SLOVO: The Darkened Sun — DOOMWRIGHT

Shall I sing it as the old ones sang it When Boyan's fingers walked the strings And ten hawks fell on a flock of swans And the first to fall was the first to sing? Or sing it plain, the way it happened No soaring, and no sweetened lie This is the tale of Igor's campaign Sung the way the dark saw it die Not the old song — the true one The strings are colder than they were Boyan is dust, and dust sings nothing So I sing what did occur A prince, a host, a black-sunned morning Glory seized before its time Sit inside the ring of firelight While I walk you down the line

They marched at dawn on the Polovtsian steppe Spears like a field of standing grain And Igor raised his eyes for blessing — And the sun shut like an eye. Like pain Brothers — the sky has closed against us The old signs say: turn back, and live But I would rather fall on the Kayala Than take the mercy cowards give Let me drink the Don from my helmet And the omen drank the light O Russkaya zemle! Uzhe za shelomyanem yesi O land of Rus — already Behind the hill. Behind the light Div the ill-bird shrieks in the branches Waking the far Cuman towns to war The wolves call storms up in the gullies The eagles mark the bones before O Russkaya zemle! Uzhe za shelomyanem yesi The land falls back behind the standards And no one turns to watch it go

At dawn they broke the Cuman morning Red pavilions, gold, and silk Cloaks for the mud and mantles for the marshes Standards taken, banners spilled They laid the plunder down like bedding Captive women in the trains The young prince laughed — the steppe is ours now And slept inside his gilded chains The night of spoils — sleep on your winnings Drape the marsh in someone's crown Every hour you feast in the open The far dark counts you, and comes down Beyond the fires the earth is moving Not wind. Not wolves. The whole black rim The night of spoils — and morning coming The gold still warm, the sentries blind Gzak and Konchak have joined their thousands The debt of glory falls behind

From the sea, from every quarter Black clouds that are men, not rain They blot the four suns of the princes Kayala takes its first red stain From dawn to dark the arrows blizzard The lances shatter on the mail The bones of Rus enrich the steppe-grass Where the brothers cannot fail — and fail O Russkaya zemle... uzhe... za shelomyanem... The grass bows down, the trees lean grieving The standards falter, dip, and drown On the third dawn the banners settle Into the bloody, trampled ground Bind the prince. The prince is living. Let Rus wake tomorrow with no crown

Karna wept across the black earth Zhlya scattered fire from a horn The women of the towns of Rus Keened for men who won't return Gold is scattered, husbands buried The rivers run in muddy grief Cities wall themselves in silence No banner rises on the field Karna and Zhlya — grief and sorrow Ride the ash from Don to Dnieper This is the harvest of the princes: Each fought alone, and fell the deeper Not the Cuman took the standards down The princes did — each for his own Brother would not ride for brother And so the steppe reclaimed the throne Karna and Zhlya — the land is weeping And the weeping has a name to keep: Disunion. Pride. The gates left open. The dead don't care who takes the grief

At dawn on the wall of Putivl A lone voice rose against the sky Not to the saints — to the old powers She cried. And here is her cry O Wind, great Wind, why blow so hard? Why hurl the Cuman shafts on my love? Was the whole vault of the sky too narrow For you to rock the ships above? O glorious Dnieper, you cut the mountains You bore the boats of Svyatoslav Carry my beloved back upriver Bring him home across the dark O bright and thrice-bright Sun — you gave the day Warm and beautiful and wide Why stretch your burning heat upon him Out there where the water died? Why did you go dark and leave him?

At midnight when the camp lay drunk on plunder He slid into the reeds — an ermine, low White against the marsh, and vanished The way the hunted learn to go He swam the cold as a white waterbird Broke the current, took the shadowed shore Behind him all the steppe lay sleeping The rivers made a road before Ermine, wolf, and falcon The prince is loose upon the night He wears the shapes the steppe would hunt him in And every shape slips past the light He leapt upon a swift horse's shadow And threw it off, and ran a grey wolf Across the dew, across the Donets Toward the smoke of home. Toward the gulf Then up — a falcon under the storm-clouds Striking the geese and swans for meat The woodpeckers tapped him toward the water The nightingales sang up the heat Ermine, wolf, and falcon And Gzak said: let the falcon fly A caged prince only breeds more princes Better a free one under sky

The sun climbs bright on the far bank now Igor rides the Borichev rise The villages come out to meet him The churches ring him home. He rides I bought this road with a whole army I will not say the cost was fair The steppe still keeps my son and thousands The glory's mine. The grief we share O Russkaya zemle! Uzhe NE za shelomyanem O land of Rus — no longer Behind the hill. Back in the light Now I may sing the old way, freely — I earned the lyre by singing straight Boyan would soar here — let me soar then: The prince is home. And so is fate Glory to Igor — memory to the fallen Glory weighed against the slain The prince rides home beneath the sunrise The steppe keeps what it has taken Sing of Igor, sing the princes Sing the host that won't return Let the old song carry both things: The rising sun — and what it burned