[do not remarginate] The Kasidah ------------ ("translated" by Sir Richard Francis Burton... actually, I think he wrote it himself, but he claims the author was Haji Abdu el-Yezdi). [ Burton occasionally put accents over vowels, especially in certain foreign words; they have mostly been eliminated in the interests of readability. Surrounding *asterisks* represent italics. This edition was published by Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York. There is no publication date given, but it looks quite old, maybe 1920's or 30's. There is a glossary at the end. I have played a bit with line breaks and italics in the glossary. The treeware has glossary terms listed in italics there, then definitions in normal type. I have arranged things a bit differently, putting the terms in single quotes, with one exception. -Karl Fogel, ] 1. The hour is nigh; the waning Queen walks forth to rule the later night; Crowned with the sparkle of a Star, and throned on orb of ashen light: The Wolf tail sweeps the paling East to leave a deeper gloom behind And Dawn uprears her shining head, sighing with semblance of a wind: The highlands catch yon Orient gleam, while purpling still the lowlands lie; And pearly mists, the morning pride, soar incense-like to greet the sky. The horses neigh, the camels groan, the torches gleam, the cressets flare; The town of canvas falls, and man with din and dint invadeth air: The Golden Gates swing right and left; up springs the Sun with flamy blow; The dew cloud melts in gush of light; brown Earth is bathed in morning glow. Slowly they wind athwart the wild and while young Day his anthem swells, Sad falls upon my yearning ear the tinkling of the camel bells: O'er fiery wastes and frozen wold o'er horrid hill and gloomy glen, The home of grisly beast and Ghoul, the haunts of wilder, grislier men;-- With the brief gladness of the Palms, that tower and sway o'er seething plain, Fraught with thoughts of rustling shade, and welling spring, and rushing rain: With the short solace of the ridge, by gentle zephyrs played upon, Whose breezy head and bosky side front seas of cooly celadon;-- 'Tis theirs to pass with joy and hope, whose souls shall ever thrill and fill Dreams of the Birthplace and the Tomb,-- visions of Allah's Holy Hill. But we? Another shift of scene, another pang to rack the heart; Why meet we on the bridge of Time to 'change on greeting and to part? We meet to part; yet asks my sprite, Part we to meet? Ah! is it so? Man's fancy-made Omniscience knows, who made Omniscience nought can know. Why must we meet, why must we part, why must we bear this yoke of MUST, Without our leave or asked or given, by tyrant Fate on victim thrust? That Eve so gay, so bright, so glad, this Morn so dim, and sad, and gray; Strange that life's Registrar should write this day a day, that day a day! Mine eyes, my brain, my heart, are sad,-- sad is the very core of me; All wearies, changes, passes, ends; alas! the Birthday's injury! Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again; Yet ne'er the selfsame men shall meet; the years shall make us other men: The light of morn has grown to noon, has paled with eve, and now farewell! Go, vanish from my Life as dies the tinkling of he camel's bell. 2. In these drear wastes of sea-born land, these wilds where none may dwell but He, What visionary Pasts revive, what process of the Years we see: Gazing beyond the thin blue line that rims the far horizon ring, Our saddened sight why haunt these ghosts, whence do these spectral shadows spring? What endless questions vex the thought, of Whence and Whither, When and How? What fond and foolish strife to read the Scripture writ on human brow; As stand we perched on point of Time, betwixt the two Eternities, Whose awful secrets gathering round with black profound oppress our eyes. "This gloomy night, these grisly waves, these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: What reck they of ourr wretched plight who Safety's shore so lightly tread?" Thus quoth the Bard of Love and Wine, hose dream of Heaven ne'er could rise Beyond the brimming Kausar-cup and Houris with the white-black eyes; Ah me! my race of threescore years is short, but long enough to pall My sense with joyless joys as these, with Love and Houris, Wine and all. Another boasts he would divorce old barren Reason from his bed, And wed the Vine maid in her stead;-- fools who believe a word he said! And " `Dust thou art to dust returning,' ne'er was spoke of human soul" The Soofi cries, 'tis well for him that hath such gift to ask