Not pride of young lions and their dams hides the hue of the plains,
not the oaks of Bashan – their glory mightily fallen.
Giants lie stretched in the sun, beside their dark pavilions,
on the yellow dunes of the desert, in lion-like somnolence.
Massive bones hollow the sand, huge bodies sprawl,
burly, encased in their armour, riveted in sleep to the ground:
flint swords for their pillow, spears by the broad shoulders,
arrow shafts at their belts, lances stuck in the sand.
Their heads are prone on the ground, their hair a dishevelled growth
matted like the tangled mane of the desert lioness.
Their faces are tough and tanned, like tarnished copper their eyes,
prey to the howling wind, game for the flame of the sun.
Their foreheads are stubborn and bold, defying the wrath of the heavens, dangerous the bend of their brows where terrors lurk in ambush.
Their beards curl serpentine, coiled like a nest of snakes
but solid as quarried flint. Their mighty chests thrust forth –
iron anvils for time's sledge hammer – as if in eternity forged
by immense, unfathomed power now fallen eternally silent.
Only the scars on seared faces, the weals on bared breasts,
the chipping of arrow and javelin, the carved hilts of the swords
remain, like inscriptions on tombstones, to tell the descending eagle
how many lances split, how many arrows splintered
upon those adamant hearts, those rocks of flint.

And the sun rises and sets, whirls in its jubilees;
the desert subsides and stirs, the silence returns as before.
Cliffs lift their heads in wonder at the dark abyss of time,
arrogant in their silent splendour, proud, eternally alone.
For league upon league no voice, no syllable breaks the stillness;
oblivion has swallowed forever the victories of a bold generation.
Whirlwinds have razed the footprints of the terrible warriors of the wasteland,
sand has piled up around them, rocks thrust out through the dunes;
the desert holds its breath for the brave sunk in endless sleep.
Hot winds have eaten their strength, their glory is parched and congealed,
hot sands have honed flint blades to the sharpness of a knife-edge;
the blazing stare of the sun catches their lances' flash,
kindles a thousand glints on their faces' burnished bronze.
Exposed to the glare of the sun they are perished in their generations,
their vigour sapped by the east wind, dispersed by the southern gales
as earth that is crumbled to dust and trampled by pigmy feet.
Dogs lick their desiccate strength, their mighty power decayed.
The living dogs swallow their spittle. The lion-men are forgotten –
fallen and silent for ever on the yellow dunes of the desert.

Sometimes a sudden shadow floats across arid sands,
hovers and glides and soars in weaving or wheeling flight
to the edge of the carrion camp, and trembles over the dead.
Suddenly it stops in its course above the prone cadavers,
blackening with its dark shadow one body and the half of another,
shaking the startled air with beating, flailing wings:
the predator stoops to his prey, the great bird alights.
Born and bred among rocks, hook-beaked and crooked of claw,
he readies his iron talons against their breasts of flint,
his long beak sharp against their obdurate faces.
A moment more and the eagle will mangle the iron carcase,
but the bird in sudden recoil sheathes his menacing weapons,
cowed by majestic composure, the grandeur of drowsing might.
With great wings wide outstretched, readied to ride the air,
a downbeat wafts him up and straight for the sun he climbs,
thrusting into the blue till he is lost in meridian light.
Caught on the point of a spear one quivering feather remains,
a bright gleam, till orphaned, abandoned, unnoticed it falls to the ground. And the silence creeps back as before to the magnificent dead.

