EUROPA
The dark years, the dreadful years are upon me ...
THE VOICE OF EGYPT
Whither goest thou, Europa, whither goest thou dusty and grown aged and withering at the breasts?
Thou hast not crouched in the desert, mouthing the sand-storm,
Remembering thy Ptolemies, and she that floated golden down the Nile and so
Down the stream of the ages of the memories of man ...
EUROPA
But the dark years, and the days of bleak old age are upon me ...
Once my rosy nipples were lipped by nations and a great people drank of them ...
A great people with kings on horseback, and a multitude of banners went down the breeze, and their bards
Gathered them in nations ...
THE VOICE OF PERSIA
What hag is this, that against the black rifts of the storm, and blown by the tempest
Stalks crazily, mumbling? Is it thou, Europa?
Thou hast not seen great Babylon fallen, gone down with Marduk,
Nor thine empire with such great kings as mine in Susa and in Ninevah
Struck to the Earth by a sudden Alexander ...
Thou art not merely an Asian breath from beyond the desert and the ancient rivers
Strange with Assyrian song and Arabian rumor ...
EUROPA
I wither in a great noise: I shrink and grow dry and barren in a splendid thunder:
I am stripped of the glory of the presence of God, and the grace of my children's Father:
My song is stopped, and my vision has crumbled with the drooping of my breasts ...
THE VOICE OF GREECE
What chariots roll by, horseless, smoking and spitting flame like the dragon?
My smokes curled from the bivouac-fires on the shores,
And from the kindly hearth where the housewife, spinner of golden yarns,
Sat in purple shadows, weaving ...
But what smokes are these, stormy and black, that go up out of the disemboweled Earth,
Dreadful, and as a vapour herself, this old woman wanders?
Is it thou, Europa, conqueress of antiquity?
Is it thou, wailing?
EUROPA
Greece, they have despoiled me! Mine enemy comes, the merciless scalper-user, he, cunning with tools,
Glass-eyed Science, whose sapless children have songless names — Industrialism, pah! and Democracy!
They that care nothing for man's glory, but stoop low
Probing in entrails, spewing their filth out of mills,
Slaying my Gods, and my prophets, and the grandeur of heroes,
For a base business of comfort and a littleness of deeds and of people ...
I wither, my heart like a dried flower-pod: the heavens are empty.
THE VOICE OF ROME
What is this iron on the seas, and what is this beating of a heart of steel?
Loud bells clamour, and there are glaring cities smothered in the fume of their own mouths!
Where goest thou, Europa? And why art thou as one scared by lions in the arena?
Thou hast no Rome to mourn, and the imperial eagles
Screaming in death-throes before the tramplings of the Huns!
EUROPA
Rome, thine agony to mine, is as a child's to the woe of a woman whose love is slain in her heart,
For thy death was my birth, but my dying is the dying of the race of man,
The proud white conqueror dies in me ...
Man, white in his glory, in pomp against the heavens,
Armed with his God, is gone ...
THE VOICE OF SYRIA
Who art thou, great old woman, fallen down on the banks of darkness,
And writhing as if a serpent coiled in thy womb?
Did I not send thee Asia for a staff and a vision against the North?
Did I not send thee the love of the young man, Jesus, who died so early,
And in that love wert thou not young and more beautiful than antiquity
Building with thy fingers spired churches and sending men up spiral stairways
Into the ante-chambers of the Lord?
Art thou not healed in Christ?
EUROPA
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets,
Jesus is slain a second time, and I am the Cross ...
For the people are very busy with their engines and with their formulas,
Soft in their comforts, stinking in their poverty, they stir,
Scrambling, forgetting, far from me ...
(Silence)
THE VOICE OF ANTIQUITY
With what swellest thou, Europa, and with what quickenest thou
So that thou bowest with the burden of all women?
EUROPA
God, what stirring is this, what ancient stirring?
My flesh quivers, and a piercing pain is in my body.
Can these bones shelter a child, can these sagging breasts ripen again with milk?
Can the blasted pine on the heath blossom and break forth in a new Spring?
