My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems

Garden of Gethsemane

✦ 157 ✦ Garden of Gethsemane The distant stars that glimmered unconcerned Illumined in the night the winding road. The Mount of Olives lay beyond a turn, And at its feet the brook of Kedron flowed. The meadow came abruptly to an end, And all at once the Milky Way was there. The ashen-silver olive trees seemed bent On walking to the distance through the air. Across the way was someone’s garden plot. He said to His disciples at the fence: “My soul is weary, even unto death, Abide ye here and watch with me, my friends.” Without resistance He had now renounced, As borrowed things that one returns again, Omnipotence and wonder-working might; And He was thus as mortal as all men. The night’s horizon seemed the very brink Of devastation and the end of time; The universe was void of living things, And only in that garden life survived. And gazing at the black and vast abyss, Those endless spaces without shape or form, In pain, His body sweating blood, He prayed: “Allow this cup of death to pass me, Lord.” ✦ 158 ✦ And having eased His torment with His prayer, He left the garden. At the fence He saw That His disciples, overcome by sleep, Lay sprawled at random on the courtyard lawn. He wakened them: “God granted you to live In these my days, and once again you stray. Behold, the hour is come, the Son of Man Into the hands of sinners is betrayed.” Then suddenly a throng of vagrant slaves Appeared as if engendered by the mist— With swords and torches—and before the mob Came red-lipped Judas with his traitor’s kiss. And Peter drew his sword to drive them back And with a blow smote off a servant’s ear. But Jesus said: “Put up thy sword again, No steel can cure men’s hatred or their fear. “Would not my Father in the heavens send A host of wingèd legions to my side? My enemies would scatter with the wind And never harm a single hair of mine. “But now the book of life has reached a page More precious than the holy things of men. And now must be fulfilled the Word ordained. So let Thy will be done, my Lord. Amen. “The ages like a parable roll by, And in their passing they shall burst in flame; And in that awesome majesty shall I Descend in willing torment to my grave. ✦ 159 ✦ “I shall descend and on the third day rise, And even as the rafts down rivers go, Like caravans of barges in the night, To me, for judgment, shall the ages flow.” ...