Sometimes when the desert swoons in the heat of the sultry noon,
a speckled serpent glides forth, grained like a winepress beam,
to bask in the sun, and cosset its soft smooth rings of flesh;
to coil itself in the sand, languid and motionless,
melting in tender pleasure in the brilliant abundance of light,
waking at times to stretch and draw himself out to the warmth,
gape at the light, and flaunt the gold of his scaly coat –
the pampered pet of the desert, enjoying his lonely state.
Sometimes suddenly stirring, he slides from his lair and slithers,
sinuous, oblique and seductive across the burning sand
towards the camp of cadavers. He halts his sibilant glide,
rears his freckled height – a column of hieroglyphs –
raises his golden crest, tightens his throat, eyes alert,
and surveys from end to end the camp of the slumbering foe:
a multitudinous host, a numberless, infinite throng –
faces bared to the heavens, wrath in the arc of their brows.
Green flash of the ancient hatred kindles in the viper's eyes,
and a shudder of rage surges through him, from head to twitching tail
as he seethes, shaking and swaying,
poised like a rod of anger over the prostrate slain.
he slants his cruel asp head, exhales a furious hiss,
darts forth the forked black tongue fierce in its flickering force.
Suddenly he recoils, the serpent withdraws his head,
cowed by the majestic composure, the grandeur of drowsing might.
He reverses his whole arched length, slides around and away –
is a whisper, a glimmer lost, in the pale bright distant light.
And the silence creeps back as before to the magnificent dead.

When nightfall and moonlight possess the bitter wilderness,
and a mantle of black and white conceals and reveals the waste,
vast stretches of sand vanish in pallid light,
louring shadows crouch at the thighs of the lofty cliffs,
like gigantic primordial beasts with ancient ivory tusks,
gathered by night to brood in silence on mystery,
at dawn to rise and lurch to the world from whence they came.
The sorrowful shape of the moon pours down its hidden light,
reflects the three-fold riddle: desolation, the night and the past.
The desert moans in its dream of the cruelty of eternal waste,
in dumb ululation wails.
Then sometimes a lion leaps forth, superb in his spirited strength,
strides by in stately assurance, till he comes on the camp and halts;
raises his arrogant head, rears his majestic neck,
and the two glowing coals of his eyes scan the camp of the foe:
an immense far-flung encampment folded in stillness profound,
not a quiver of eyelash or hair where the mighty lie silent, numb,
in the stripes of their spears' black shadows seemingly shackled and bound. The moon has silvered fierce faces and darkened their craggy brows –
the lion pauses in wonder at the grandeur of drowsing might.
Then tosses his shaggy mane as he utters a bellowing roar.
League upon league around, the desert quakes with the clamor
as it crashes and bursts among cliffs and the canyons of silent mountains, reverberates in a hundred thunders to the very edge of the plain.
And the jackal responds to the voice, the hoot of the owl replies,
the wild ass's bray rasps out, and the desert fills with alarm

for that is the of the waste, the bitter lament of the land
as it wakes in its chains to hunger, weary and desolate.
The lion pauses a moment, ponders his thunderous power,
turns from the carrion and departs, haughty and calm as before;
with imperial tread he goes, tossing his royal mane,
a torch of contempt in his eyes as he paces proudly away.
For a while the desert still murmurs, restless and yearning for solace –
groans in unease and sighs, and tosses in fretful torment.
At daybreak, worn and exhausted, sleep closes its wakeful eyes,
but a sleep that is fretted to nightmare by the touch of the bitter dawn.
The moon grows faint and dim, light breaks at the pale horizon,
shadows dissolve, melt down from the terraced slopes of ravines
revealing gorge and summit livid in sullen rage.
The desert shudders to silence, awed by precipitous heights,
fumes again, inwardly mutters, utters a surly growl –
till the sun rises once more, and eternal silence creeps back
to the changeless magnificent dead, and the jubilees whirl in their round.

Sometimes the desert rebels against immutable silence,
rises in insurrection to avenge its desolate state,
breaks out in tempests, and raises pillars of whirling sand,
defies its Maker's fiat, would harry him from his throne,
would capsize the world to his face, and hurl it at his feet,
cry havoc, confusion, upheaval, till chaos come again.
Then the Maker is moved to wrath and the face of heaven changes:
a déluge of foaming fire spills on the mutinous desert,
blood-red from a molten cauldron, a billowing, boiling flood
inflaming the whole world's space, singeing the furthest alps.
The desert roars in its rage as it rolls in the fiery gulf,
and from bottomless pit to pole all is embroiled in confusion:
lions, tigers, blown round in the hurricane's whirling wind
stampede, lashed by the blast, their manes stiffened with fear,
headlong they rush, panic-crazed, their eyes flashing sparks,
seeming to fly through the air, by the clamour convulsed and confounded.
In that hour
seized by a vibrant impulse the mighty phalanx awakes.
They suddenly rouse themselves, the stalwart men of war,
lightning ablaze in their eyes, their faces aflame, hands on swords.
They raise a great shout with one voice, the voice of the six hundred thousand,
a voice that tears through the tumult, vies with the desert's roar. Encompassed by furious storm, resolute, unyielding, they cry:

