The Apocrypha are texts in the Judaic-Christian tradition of holy reading and writing. These texts are not of the ancient
Hebrew Canon. They are included in the
Septuagint (a Greek version of
The Old Testament) and the
Vulgate (
St. Jerome's translation of the
Septuagint into Latin) as part of the
Old Testament, but are usually omitted from modern
King James editions of the Bible. During the
Reformation they were often printed with the
Holy Bible under a title such as
Apocrypha.
The Book of Esdras, printed in fragment below, is one such text.
Lines of texts closely based on
T.S. Eliot's
The Waste Land have been added to the text. So it is called
hyperapocrpyha, which does not need its own node, but does require a hermeneutic exercise of the will in order to traverse the circle of religious devotion to text--(I wouldn't expect this here).
The First Book of Esdras (Hyper-Apocrypha)
1Esdr 1:1
And Josias held the feast of the passover in Jerusalem unto his Lord,
and offered the passover the fourteenth day of the first month;
1Esdr 1:2
Having set the priests according to their daily courses,
being arrayed in long garments, in the temple of Jehovah.
1Esdr 1:3
April is the cruellest month;
Breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing,
Memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding a little life with dried tubers.
And Josias, with green arms for limbs, spake unto the Levites,
that they should hallow themselves unto Jehovah, to set
the holy ark of Jehovah in the house that king Solomon
the son of David had built:
1Esdr 1:4
And said, Ye shall no more bear the ark upon your shoulders:
now therefore serve Jehovah your God, and minister unto his
people Israel, and prepare you after your families and kindreds,
1Esdr 1:5
According as David the king of Israel prescribed,
and according to the magnificence of Solomon his son:
and standing in the temple according to the several dignity
of the families of you the Levites, who minister in the presence
of your brethren the children of Israel,
1Esdr 1:6
Offer the passover in order, and make ready the sacrifices
for your brethren, and keep the passover according to the
commandment of Jehovah, which was given unto Moses.
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king so rudely forced;
yet there the nightingale filled all the desert,
with inviolable voice and still she cried,
and still the world pursues Jehovanh.
1Esdr 1:7
What is that sound high in the air murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth,
Ringed by the flat horizon only,
What is the city over the mountains cracks and reforms,
and bursts in the violet air, falling towers, Jerusalem
And unto the people that was found there Josias gave
thirty thousand lambs and kids, and three thousand calves:
these things were given of the king's allowance,
according as he promised, to the people, to the priests,
and to the Levites.
1Esdr 1:8
And Helkias, Zacharias, and Syelus, the governors of the temple,
gave to the priests for the passover two thousand and six sheep,
and three hundred calves, and many more gifts
which an age of prudence can never retract,
By this, and this only, have we existed,
Which is not to be found in obituaries,
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider,
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor,
In our empty rooms.
1Esdr 1:57
The Levites Who became servants to him and her, until Persian reign,
to fulfil the word of Jehovah spoken by the mouth of Jeremy.
1Esdr 1:58
And these were the words of Jeremy as I have found them,
lost in a library far under the sea, written in words, and symbols
banished by Jehovah (or the Lord), but yet words not from an other
God:
Until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths, the whole time of her
desolation shall she rest, until the full term of seventy years.
The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf clutch,
they sink into the wet bank. The wind crosses the brown land,
unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet river, run softly.
1Esdr 2:1
A rat crept softly through the vegetation,
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank while I was fishing in the canal
,
In the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, that the
word of Jehovah might be accomplished, that he had promised by
the mouth of Jeremy;
1Esdr 2:28
Now therefore I have commanded to hinder those men from
building the city, and heed to be taken that there be no more
done in it;
1Esdr 2:29
And that those wicked workers proceed no further to the
annoyance of kings,
1Esdr 2:30
Then king Artexerxes his letters being read, Rathumus, and
Semellius the scribe, and the rest that were in commission with
them, removing in haste toward Jerusalem with a troop of
horsemen and a multitude of people in battle array, began to
hinder the builders; and the building of the temple in Jerusalem
ceased until the second year of the reign of Darius king of the
Persians.
1Esdr 7:14
And they kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days,
making merry before Jehovah,
1Esdr 7:15
For that he had turned the counsel of the king of Assyria
toward them, to strengthen their hands in the works of Jehovah
God of Israel.
1Esdr 9:1
Then Esdras rising from the court of the temple went to the
chamber of Joanan the son of Eliasib,
1Esdr 9:2
And remained there, and did eat no meat nor drink water,
mourning for the great iniquities of the multitude.
1Esdr 9:55
Because they understood the words wherein they were
instructed, and for the which they had been assembled.
D A
DAYADHVAM: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
D A
DAMYATA: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands