Jeremiah Part 70

THIRD CHORUS OF WANDERERS

We shall journey by unfamiliar roads; The wind will carry us afar, through many lands; Weary shall we be, footsore and weary, As the nations drive us from home after home.

Nowhere at all will they suffer us to take root, Perpetual our pilgrimage through the changing world.

Yet happy shall we be, eternally vanquished; Happy shall we be, chaff blown by the breeze; Kindred to none, and by none made welcome; For through the ages our path leads unerringly, To the goal of our desire, Jerusalem!

[A few Chaldeans, among them a captain, have come out from the palace.

Some of them are half drunk. Their voices sound shrill in contrast with the chanting of the wanderers]

THE CAPTAIN

The dogs are mutinous. They murmur against their fate. Beat them with rods if they refuse to go.

A CHALDEAN

Look, Captain, they have not waited for an order. There is no sign of mutiny.

THE CAPTAIN

If they complain, strike them on the mouth.

THE CHALDEAN

Captain, they are not complaining.

ANOTHER CHALDEAN

Watch them marching. They stride along like conquerors. Their eyes flash with joy.

THE CHALDEANS

What people are these?--Have they not been vanquished?--Can anyone have spread among them false tidings of liberation?--What are they chanting?--A strange people.--No one can understand them, whether in their dejection or in their exultation.--Their very gentleness is a danger, for it has a strength of its own.--This resembles rather the triumphal entry of a king, than the exodus of an enslaved people.--Saw the world ever such a nation?

FOURTH CHORUS OF WANDERERS

[Here JEREMIAH inconspicuously joins his tribe]

Through ages we wander, we march through the nations, The tale of our sufferings ever renewed; Aeon after aeon eternally vanquished, Thralls at the hearths where in pa.s.sing we rest.

But the cities wither, and the nations Shoot into darkness like wandering stars.

The oppressors who scourged us with many whips Have become a hissing and a byword among the generations.

Whereas we march onward, march onward, march onward, Drawing strength from within, eternity from earth, And G.o.d from pains and tribulations.

THE CHALDEAN CAPTAIN

Verily madness has seized them. We are the victors, they the defeated and the disgraced. Why, then, do they not complain?

A CHALDEAN

An invisible force must sustain them.

ANOTHER CHALDEAN

True, they believe in the invisible. That is the mystery of their faith.

THE CAPTAIN

How is it possible to see the invisible, or to believe in what cannot be seen? They must have secret arts, like those of our astrologers and soothsayers. It would be well to learn their mysteries.

THE CHALDEAN

These mysteries cannot be taught; the secret lies in faith. What sustains them, they say, is their faith in the invisible G.o.d.

FIFTH CHORUS OF WANDERERS

We wander adown the road of suffering, Through our trials we are purified, Everlastingly vanquished, and everlastingly overthrown, For ever enslaved, for ever enfranchised, Unceasingly broken and unceasingly renewed, The mock and the sport of all nations on earth.

We wander through the eternities, A remnant, a remnant, And yet numberless.

We march onward to G.o.d, To G.o.d who is the beginning and the end, To G.o.d who is our home.

THE CHALDEAN

See how they are walking to meet the sun. His light s.h.i.+nes on their foreheads, and they themselves s.h.i.+ne with the strength of the sun.

Mighty must their G.o.d be.

THE CAPTAIN

Their G.o.d? Have we not broken down his altars? Have we not conquered him?

THE CHALDEAN

Who can conquer the invisible? Men we can slay, but the G.o.d who lives in them we cannot slay. A nation can be controlled by force; its spirit, never.

[For the third time the trumpet sounds. The sun has risen, s.h.i.+ning on the exodus of the chosen people, beginning their march athwart the ages]