-1-
So vanished those delightful images of rainbows that
stretched across the sweep of Time; not a wrack of all
those pageant scenes remained, not a flake of soil for
a seed to crack and sprout in. From within the womb
of that daedal earth, annually, the living spring of
our eternal hope resumed. Year after year Baal gave
and rekindled Love within an old and dignified,
earthly existence, that did allow the flowers to come
to bloom. The shouting combatants' triumphant return
oft had passed the common experience of the children
of simple times, and, whilst Peace held His breath,
voluntarily and with devotion we rose to saddle our
steeds, then joyfully to the frontiers' battered posts
charged with speed, to quell the bogeymen.
Delirious with the trueness of our faith, a thousand
years, blending with the colour of night, we bid
farewell to the Light, and were glad to be on our
knees in dirt, feeding on the slime of pious
oppression. Living in caverns of the past, in awe of
our righteous potentates we shuddered; nought wakened
our sedated existence or our wont disturbed. Half
seeing in the darkening twilight, from the loftiest
fashion of our poise upon the Nature of Heaven we
pontificated. Happily roaming astray that desolation,
draped with godliness, worshipping things that were,
suddenly, the menacing trumpets of war screeched long
and deep with forbidding sounds.
Alas! The last of our joys was trampled; a vision of
despair rose, a breathless fear respired in rapid
ascending pants. An enveloping gloom wakened and we
saw the clouds of doom from every direction forth had
broken. Light was fading, a brooding darkness was
gathering fast; around, above and under, the deepening
dark air was rent and cloven, its denizens the chains
of their bondage has broken. Woe! That Earth of elder
times, where Zephyr ever came to drink their odorous
harmony, was by Malice's deadliest hatred scorched and
by our human blood sprayed. Riding the tempestuous
seas' crashing roars, vast fleets from such far-off
parts sailed, dropping anchor with booming plunge
along our shores until with usurping legions were
strewn. Big ships carrying stores, chattering joyous
thanks, faces burned up with visions unimagined. No
word of pain was spoken just the Lord is merciful and
kind for this manna fell to us from heaven.
Lo! By cruel Fate and wilful wrong our all was seized
by the scourging fire of man's ancient trade, launched
by those who proclaimed lineage to our Forebear. The
White Sea shallows swelled red, the flow awashed with
dying, men, women, children, wading the salty scarlet
brew. All were waste, dumped far to the sea, fish
meal, soaking slowly back into the ocean chain to feed
the future living. Travelling the skies amidst the
clouds in metal-birds, the harbingers of desolation
upwards, over our serene domain soared.
From black skies wrecking packs of frenzied wolves,
ravenous and ready, in fury came to devastate the
arable lands, causing the weak to suffer and starve.
Just broken from their chains, they sank their teeth
into our emaciated flesh, ripped us open one by one,
and then ran off with mouthfuls of our bony limbs.
Their concocted kinship to the gallant deeds of our
olden lineage made them with lethal venom fat -
forgetful of man's common ancestry, with fangs that
were sharper than a serpent's tooth, all they bit.
Lo! Their death machines thundering in fiery air, the
nefarious legions from every hill swiftly stormed,
calling upon their clannish god to vindicate murder
and crime. With brutal shears they ruined the crop,
tore the fields - in blind fury the spirits of their
fathers returned again and again to reclaim our own.
-2-
From the pale line of dusk to that of the dawn, from
either ends of their frozen domains, the marching
legions chanted the avarice Empire's strain, 'Behold!
We are the bands of the master breed, marching in our
smart, colourful uniforms. By the Capitol's sweet
love sanctified, nothing can stop our glorious onward
advance. We pass mountains, annulling walls, routing
rebels, praising the Empire with our last breath.'
Lashing brutalities and grim death, with such
barbarous force they struck such sorrow and such woe
too huge for mortals to afflict, seeking to prize
things false and vain.
