent, went naked as a sign,
And made the unforgiving earth their bed?
When I in gentle raiment have been led
Through pastures green, and have sat down to dine At banquets, and have let my limbs recline On easy couches, and slept comforted? How can we pray for daily bread, with lip
Still smacking from a comfortable meal,
Or how, from Dives lofty table feel
With Lazarus the glow of friendship, Unless with spirits destitute, we find
Fellowship in the deserts of the mind.
xxv
EN ÉL TENGO COMUNIÓN CON TODOS LOS QUE VIVÍAN EN CUEVAS Y
PARAJES DESOLADOS DE LA TIERRA ...
¿Puedo tener comunión con quienes comían langostas de desierto o algarrobas de cerdo, con quienes dormían sin techo y andaban desnudos como señal, y yacían en lecho de tierra dura?
¿Mientras yo, con mis suaves vestiduras, he descansado en delicados pastos, me he sentado en festines, he reclinado mis huesos.en mullidos divanes, y he dormido apacible y abrigado?
¿Cómo pedir el pan nuestro de cada día, con la barriga llena y el regusto grato? Sentado al banquete del espléndido rico
¿cómo sentir con Lázaro aquel calor de comunión? Sólo destituidos, indigentes de espíritu, hallamos comunión en desiertos del alma.
xxvl
WHO THROUGH DEATH OBTAINED THIS
RESURRECTION AND ETERNAL HOLY LIFE
While yet we see with eyes, must we be blind? Is lonely mortal death the only gate
To holy life eternal — must we wait
Until the dark portcullis clangs behind
Out hesitating steps, before we find
Abiding good? Ah no, not that our fate; Our time-bound cry "too early" or "too late" Can have no meaning in the Eternal Mind.
The door is open, and the Kingdom here — Yet Death indeed upon the threshold stands To bar our way — unless into his hands
We give our self, our will, our heart, our fear.
And then — strange resurrection! — from above Is poured upon us life, will, heart, and love.
xxvl
CON TODOS LOS QUE EN LA MUERTE OBTUVIERON ESTA RESURRECCIÖN Y SANTA VIDA ETERNA.
Mientras vemos con los ojos, aeguimos ciegos?
éLa muerte solitaria es la finica puerta a la santa Vida eterna? éHay que esperar hasta que el oscuro port6n retruene detrås de pies vacilantes, para entrar en el bien perdurable? iAh no! No nos toca tal destino. Nuestros lamentos en cadenas temporales — iMuy tarde! iMuy temprano! — no significan nada en 10 Eterno Divino.
La puerta estå abierta, y el Reino estå aquf.
Mas, parada en el umbral, la muerte impide nuestro paso hasta que le rindamos el yo, la voluntad, el coraz6n, el miedo.
Y asi — icontraria resurrecci6n! — desde 10 alto se derrama en nosotros Vida, voluntad, coraz6n, y amor.
La Asociación de Amigos de los Amigos
La Sección de las Américas del Comité Mundial de Consulta de los Amigos tiene como sus metas principales: el facilitar la comprensión cariñosa de las diversidades entre los Amigos mientras descubrimos juntos, con la ayuda de Dios, nuestras bases espirituales comunes; y el facilitar una consideración cabal de nuestros testimonios cuáqueros en el mundo. La Asociación de Amigos de los Amigos, un programa de la Sección, es un ministerio de publicaciones. A través de los paquetes de lecturas que enviamos, buscamos honrar las voces de Amigos de distintos entornos, idiomas y tradiciones cuáqueras, e invitamos a todos a que entren en una comunidad espiritual con los Amigos.
Impreso en 2001, con permiso de Pendle Hill Publications y de los traductores, por
LA ASOCIACION DE AMIGOS DE LOS AMIGOS un programa de la
Sección de las Américas del
Comité Mundial de Consulta de los Amigos
1506 Race St. Cl Phiiadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102-1498 C]
EUA
09-01/600/AA
