THE CRUCIFIXION

By GAVIN BANTOCK (The following extracts are from Mr. Bantock's much longer poem, for which he

was awarded the Hillary Memorial Prize for 1964. The prize is worth MOO and was• shared with Michael Llewellyn Smith, whose short story we shall be publishing soon.)

Jesus, having rebelled against the iron hand of his father, Joseph, leaves home; but is persuaded to return.

Jesus said, I have had to learn; but wisdom is an unfriendly journey.

I had to rake up the scatterd embers of my will, imagine they were newborn stones, and build a castle for my soul, to stand forever.

And having come again, I am welcomd home— for to be banishd from the fathers of the kindred is to die as the exild wanderer

who sang of the ice-cold sea and sought for a lord of gold in alien halls, sought him and found him not . . .

. . . Though I have to assist in the wooden craft, I am free to think what wisdom I will.

I must not ever forget how always to love now that I have found again the love of the lost kindred.

This morning is mine, not only to think what wisdom, but also to go where I will . . .

Jesus. moved by the political state of his country (suffering under the suzerainty of Rome), is inspired with national heroism.

I love you, Canaan, though in winding, ways I hear the roar of flinting Rome.

(There was a terrible headline in the news, and faces grey as fatigue recording the hideous entry of machine-gun spit into the defeated ribs, into the empty surrenderd hands, against a dilapidated brick wall.) Jesus said, Where are my weapons?

I shall brandish them for a freedom.

And the responsibility is mine, whether or not I die under imperial advance; and the joy and the glory shall be mine, if in the name of Hebraic pride I fall under the brazen thumb of kremlin Rome.

I shall be no atom to empire while I am; and this I cry to the morning god as wide to the windless air I turn my eyes.

(Somewhere there is a white skull Which pride enters and passes by; or somewhere there is a brave hull with proud white sails full blown, which enters remote seas and passes by.

Somewhere there was a coming in— and we saw a.crusted skull on the deck of a

mind ship Passing by into, remote seas, into the silent air.) Pride in the man. Pride in the man.

Pride in the man, the man comes, an atom in the empire of God, an empire in an atom of God, pride in the man, he comes.

Pride in the man, proud, the man comes from an atom of the land to the empire of solitude, into the brave fields of Israel to the shore of the white hills, proud as a man who comes, crying, The responsibility of the world is mine The section of the poem' which deals with the Baptism of Jesus is written in the form of a Greek play, of which this extract is the opening.

PA RODOS

Chorus of Hebrews Who shall dam this stream?

Stations of power.

She rises in Hermon beyond the waters of Merom. And who can dam this stream?

Jordan winds down into Moab undammd into the Dead Sea.

I hear on the pristine air the whining dynamo of power

rising, from the urns of stone, the urns of hands.

I hear on the pristine air the whining cries of men wrenchd by an intermediate voice from the stations of power.

Listen : there is a dam across the stream.

Jokanaan spins minds—warp and woof. WOOF and WOOF.

Cylinders of generation from the station of power, vast conversations of atoms amid the clouds of the smoking pyre.

There is a current running in the air, scarlet on the bleachd light, from the station of power, which sounds in the humming wires on gaunt poles which line the lonely roads on pylons over hills and moors.

Bitter taint on their tongues, of remorse, acid in the cells, and the streams of their staccato veins contract as they wince in the cutglass air.

I see the station. of power--it is Jokanaan- as I round the final flank of Tabor.

It stands against the rivers tendons— he stands—dynamos whining in the stone . .

This is part of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness.

For forty days and forty nights He wade thro red blude to the knee, And he saw neither sun nor moon, But heard the roaring of the sea.

Red boat in dark sea, and a man in white, and maroon Shores, that man holding a line slanting into the deep water, sea that is blue as night when night iS full of stars. And the man drew up shining white stones which turnd into loaves as laid on the bare boards.

Many hands came clutching at the bones of the boat, and the man filld many hands with bread, smiling, and the world kissd his mouth.

Jesus said, I am God I am God I am God And the sea decayd and curdld into mire, and the boat was a pond of blood amid it.

The hands of men movd under the dross, voices under it, lips kissing the mud.

Then white spears shot from the maroon sky, cutting the brains of the man . . .

The whole of the Crucifixion is described from the point of view of Jesus. This section follows the final judgment of Pilate and leads up to the nailing of Jesus on to the cross.

My eyes, they are shining on men: morning deigns to illumine them for the last time . . .

The day dawns, not from the cast, but from my eden eyes . . .

Clang of hammer on nails rings: men join colossal beams in the dawn- • I and my engine . . . in the years they shall adulate a cross

that has human and divine powers— a symbol of what is to come—

neither man, nor engine, nor God, bUt one breve of a higher world which the remnant of mankind shall adore • • .

What humour cries in this blessd hour!

Once this might have been my craft—

to nail beams to hang criminals . . .

Where are they now, my mother and my father, dying in Galilee?

May they never see me now while I die, thorn my gildencrown, and Jesus scourgd by men . . .

Yet I see nothing but these bleak shores of men: all ways these howling sands, this shore . . .

the waves, and an anvil ringing at my ears . .

And the morning greets me dearly as ever: I hear the sea and seabirds bless me with their cries . . .

Out of Zion, out of crying Jerusalem, the last breath . . . to Golgotha scree .

but I do not know commands of men: nothing of earth troubles my mind . .

Now I am lain in my brandishd tomb: this wood is a bed of kings and slaves, all of whom I am in this moment, and God, dying • • .

I am at rest, as never before in my days

They have taken my hands my wrists