Indignity and deadly hate entrenched their reign The
Mighty Solemn Ants built high, that, erelong, their
daedalian art flew to where Expectation never soared,
making man's supremacy upon Earth on Life a plague.
The intellect of their geniuses enjoined to serve the
Empire's brutal power, with savagery from worst
producing worse, until the spirit of the Beast
re-awaked. Their unnerving urge to bully and
terrorise stirred, various in shape - broad, narrow
and square - their newest devices of war were deeply,
in massive bunkers pitched; dissolution to Earth even
if an atom of this most precious stone was split.With
such rapaciousness they raised impious wars against
the World's pastoral folks who, in defiance, dared to
resist their gluttony for wealth and power; no puny
nation ever against such fiendish league prevailed.
Crushed by their won fetters, and their senses galled
by the smells of squalor, in the bonds of vassalage
the puny nations sank into the bottomless pit of
oppression to drink the dregs of its wretchedness,
helpless to stir a limb in temper; only their eyes,
with their silent, all consuming rage, dared to
flutter.
From the western wind, dark with rain, unrolled the
triumphant Empire's banners; red, white and blue
banderoles flaunted bold. The tidings from the
Capitol came that the Ants' young have to throw in
with the troop of soldiers going to subdue Ur's
rebellious land. Pitiable young men and women for the
glory of their church beneath the hardship of a
soldier's life had sunk. Inured to cap the pity of
their souls, they advanced jarring from between
clenched, tined teeth that our flesh were intent to
tear.
Thick swarming on the ground and in the air, the
Empire's grim legions hurtled headlong, flaming
bombshells with hideous ruin and combustion to where
our terror-stricken mothers our infant siblings had
stowed. With every savage cry they showed the
insatiate hatred they held against the scions of their
said kindred. Directing their loathsome weapons at our
defenceless homes; every time they justified their
bestial revenge with more relish than starved hyaenas,
chewing the meat and bones of a putrid carcass. The
blast of bombshells' rumble heard from behind the
remotest hills; the midnight dire lightning flames of
the big guns spread and their thunder quaked the earth
to its very core. The pounding artillery deluge with
lightning-flash spoke and thunderclap roared,
storming hamlet and farm; none was spared. All through
the charnel house were seen the grisly legions
trooping under the uplifted, sooty banners, rising in
the air its orient blue, waving direct, surrounded by
fires, that the populous rout we feared. Our men, once
the songbirds when the sun came out, were silent and
scattered on the plain and were forced to take the
bitter course of flight.
Tied up in the rope of Avarice that secured them
against the voice which had the power to rouse, down
the depths of their flaming pits the faceless Ants,
whose lot was all toil, slid in ones and ones down to
stare at the chase. Seized with a surge of joy so
fierce, they stood watching the destruction of life.
Greedy for richer food, in their hungry search to
savage pastures carelessly they strayed. Their high
pitched squeaks accused them of cowardice, of standing
frozen when they should act. What sort of ice cold
shades who would await to gather their shares from
such desperate fates? Their faces erased of zeal or
grief, their blunted nostrils could not smell the
corpses of the dead who could neither be touched nor
let alone. And though fully knowing that in their
names its was done, they never joined forces to tell
the Fanatic Priests: 'No, we can't take this any
longer. Soon it will be our turn!' The truly wretched
amongst them had nowhere to go. They just stood there,
looked up and asked the stars: 'Why are you keeping me
here?' Some of them did shine through the Empire's
grime, even twinkled, but quickly they seemed to loose
their shine.
