The Pilgrim from the East
Gustave Kahn
1895
He was home from the East, this pilgrim.
He had left to seek a perfumed flower
that Solomon, whose hands grew dark
from constant prayers for beauty,
had planted in the gardens of En Gedi,
fashioned on Abishag’s beauty
and the charms that arrayed her.
He left with his staff and his cloak,
he slept alongside flowing rivers
that, under oleanders and over white stones,
imagine arabesques of silver skimmers.
Then, as the mosques were suffering
under saber-wielding Janissaries,
he turned, a melancholy man, toward home.
He rested his staff against the hearth,
the staff of his long pilgrimage,
then watched the soft eyes he loved,
turning to face him, catch fire.
His staff became a perfumed stalk
where the lily he’d not found now bloomed.
Good pilgrim, returned from the East,
happiness resides in your home,
not on the roads with their ambuscades;
the world is just a masquerade
beside the soft sweet smile
abiding in your home.
Translated by .
Michele McKay
Aynesworth
Credits
Gustave Kahn, “C’est un pelerin qui revient de l’orient” [The Pilgrim from the East], from Domaine de fée (Paris: Société Nouvelle, 1895), pp. 37–38.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.
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