The Assembly of the Gods of the Ancient Peoples

That tempestuous wind, those night black clouds – in their darkness the lightning itself had lost its lustre;

An ocean suspended in their air, its skirt rent, few pearls pouring;

Its shore invisible, its waves high-surging, high-surging, powerless to battle with the winds.

Rumi and I in that sea of pitch were as phantoms in the bedchamber of the mind.

He much-travelled, I new to travel, my eyes impatient to gaze abroad.

Continually I cried: ‘My sight is inadequate, I do not see where the other world may be!’

Presently a mountain-range appeared, a river, a broad meadow appeared,

Mountain and plain embracing a hundred springtides – fragrant with musk came the breeze from the hills.

Songs of birds conspiring together, fountains, and verdant herbs half-grown.

The body was fortified by the emanation of that air, the pure spirit in the flesh keener of vision.

I fixed my gaze on the top of a mountain; a joyful the mountain, the slope, the stretching plain;

A lovely valley, even, not sinking nor rising – the water of Kbizr would have need of such a land.

In this valley were the ancient gods, there the God of Egypt, here the Lord of Yemen;

There a Lord of the Arabs, here of Iraq, this one the god of union, that the god of separation;

Here an offspring of the sun, and the moon’s son-in-law, another looking to the consort of Jupiter;

One holding a two-edged sword in his hand, another with a serpent wreathed about his throat.

Each one was trembling at the Beautiful Name, each wounded by the smiting of Abraham.

Mardukh said: ‘Man has fled from God, fled from church and sanctuary, lamenting;

And to augment his vision and perception turns his gaze backwards to the past age.

He takes delight in ancient relics, makes speeches about our theophanies.

Time has revealed a new legend; a favourable wind is wafting from younder earth.’

Baal in excess of joy chanted sweetly Unveiling our secrets to the gods.