The Gruesome Orchestra Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

The Gruesome Orchestra

Ah! The gruesome orchestra
How gruesome, how ancient
How slow, how mechanical:
How diverse its players!
A Hedgehog, a Toad
And Lizard
Played.


Played the violin the Hedgehog
Played
The harp the Toad
Played
The strings and chords
The Lizard


And once begun it played
And played
And played
That gruesome orchestra.
And red dusk came
And then the stars
Were lighted by the night
That ushered them on his
Car, wheeled car
Yet
Still
Still played the gruesome orchestra
And the moon smiled


But ah! for the gruesome orchestra
The heavens littered were
With clouds that darker
Than the night
Loomed
Dense and charged
How dense and charged
Those clouds that frowned!
And soon
The first thunder clap
The lightning over the high rocks
The cliff of rock
The forked tongue to the sea


And yet
Yet played the gruesome
Orchestra
Undeterred, unafraid,
It played and played
And played
That gruesome orchestra.


And how fell the rains
And thunder after thunder
Clap
Increased and lightning
More dense grew:
The more rain fell
The more it fell
The more thunder it grew
The more lightning it grew
And yet
And yet
There played unceasing
Played
Drenched and lighted
The gruesome orchestra.


How the thunder light
Lit
The faces pale of
The players of the
Gruesome orchestra!
How dripped they from
Head to toe!
And shone their eyes
Besmirched with rain
And frost and mist
Of cold
In that time cold
And frost
The gruesome orchestra!


And yet it played
And played


And the night passed
Hour after hour
It passed
The time and played
As yet
The gruesome orchestra!
How the thunder light
Lit
The faces pale of
The players of the
Gruesome orchestra!
How dripped they from
Head to toe!
And shone their eyes
Besmirched with rain
And frost and mist
Of cold
In that time cold
And frost
The gruesome orchestra!
And yet it played
And played
The rains more dense
More wild the winds
Let loose by Zephyr aged:
Then midnight struck
And after that
One o’clock – more and
Mire hour after
Hour
The Palace Moor in the clock
Struck
Hour after hour
But ah! in old Valletta struck!
Yet here too Time
Hour after hour
Hour by hour
Passed.
So life,
So life,
My Monsignor, so life.


But ah! Time Cruel Time!
At last the hours grew
The tempest green in
Face became as white
And
With Fear thrilled and
Trembled full
And more and more
As the Time passed
As hour after hour
Struck
The tempest less and less
It grew
Yet played the same
The gruesome orchestra!


We, too,
We too
In life
Still play
When year after
Year
Steal by:
We heed not
We notice not
And play
As did
The Gruesome Orchestra!
But ah! if stubborn be
The Gruesome Orchestra
Time more stubborn be
More relentless shines


Ah! Dawn will come
Soon come
The hours passed
Have passed
One after one
Yet slipped away
And though
Stubborn and fear less
There played
The Gruesome Orchestra
It did not stay
Much less turn back
The hands of Time!
Struck Fate’s great clock
Hour after hour
Accomplice of the Time
And ages come and yet
To come!
Relentless, clinical,
Time passed its way
With scythe in hand
It did its work
And more it did
The more relentless grew
And more
And more
Blood thirsty grew


Yet played
Now faint now slow
The aged
The ancient Gruesome
Orchestra!
Still the Will’s flame
Still lingered on
In mirror of Immortality:
For there it be
And to it must transform:
Till
Science and Knowledge stop
This transformation to
Psyche’
Where change things and
Yet
Remain just the same
Transformed:
Where Immortality as lost
In the weather and storm
Yet
Still transformed the last of laughs
It has
Though Time relentless be!


Then
Came the time when
Slow
Slow
Slower
The Gruesome Orchestra it
Played:
Already gray the skies were
Turned
From the night dark and black:
And thin air faded
As soon as it had come
Transformed not lost
Not there, yet there
All still
Transformed
The Gruesome Orchestra!


The winds at last
They ceased
The rains the
Heavy rains
And
Downpours ceased
The winds they bated
Bit by it
And bit by bit
The tempest fell apart!
Ah! transformation was
At work:
But once begun – for
Long all long
At work it was
Silent at first
Then bolder transformation
Grew
And more and more
And more and more
The Transformation grew!


Black had the night
All been
How had the tempests
Roared
How swelled Ocean and
Sea!
How wild the winds
Let loose by Zephyr old!
How ravaged ships and
Vessels
The tempest green
How many towns
Under the strokes
Of the wild lightning
Thunder
Trembled, shook!
How people from
Their dreams in
The Sub-Conscious rose
And ghosts and shrouds
How walked the streets
And outside of the towns!
And corpses of the
Civilization old
In the new civilization of
Future Immortality
The grave door opened
Yawned
And corpses by thousands
Grew!


Yet played
And played
Its part to full
To last
The Gruesome Orchestra:
Till
At the last resistless it
Pale grew
More pale
More pale
And in proportion faded
Too
The Gruesome Orchestra!


And Dawn at last
Smiled on the Earth
The stars went down
And fallen was the
Night:
Light, gray of light
Was everywhere
Land.
Ocean, Sea:
And there played not
At last
The Gruesome Orchestra
But
Transformed yes,
It played
But not in Dawn!