"We are the brave!
Last of the enslaved!
First to be free!
With our own strong hand,
our hand alone,
we tore from our neck
the heavy yoke.
Raised our heads to the skies,
narrowed them with our eyes.
Renegades of the waste,
we called barrenness mother.
On the topmost crags,
among levelling clouds,
we drank from the fount
of the eagle's freedom
and who shall command us?
In the desert imprisoned,
to misery abandoned
by an avenging God,
a mere whispered song
of defiance and revolt
stirred us to rise.

To arms, comrades!
Seize sword and lance,
spear and javelin – advance!
Heaven's rage defy
and in storm reply.
Since God denies us,
his ark refused us,
we will ascend alone,
outface his wrath,
the lightning's path.
We will overcome
these impregnable hills,
meet the foe face to face.
To arms!
The storm calls: Dare!
Take lance, take spear.
Let the mountains break up,
the hills collapse,
or our bodies lie heaped
corpse upon corpse.
Onward to the hills
arise, ascend!".

Formidable the desert that moment, and who could subdue it?
But fear sounded out of the storm, a strange lamentation
as the desert wrought in its heart its own destruction,
a calamity cruel and bitter. Enormous ruin.

The storm ends. The desert is quiet, its wild fury assuaged.
Brilliant and clear is the sky, the silence unbroken, profound.
Traders of a caravan in transit, caught on its way by the storm,
rise from the posture of prayer as they bless the name of their God.
Somewhere here in the desert lie the six hundred thousand,
an eerie light on their faces: atoned in death with their God.
No one on earth knows the site, nor knows of their rise, or their fall.
Heaps of hills piled up by the storm enclose and encircle them.
Yet sometimes a rider of courage will leave a caravan trail,
spur his mettlesome horse and sail through the sea of sand.
Firmly astride his steed he flies like a swift-winged bird,
hurls his javelin and catches it as he gallops at full career;
it seems he might cleave the bright blade in his hurtling impetuous speed
as he chases the weapon and grasps it, and again tosses it free.
The pair disappear in the distance, the horse races ahead
bearing his rider onward to a summit above the clouds,
where suddenly he shies and recoils, arches his neck and rears.
The rider, astonished, stares, shading his eyes with his hand,
then hurriedly sheers away, the fear of the Lord on his face,
violently strikes his mount and like arrow from bow speeds back,
catches up with his comrades, and describes that soundless scene.
The listening Arabs fall silent, and wonder among themselves,
awaiting the word of the chieftain, the elder, the holy one.
He raises his hand and says: “Bless the name of the Lord, believers,
by the beard of the prophet, by Allah, you have seen the desert’s dead.
That is the camp of God’s people, an ancient and valiant race,
Courageous, intrepid and hardy as the Arabian rock.
They embittered the soul of their prophet and even provoked their God.
So he closed them in among mountains; doomed them to eternal sleep;
appointed the desert to preserve them, a memorial for all generations.
Allah forbids his faithful to touch even the hem of their robes.
Once an Arab removed a thread from the fringe of one of their cloaks –
his body dried up at once, till he restored it and made amends.”
Then the elder completed his speech:
“These fathered the People of the Book”.

The Arabs attend and are mute, the awe of God on their faces,
quietly go to rejoin their heavily laden beasts;
Their robes gleam white a long while until they finally vanish.
The camels’ humps slowly sway as they disappear into the distance
as if they carried away nothing more than another old legend.
And the silence creeps back as before to the barren and desolate waste.

Source: Chaim Nachman Bialik Selected Poems, translated by Ruth Nevo. Dvir and The Jerusalem Post.