-3-
The massacre and butchery that stained the waters of
the White Sea red had caused such proud fathers to
dispatch their sons. Bold and high, like the resound
which the streaked thundercloud roared, their portent
cries rose, foretelling the ugly fate they would
bequeath to their foolish foe. Lo and behold! With
their war song's peal the fields shook - Ur's braves
encountered all those evils unsubdued. Alas! Woe
mischance had brought - Oh how those merry men the
death-dirge resounded! In the thwarted land big tears
were shed - in ditches and in fields the Freedom
Fighters, whose young features wrinkled as they fell,
lay dead. Either with their heads up or their feet,
the martyrs sprawled out on comrades' bellies, or on
their backs; more were bent head to foot whither they
were killed. Oh! The pains and plagues that on our
heads came down; disease and famine, agony and fear,
that the brain would unsettle even to hear. Woe! In
city, hamlet or town such gruesome sights of great
carnage were seen; the dead spread out or heaped-up,
their corpses languished in clumps. Slow rolling on
the plain full many a sluggish oxen tugged
refugee-carts and wains. Thousands perished fleeing
the remorseless malevolence advance. Their groans
profound, bereaved mothers, widowed wives, orphaned
daughters and sons in horror lived those terrible
times that sealed their doom to face famine grim.
O what a scene of great agony that deep verdant gorge
displayed! Lo! The River, thick with pus and blood,
over its meandering course ceaselessly burst and
raved. Everywhither, along its luxuriant banks, the
bloated bodies of men floated past our frozen gaze -
as if in a trance, all of pleasant thoughts forlorn.
Our tears dried up despairing.
The weak in faith raised their shamed faces to god and
cried: 'O Allah we have lost all fear of you. We who
lived awed and in fear of sin loved intolerantly - it
was naught else but lies. Our simple hopes made us
forsake much more that even the pleasures of bed we
forgot.'
Turned out of our homes by fierce blasts and hellish
bombs, on hands and knees, like herds of abject souls,
dragged ourselves along waste fields, where blasts of
salvoes on blasts of salvoes of fusillades pounded.
Slowly, in silence we moved along, looking, listening
to the sobs of all those wounded who had no strength
to drag their mutilated limbs. Hearts sickening, in
the cold winds we sat weeping side by side, our
children starving in our view. Slaves of Tyranny that
fast was gathering around, we sank prone in the pits
of its darkness where desolation howled, more dread
than Abaddon. Some stretched out pale within the
grave; their sleep with strange dreaming crammed.
More, breathing despair, crouched in, all tightly
bunched up, rocking to left and right, the burial
grounds sat startled in the dark under their narrow
cries. Far more wandered in ceaseless circles,
wheeling around and around for their pain was greater,
unremittingly with its pangs assailed. Their chins
raised in that searching gesture of the blind, never
stopping they roamed the sands, their tongues loose
with plaintive howls, they shrieked and wailed.
-4-
Her mind raised by intense thoughtfulness, Fawzeah's
two starry hazel eyes glow in the joy of thought and
seem with their serene smiles to beckon that time as
she relates.....Twice I saw Ur by wrath and greed to
ruin brought down; once from the sky by the despotic
contempt of those who called themselves white men, and
once again by her own ambitious sons. When the
terrible blast of invading ships swept across the
heaving White Sea, cannonading villainous weapons, in
silent fear we stood to watch the glowing Doomsday's
fires appear. Upon the night sky like fierce glowing
meteors the whizzing projectiles streaked, erelong
they exploded with a terrible thud, scorching and
burning the groves and fields to bring death to the
land. The jet planes overhead, rumbling harmfully,
taunted amongst the hills, then, with merciless
force, sprayed all with bombshells. In chilled anguish
we witnessed the horrid crew afflict those lasting
pains; our gloomy thoughts whined: 'There scatter the
contagious fires. I wonder whom is killed!' The only
weapons we had ever known were pieces of our long past
to hurl at them across the waters that spumed.
Like chained dogs so firmly clamped, our mute leaders
on the floor crouched, butting each other with anger
beneath the lash. Bereft of the palest honour to
affront the Fanatic Priests' stateliness, the fear of
death alone found a place in their compliant hearts.
Without a tear and fancied scruples to haunt their
sleep, they just stood submissively there, waiting for
the doom to fall.