Who mocks me with a death-bringing birth?
AMERICA
Europa, Old Wife, why do you lie there trembling and whispering?
EUROPA
Thou hast wrought something upon me:
Thou hast pierced me with thy terrible spear of gold ...
O thou, the trampler on all old love, slayer of Gods, young Midas of the West,
Thou gross machine, thou money-changer in my temple,
Thou harsh youth using me as a brothel-woman is used on a summer's night ...
Thou, reeking with thy greed, but mouthing thy rhetoric of Democracy,
Thou hast begotten upon me a vile thing in mine old age ...
My people are bought by thee, and my children are become as thou art ...
And now thou smitest me down with unwelcome progeny.
AMERICA
Old Woman, why do you begin to cry and roll around in agony
And cover your continent with broken cities and with blood?
EUROPA
Hear me, Heavens, I chant the chant of death, the roll of armies,
I burn in the fires of the Earth, the ancient fires that go smoking
With agony blurring the bright sun — O Man, the sorrowful!
O voices of a great lamentation!
AMERICA
What is this sorrow of great peoples, and this lamentation of multitudes,
Ships go down, and cities topple, and the world crumbles!
Are you not dying, Old Woman?
Are these not death-throes?
EUROPA
I am dying, America ... I am dying! Save me and help me!
AMERICA
Why do you clutch me, Old Woman, why do you drag me into your withered arms,
Why do you wail in my ears?
EUROPA
The doom falls and now death
Drinks down greedily the glory of my two thousand years ...
AMERICA
She lies still ... she lies spent and still ...
But what is this beside her?
Yea, what is this beside her?
AMERICA
What opens in my heart?
What little song begins to sing so purely in my heart?
What wonder and what miracle is this?
What child is this, so poor and helpless, lying in the arms of the spent mother?
EUROPA
Babe, my babe ...
O my breasts rise to meet thy tiny lips,
My breasts rise, and a faint new life runs down my blood,
And I am glorified, glorified ...
Drink, little stranger, drink from the mother.
The dark years, the dreadful years are upon me ...
THE VOICE OF EGYPT
Whither goest thou, Europa, whither goest thou dusty and grown aged and withering at the breasts?
Thou hast not crouched in the desert, mouthing the sand-storm,
Remembering thy Ptolemies, and she that floated golden down the Nile and so
Down the stream of the ages of the memories of man ...
EUROPA
But the dark years, and the days of bleak old age are upon me ...
Once my rosy nipples were lipped by nations and a great people drank of them ...
A great people with kings on horseback, and a multitude of banners went down the breeze, and their bards
Gathered them in nations ...
THE VOICE OF PERSIA
What hag is this, that against the black rifts of the storm, and blown by the tempest
Stalks crazily, mumbling? Is it thou, Europa?
Thou hast not seen great Babylon fallen, gone down with Marduk,
Nor thine empire with such great kings as mine in Susa and in Ninevah
Struck to the Earth by a sudden Alexander ...
Thou art not merely an Asian breath from beyond the desert and the ancient rivers
Strange with Assyrian song and Arabian rumor ...
EUROPA
I wither in a great noise: I shrink and grow dry and barren in a splendid thunder:
I am stripped of the glory of the presence of God, and the grace of my children's Father:
My song is stopped, and my vision has crumbled with the drooping of my breasts ...
THE VOICE OF GREECE
What chariots roll by, horseless, smoking and spitting flame like the dragon?
My smokes curled from the bivouac-fires on the shores,
And from the kindly hearth where the housewife, spinner of golden yarns,
Sat in purple shadows, weaving ...
But what smokes are these, stormy and black, that go up out of the disemboweled Earth,
Dreadful, and as a vapour herself, this old woman wanders?
Is it thou, Europa, conqueress of antiquity?
Is it thou, wailing?
EUROPA
Greece, they have despoiled me! Mine enemy comes, the merciless scalper-user, he, cunning with tools,
Glass-eyed Science, whose sapless children have songless names — Industrialism, pah! and Democracy!