its goal. "And this is all, for this we're born to weep a little ad to die!" So sings the shallow bard whose life still labors at the letter "I." "Ear never heard, Eye never saw the bliss of those who enter in My heavenly kingdom," Isa said, who wailed our sorrows and our sin: Too much of words or yet too few! What to thy Godhead easier than One little glimpse of Paradise to ope the eyes and ears of man? "I am the Truth! I am the Truth!" whe hear the God-drunk gnostic cry. "The microcosm abides in ME; Eternal Allah's nought but I!" Mansur was wise, but wiser they who smothe him with the hurled stones; And, though his blood a witness bore, no wisdom-might could mend his bones. "Eat, drink, and sport; the rest of life's not worth a fillip," quoth the King; Methinks the saying saith too much: the swine would say the selfsame thing! Two-footed beasts that browse through life, by death to serve as soil designed, Bow prone to Earth whereof they be, and there the proper pleasures find: But you of finer, nobler, stuff, ye, whom to Higher leads the High, What binds your hearts in common bond with creatures of the stall and sty? "In certain hope of Life to come I journey through this shifting scene," The Zahid snarls and saunters down his Vale of Tears with confident mien. Wiser than Amran's Son art thou, who ken'st so well the world to be, The Future when the Past is not, the Present merest dreamery; What know'st thou, man, of Life? and yet, forever twixt the womb, the grave, Thou pratest of the Coming Life, of Heav'n and Hell thouh fain must rave. The world is old and thou art young; the world is large and thou art small; Cease, atom of a moment's span, To hold thyself an All-in-All! 3. Fie, fie! you visionary things, ye motes that dance in sunny glow, Who base and build Eternities on briefest moment here below; Who pass through Life like caged birds, the captives of a despot will; Still wond'ring How and When and Why, and Whence and Whither, wond'ring still; Still wond'ring how the Marvel came because two coupling mammals chose To slake the thirst of fleshly love, and thus the "Immortal Being" rose; Wond'ring the Babe with staring eyes, perforce compelled from night to day, Gripped in the giant grasp of Life like gale-born dust or wind-wrung spray; Who comes imbecile to the world 'mid double danger, groans, and tears; The toy, the sport, the waif and stray of passions, error, wrath and fears; Who knows not Whence he came nor Why, who kens not Whither bound adn When Yet such is Allah's choicest gift, the blessing dreamt by foolish men; Who step by step perforce returns to couthless youth, wan, white and cold, Lisping again his broken words till all the tales be fully told: Wond'ring the Babe with quenched orbs, an oldster bowed by burdening years, How 'scaped the skiff an hundred storms; how 'scaped the thread a thousand shears; How coming to the Feast unbid, he found the gorgeous table spread With the fair-seeing Sodom fruit, with stones that bear the shape of bread: How Life was nought but ray of sun that clove the darkness thick and blind, The ravings of the reckless storm, the shrieking of the rav'ning wind; How lovely visions 'guiled his sleep, aye fading with the break of morn, till every sweet became a sour, till every rose became a thorn; Till dust and ashes met his eyes wherever turned their saddened gaze; The wrecks of joys and hopes and loves, the rubbish of his wasted days; How every high heroic Thought that longed to breathe empyrean air, Failed of its feathers, fell to earth, and perished of a sheer despair; How, dowered with heritage of brain, whose might has split the solar ray, His rest is grossest coarsest earth, a crown of gold on brow of clay; This House whose frame be flesh and bone, mortared with blood and faced with skin, The home of sickness, dolors, age; unclean without, impure within: Sans ray to cheer its inner gloom, the chambers haunted by the Ghost, Darkness his name, a cold dumb Shade stronger than all the heav'nly host. This tube, an enigmatic pipe, whose end was laid before begun, That lengthens, broadens, shrinks and breaks; --puzzle, machine, automaton; The first of Pots the Potter made by Chrysorrhoas' blue-green wave; Methinks I see him smile to see what guerdon to the world he gave! How Life is dim, unreal, vain, like scenes that round the drunkard reel; How "Being" meaneth not to be; to see and hear, smell, taste and feel. A drop in Ocean's boundless tide, unfathomed waste of agony; Where millions live their horrid lives by making other millions die. How with a heart