Possibly the dust of her Creed was so outworn that her
Truth turned grey, for all of Ur's joys suddenly
passed away. Her pastures were heaped with the corpses
of her defendants, who on her ancient pleasures their
dreams had gambolled. Like all nations reciting some
embroidered story of Heroes who were dead, on that
same time-cracked song we had swooned, chanting
eulogies of Ur's august history. Racked with deep
despair, hope never came but the ever-burning surge of
torture and calamity that seemed without end. In
dungeons of hate, horrible on all sides, we sat
inventing victories, glossing over defeat, yelling at
God to whom we bowed for making us so weak. Thence,
on suppliant knees we begged: 'O Allah! Teach us not
to yield; let the tale of our fury traverse the limits
of Destiny and stay there in swirl, blasting tempests
with whirlwinds. O Allah! Teach us the neighing pride
of the wild stallions. Never let us hackneyed colts
become. O Allah! Keep with us our elder's habit - to
bear upon our backs the airy dreams of immense hopes.'
When first we had seen the instruments of war we said:
'They have come once again in the world to bring us
death. O, woe is me! How mighty are our foes? How many
are those that in arms against us rise.' It was
recorded in starlight on the yellowing pages of the
Book of Time - 'And as the Al-Manat turns Her Wheel of
Fortune round and round, spinning calamities as She
pleases, the ungrateful fellaheen gladly will abandon
their ploughs and so shall go back from His Way to
ways of Sin, inventing equals to Allah. Enraged, the
Zenith will let grow a wonder, a metal-bird with wings
of infernal fires strung, that will shoot ruin
everywhither around the hub of man's orb.' For our
bad actions, this prophecy foretold that Ur would be
laid waste by that egotistically malignant race,
until, amidst the bitterness, no sweet thoughts would
bloom.
And I concur......This enemy, who always had the fame
of being blind to the universality of God, was an
envious race, proud and avaricious upon many deeds of
terrible uprightness weaned. In solemnity he asserted:
'We still have the Lord's purity and godliness in our
blood.' Correctly from the mouths of mystics on
pulpits and minbars I heard it said: 'We, the gallant
pride of the holy seed, Destiny reserves such honours
for us, for unremitting enemies shall be hungry to
devour our flesh. There shall come from the west a
lawless horde, with their bare hands sworn to unthread
our joints and crumble all our sinews. This array of
enemies will stay in Ur, planted with feet of flame.
Their fouler acts will make him a fitting king. In the
chasmal depths we have to face every blow, fighting
the ancestral war.'
And Fawzeah conforms..... So the mystics' prophecy
presaged: 'A forest of the barbarous sons from sylvan
depths immeasurable will pour down from the loins of
the frozen, populous north. They will come like a
deluge on the south and spread forthwith upon the
lands, roaming to seek their prey and thenceforth
freight the reign of Rahab. Their culture copulated
with many polities, and will go on mating with more,
until ancient civilization's day again will cleave the
gloom. From nation to nation men will arise to track
them down and reclaim their own.'
-5-
All was not lost - confounded by calamity and dismay,
with ignominy and shame underneath, the proud people
lay vanquished, rowelling in the fiery waste. Mid the
darkness there was mingled many a cry, upward cast and
onward borne- Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory! As if
from the last wreck its setting was carted, a dream of
glory from visions of despair arose and on
honour-ablaze pinnacles stood, trampling to silence
the loud fears. Although by nature we inclined to
peace, fiercely our young were ruffled by the crimes
of the villainous hordes. O what Life! O what Power
was kindled and arose to encounter those awesome foes!
Lo! Day by day, defeat enlisted us to more wrath for
the thought of losing happiness of motherland. Round
and round our baleful eyes with mixed steadfast pride
and obdurate hate we threw.
When the last hope was trampled, the calm of the firm
earth for sudden shook. There was a pause like a
brief notion, not a sound was heard; darkness was
eddying by. Out of the tear-drenched land a rushing
of wind arose; a whirlwind raged on, blasting forth a
reddish hell. A mighty crash of rumbling thunder burst
along the trains of the far peaks. Upon their
tremulous mists a lightning flash deluged heavens with
fire. The birds that had withdrawn into the rock face
to bewail the land's dire fate, came forth to espy
what had come to pass; where the vast irresistible
darkness that had the heavens cloven, fair clouds
interwoven - the blazing star of the Orient was from
behind into the depths of Heaven flung.