They that care nothing for man's glory, but stoop low
Probing in entrails, spewing their filth out of mills,
Slaying my Gods, and my prophets, and the grandeur of heroes,
For a base business of comfort and a littleness of deeds and of people ...
I wither, my heart like a dried flower-pod: the heavens are empty.
THE VOICE OF ROME
What is this iron on the seas, and what is this beating of a heart of steel?
Loud bells clamour, and there are glaring cities smothered in the fume of their own mouths!
Where goest thou, Europa? And why art thou as one scared by lions in the arena?
Thou hast no Rome to mourn, and the imperial eagles
Screaming in death-throes before the tramplings of the Huns!
EUROPA
Rome, thine agony to mine, is as a child's to the woe of a woman whose love is slain in her heart,
For thy death was my birth, but my dying is the dying of the race of man,
The proud white conqueror dies in me ...
Man, white in his glory, in pomp against the heavens,
Armed with his God, is gone ...
THE VOICE OF SYRIA
Who art thou, great old woman, fallen down on the banks of darkness,
And writhing as if a serpent coiled in thy womb?
Did I not send thee Asia for a staff and a vision against the North?
Did I not send thee the love of the young man, Jesus, who died so early,
And in that love wert thou not young and more beautiful than antiquity
Building with thy fingers spired churches and sending men up spiral stairways
Into the ante-chambers of the Lord?
Art thou not healed in Christ?
EUROPA
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets,
Jesus is slain a second time, and I am the Cross ...
For the people are very busy with their engines and with their formulas,
Soft in their comforts, stinking in their poverty, they stir,
Scrambling, forgetting, far from me ...
(Silence)
THE VOICE OF ANTIQUITY
With what swellest thou, Europa, and with what quickenest thou
So that thou bowest with the burden of all women?
EUROPA
God, what stirring is this, what ancient stirring?
My flesh quivers, and a piercing pain is in my body.
Can these bones shelter a child, can these sagging breasts ripen again with milk?
Can the blasted pine on the heath blossom and break forth in a new Spring?
Who mocks me with a death-bringing birth?
AMERICA
Europa, Old Wife, why do you lie there trembling and whispering?
EUROPA
Thou hast wrought something upon me:
Thou hast pierced me with thy terrible spear of gold ...
O thou, the trampler on all old love, slayer of Gods, young Midas of the West,
Thou gross machine, thou money-changer in my temple,
Thou harsh youth using me as a brothel-woman is used on a summer's night ...
Thou, reeking with thy greed, but mouthing thy rhetoric of Democracy,
Thou hast begotten upon me a vile thing in mine old age ...
My people are bought by thee, and my children are become as thou art ...
And now thou smitest me down with unwelcome progeny.
AMERICA
Old Woman, why do you begin to cry and roll around in agony
And cover your continent with broken cities and with blood?
EUROPA
Hear me, Heavens, I chant the chant of death, the roll of armies,
I burn in the fires of the Earth, the ancient fires that go smoking
With agony blurring the bright sun — O Man, the sorrowful!
O voices of a great lamentation!
AMERICA
What is this sorrow of great peoples, and this lamentation of multitudes,
Ships go down, and cities topple, and the world crumbles!
Are you not dying, Old Woman?
Are these not death-throes?
EUROPA
I am dying, America ... I am dying! Save me and help me!
AMERICA
Why do you clutch me, Old Woman, why do you drag me into your withered arms,
Why do you wail in my ears?
EUROPA
The doom falls and now death
Drinks down greedily the glory of my two thousand years ...
AMERICA
She lies still ... she lies spent and still ...
But what is this beside her?
Yea, what is this beside her?
AMERICA
What opens in my heart?
What little song begins to sing so purely in my heart?
What wonder and what miracle is this?
What child is this, so poor and helpless, lying in the arms of the spent mother?
EUROPA
Babe, my babe ...
O my breasts rise to meet thy tiny lips,
My breasts rise, and a faint new life runs down my blood,
And I am glorified, glorified ...
Drink, little stranger, drink from the mother.
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