that would through love to Universal Love aspire, Man woos infernal chance to smite, as Minarets draw the thunder fire. How Earth on Earth builds tower and wall, to crumble at a touch of Time; How Earth on Earth from Shinar plain the heights of Heaven fain would climb. How short this Life, how long withal; how false its weal, how true its woes, This fever-fit with paroxysms to mark its opening and its close. Ah! gay the day with shine of sun, and bright the breeze, and blithe the throng Met on the River bank to play, when I was young, when I was young: Such general joy could never fade; and yet the chilling wisper came; One face had paled, one form had failed; had fled the bank, had swum the stream; Still revelers danced, and sang, and trod the hither bank of Time's deep tide, Still one by one they left and fared to the far misty thither side; And now the last hath slipped away yon drear death desert to explore, And now one Pilgrim worn and lorn still lingers on the lonely shore. Yes, Life in youthtide standeth still; in manhood streameth soft and slow; See, as it nears th'abysmal goal, u how fleet the waters flash and flow! And Deaths are twain; the Deaths we see drop like the leaves in windy Fall; But ourrs, ourr own, are ruined worlds, a globe collapsed, last end of all. We live our lives with rogues and fools, dead and alive, alive and dead, We die 'twixt one who feels the pulse and one who frets and clouds the head. And,--oh, the Pity!--hardly conned the lesson comes its fatal term; Fate bids us bundle up our books, and bear them bodily to the worm: Hardly we learn to wield the blade before the wrist grows stiff and old; Hardly we learn to ply the pen ere Thought and Fancy faint with cold. Hardly we find the path of love, to sink the self, forget the "I," When sad suspicion grips the heart, when Man, *the* Man, begins to die: Hardly we scale the wisdom heights, and sight the Pisgah scene around, And breathe the breath of heav'nly air, and hear the Spheres' harmonious sound; When swift the Camel rider spans the howling waste, by Kismet sped, And of his Magic Wand a wave hurries the quick to join the dead. How sore the burden, strange the strife; how full of splendor, wonder, fear; Life, atom of that Infinite Space that stretcheth 'twixt the Here and There. How Thought is impotent to divine the secret which the gods defend, Tthe Why of birth and life and death, that Isis veil no hand may rend. Eternal Morrows make our day; our *is* is aye *to be* till when Night closes in; 'tis all a dream, and yet we die,--and then and THEN? And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man Weaving th' unpattern'd dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan. Dost not, O Maker, blush to hear, amid the storm of tears and blood, Man say Thy mercy made what is, and saw the made and said 'twas good? The marvel is that man can smile, dreaming his ghostly ghastly dream;-- Better the heedless atomy that buzzes in the morning beam! O the dread pathos of our lives! how durst thou, Allah, thus to play Wath Love, Affection, Friendship, all that shows the god in mortal clay. But ah! what 'vaileth man to mourn; shall tears bring forth what smiles ne'er brought; Shall brooding breed a thought of joy? Ah hush the sigh, forget the thought! Silence thine immemorial quest, contain thy nature's vain complaint. None heeds, none cares fo rthee or thine-- like thee how many came and went? Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail; enjoy thy shining hour of sun; We dance along Death's icy brink, but is the dance less full of fun? 4. What Truths hath gleamed that Sage consumed by many a moon that waxed and waned? What Prophet strain be his to sing? What hath his old Experience gained? There is no God, no man-made God; a bigger, stronger, crueler man; Black phantom of our baby fears, ere Thought, the life of Life, began. Right quoth the Hindu Prince of old, "An Ishwara for one I nill, Th' almighty everlasting Good who cannot 'bate th' Eternal ill:" "Your Gods may be, what shows they are?" hear China's Perfect Sage declare; "And being, what to us be they who dwell so darkly and so far?" "All matter hath a birth and death; 'tis made, unmade and made anew; "We choose to call the Maker `God'"-- such is the Zahid's owly view. "You changeful finite Creatures strain" (rejoins the Drawer of the Wine) "The dizzy depths of Infinite Power to fathom with yuor foot of twine;" "Poor idols of man's heart and head with the Divine Idea to blend; "To preach as `Nature's Common Course' what any hour may shift or end." "How shall hte Shown pretend to ken aught of the Showman or the Show? "Why meanly bargain t obelieve, which only means thou ne'er canst know? "Howmay the passing Now contain the standing Now--Eternity?