The unconquerable will and the courage of the hubris
young never submitted or yielded - what else was there
to overcome? Whether upheld by strength or rue, the
dire event that with sad overthrow and foul defeat had
lost us home, and in terrible destruction had laid us
thus low, the mind and spirit remained and soon vigour
returned. Although all our glory was extinct, and the
unhappy state had swallowed us up in an endless
misery, the magi perorated that the eager hour was
nigh. A gleaming new Ur-Salim, as dawn-illumined
mountain stood, erelong would rise and out loud would
cry: 'Liberty!' Aloud, trampling silence with hopes,
they orated to inflame the breasts with self-control:
'O Allah! Return now, look down from Heaven. Behold us
with a frown. Be not silent now. Come, wake our
strength. Exalt our heads high. O God of Strength,
don't hold your peace now. Come, be seen to save us
by Your Might. O our Lord God we call upon your Names.
Return to us again that never shall we be outworn
from Your Grace divine. Pity us, hear our earnest
prayers. O Greater God how long will You our glory
have at your dreadful ire, at your rebuke and scorn?
How long will we be from Your aid forborne? O Allah!
Upon the man of Your right hand let Your good hand
lay; the man whom You strong for Yourself had made. O
Allah vouchsafe that Your face upon him shall shine.'
The awful ceremonies heralded with trumpets' sounds,
throughout the land solemn council forthwith gathered.
The bards and sages' words with an earth-awakening
blast prolifically thundered, piercing the crabbed
shroud of gloom: 'Awake! Awake, children of
Mother-Ur. Her trumpet of victory-sounds are piercing
throughout the lands that are drenched red with the
blood of a million martyrs. Hitherward, come all you
valiant youths. Restore Her memory. Come stern
knights. Give true pledge of honour; save the weak for
whom the just will give their life. Come great
renunciation of the defeat. Race in search of Truth.
Hunt the Ants through every city. Drive them back to
Hell, whence Envy had them unleashed.
O hallowed kindly home you are polity's morn! Here,
where the weary travellers had come and found solace
in your sweet soil. Hither, to this nest where
daylight falls; whensoever will come again the weak
and trampled! O fathers say to your sons: "Never let
the name of our Ur depart, engrave it deep in every
heart."
O Lord soon, very soon Ur's immortal banners will
ceaselessly flutter, and like the rising sun on the
desert east will shine Her immortal banners.'
Thenceforth word went round: 'It can't be postponed,
it must be now we take our stand and fight, to us this
parched earth is everywhere.' Worthies called every
tribe to arm a regiment; summoned by their peers
hundreds and thousands came that all accesses were
thronged.
-6-
Lo and behold! True in will and pure in thought, on
the winged sounds of valour the heroes of truth
forthwith form everywhither poured, ripping the shroud
of Destiny asunder, and, with fiery aim, against the
thrones of the capitulating despots waged holy war.
Insensibly disposed to acts of Love to the World, loud
rolled the young's chariot wheels, and, with heart and
soul, louder still their war cry roared.
Contemptuous, proud, set on revenge and spite,
thitherward they moved forth with staunch
steadfastness in pursuit of justice, to scourge the
vice and breach of trust in this or that quisling
tyrant, exposing all to the world in every
opportunity. Urged by a burning thirst for freedom,
with fervent breath the heroes with haughty poise from
self-exile came; in each heart a hell of a storm.
Holding Fear by the throat, the trophies of the
Hereafter they pursued as they ran to spread peace and
martyrdom, which they preyed should not be so slow to
come.
From the eastern floral pastures to the yonder western
rocky shores, and from the southern reaches of the
deserts to the furthermost northern ridgy slopes that
heaved to the sky, in gloomy splendour the cavorting
legions of that human living multitude marched. From
east to west, from south to north, the humbled land
sent forth her sons; like a fierce cloud, slow rolling
on the plains their ramshackle artillery cars.
Thousands on thousands of the valiant sons of Freedom
there were seen forming camps that settled Ur's
fermenting countryside, until all the land was brimful
with martial show - oh how proudly the yonder pennants
flapped at the masts!
Guided by faith and on matchless fortitude reared, a
huge procession passed - some bore pants, some had
thobes with beautiful caps. Breathing united force, on
the silent chariot of storm they advanced in view, a
horrid front of dreadful length, and, from behind
them, Wadd in dim eclipse disastrous twilight shed.
Their visages proud and in the stature of gods they
moved on in silence, lost to soft dreams of the glory
that they might win. Their course on the firm
brimstone filled all the plains, a multitude like
which never had passed Ur. A more stirring scene I had
never seen. Huge and slow, deep and impressive, a
flourish proud with thundering cries and drums
pounding to the skies, a military grandeur westward
marched to amass in the steep and bountiful lowlands
of the chasmal vale to plot the downfall of the deadly
intruders.
And instead of rage, deliberate valour firm and
unmoved with dread of death to fight and foul retreat.
Fast and stubborn rocks of capacious bosoms their
feared tridents unlocked the rebel tempests sending
aggressive foes sulking to the black caverns of the
stern Empire. Not like them forgetful of the grave,
with rapid steps the Freedom Fighters went beneath the
shade, doing without witness that which they were
capable of doing before the whole World. Wrapped in
the vision that 'all upon Earth was Good', their
youthful Spirits seemed beside them to stand vested in
bright thobes of enshrining light, as rejoiced the
sainted souls: 'O River of Life, whose invisible
course is the inaccessibly profound Fount of Zion,
whither do your mysterious waters tend? You give us
life. Whether from oozy caverns or the wandering
clouds that bring waters to your brooks with sounds,
do tell the Universe of everything where the source of
pure thoughts resides! Upon your flowers I wish my
bloody limbs to waste. Beside your grassy shore I
seek the joust of Mot.'
Like our storied heroes, godlike in shape and form,
under brows of dauntless courage and considerate
pride, with Fate in their hands the valorous
defendants uplifted through the gloom like the flame
to face bravely the aggression of infallible weapons.
And, to height of the noblest breed the giants of our
times, arming to the battle, with bare hands fell upon
the sticks and stones. Dark clouds would faint when
from their shiny faces a smile gleamed and painted
bright beams of self-esteem over the liberated
dominions.
When deed was done, all effort seemed forgot, the
brotherhood of bravery had no need but for long
patience and mild composure. Bedewed with a few drops
of sweat, they fed on neither land or money. Their
wisdom was Love, and Virtue sustained them. The names
of such guardians of honour and backers of probity to
the end of Time basked glorious, and in the human
minds for ever to the farthest limits of Earth the
source of these men of chaff's fearsomeness rang,
filling each nation with envy or with praise. The
passing of the untiring years never disciplined their
unwavering contemplations and their belief remained
straight, which made them above the ordinary. Giving
to grave thoughts they made most manifest the Empire's
deceit, baring to anyone who cared to read well the
invidiously logical beliefs of the Fanatical Priests.
Fawzeah's speech assuming holds commune with mine as
if that image all that is in her mind..... Ah me!
Yusuf, my dove, in force you were the iron scourge of
the foe's gory bands. As one roused by some joyous
madness, high above the towers of honour you climbed;
a beau sabreur, excelling human form, staring at
oppression's victims with pain ready to die, hounding
terror's reign. Obedient to the Light that within your
soul shone, like a child, sublime and impetuous, you
went down the gorge, laughing at Death. On the rapid
pinions of the plume of song, speeded thither, musing
with every herb and drooping bud: 'Your freedom soon
will come.'
