o see it This remoteness from blessedness intensified a melancholy offset only by a firm belief IB the benefits to flow to their descendants This second factor, a lament for the present (if we may term it such) was matched by a longing for die past that developed during Paul's Jihad As the Fremen forces swept from world to world, maay soldiers found themselves in almost intolerable contradictions picture a Fremen officer off-duty on a newly conquered world, in a scene that must have been repeated many, many times Perhaps he lies on a couch, served by skillful and comely attendants, nearby is a table heaped with exotic frmts, nch pastnes, and spiced meats, his fingers are adorned with jeweled rings and his head with silk scarves taken m booty, hanging between columns are embroidered gauzes, waving in cool breezes and shading him from a spring sun his couch rests beside a pool of water and, as brightly plumed birds dnnk dt its edges, his reaching fingers stir npples m the face of the waters For the Fremen this was the very image of Paradise Yet the officer, in the midst of his beatitude, finds himself thinking of Dune, remembering the wife and children at home, the smells of the sietch, the look of the desert at dawn Add this longing for the past to a mind already turned within, to a will already sated with action and to emotions steeped m melancholy, and the surging feelings that result are likely to issue forth m the form of laments and elegies Here is one such, composed by an anony mous wamor on one of the worlds of the Jihad nameless to the Fremen who saw this place as just another m a seemingly endless war As a song transmitted orally, it has many versions, but the following (from Mustava Rozalen s collection, Laments of the Lost) was recorded on Malet YA KALA NEHIBBUCUM (O DESERT I LOVE YOU) Hei hips are dunes curved bj the winds Her eyes the glow of hearthfires seen at dusk Two braids of hair-the desert vines- Wander down her back And gold veined rocks Gleam in them like water rings The wind wothes her skin Smells the incense sage of her breath Kisses the slope of her shoulders O, wind, has she forgotten me When you, not I, embrace my lover'' I tremble giving water to the dead And the corpse I mourn is me fp 43) A second example from Rozalen s remark able book is particularly poignant its un- FREMEN POETRY 250 FREMEN SCULPTURE known author remembers a hymn to Shai-Hulud from Pnncess Irulan's The Dunebuk but the alchemy of his yearning transmutes the gold of the hymn into the lead of his lament Here first is the hymn, from The Dunebuk O worm of many teeth Canst thou deny what has no care? The flesh and breath which lure thee To the ground of ail beginnings Feed on monsters twisting in a door of fire' Thou hast no robe in all thy attire To cover intoxications of divinity Or hide the burnings of desire1 And now its transformation (as recorded by Rozalen) I am become a tooth of Shai-Halud, The opened door has loosed a flood Of monsters ravening for prey, For alien flesh, though 1, no longer keen.