-- "An endless *is* without a *was*, the *be* and never the *to be*? "Who made your Maker? If Self made, why fare so far to fare the worse? "Sufficeth not a world of worlds, a self-made chainn of universe? "Grant an Idea, Primal Cause, the Causing Cause, why crave for more? "Why strive its depth and breadth to mete, to trace its work, its aid to 'mplore? "Unknown, Incomprehensible, whate'er you choose to call it, call; "But leave it vague as airy space, dark in its darkness mystical. "Your childish fears would seek a Sire, by the nonhuman God defined, "What your five wits may wot yet weet; what *is* you please to dub `designed'; "You bring down Heav'n to vulgar Earth; your maker like yourselves you make, "You quake to own a reign of Law, you pray the Law its laws to break; "You pray, but hath your thought e'er weighed how empty vain the prayer must be, "That begs a boon already giv'n, or craves a change of law to see? "Say, Man, deep learned in the Scheme that orders mysteries sublime, "How came it this was Jesus, that was Judas from the birth of Time? "How I the tiger, thou the lamb; again the Secret, prithee, show "Who slew the slain, bowman or bolt or Fate tha drave the man, the bow? "Man worships self: his God is Man; the struggling of the mortal mind "To form its model as 'twould be, the perfect of itself to fnid. "The God became sage, priest and scribe where Nilus' serpent made the vale; "A gloomy Brahm in gloowing Ind, a neutral something cold and pale: "Amid the high Chaldean hills a molder of the heavenly spheres; "On Guebre steppes the Timeless God who governs by his dual peers: "In Hebrew tents the Lord that led His leprous slaves to fight and jar; "Yahveh, Adon or Elohim, the God that smites, the Man of War. "The lovely Gods of libertine Greece, those fair and frail humanities "whose homes o'erlooked the Middle Sea, where all Earth's beauty cradled lies, "Ne'er left its blessed bounds, sor sought the barbarous climes of barbarous gods "Where Odin of the dreary North o'er hog and sickly mead cup nods: "And when, at length, `Great Pan is dead' uprose the loud and dol'rous cry "A glamour withered on the ground, a splendor faded in the sky. "Yea, Pan was dead, the Nazarene came and seized his seat beneath the sun, "The votary of the Riddle god, whose one is three and three is one; "Whose sadd'ning creed of herited Sin spilt o'er the world its cold gray spell; "In every vista showed a grave, and 'neath the grave the glare of Hell; "Till all Life's Po'sy sinks to prose; romance to dull Real'ty fades; "Earth's flush of gladness pales in gloom and God again to man degrades. "Then the lank Arab foul with sweat, the drainer of the camel's dug, "Gorged with his leek-green lizard's meat, clad in his filthy rag and rug, "Bore his fierce Allah o'er his sands and broke, like lava burst, upon "The realms where reigned pre-Adamite Kings, where rose the Grand Kayanian throne. "Who now of ancient Kayomurs, of Zal or Rustam cares to sing, "Whelmed by the tempest of the tribes that called the Camel driver King? "Where are the crown of Kay Khusraw, the scepter of Anushirwan, "The holy grail of high Jamshid, Afrasiyab's hall?--Canst tell me, man? "Gone, gone, where I and thou must go, borne by the winnowing wings of Death, "The Horror brooding over life, and nearer brought with every breath: "Their fame hath filled the Seven Climes, they rose and reigned, they fought and fell, "As swells and swoons across the wold the tinkling of the Camel's bell." 5. There is no Good, there is no Bad; these be the whims of mortal will: What works me weal that I call "good," what harms and hurts I hold as "ill": They change with place, they shift with race; and, in the veriest span of Time, Each Vice has won a Virtue's crown; all Good was banned as Sin or Crime: Like raveled skeins they cross and twine, while this with that connects and blends; And only Khizr his eye shall see where one begins, where other ends: What mortal shall consort with Khizr, when Musa turned in fear to flee? What man foresees the flow'r or fruit whom Fate compels to plant the tree? For man's Free Will immortal Law, Anagke, Kismet, Des'tiny read That was, tat is, that aye shall be, Star, Fortune, Fate, Urd, Norn or Need. "Man's nat'ral state is God's design"; such is the silly sage's theme; "Man's primal Aage was Age of gold"; such is the Poet's waking dream: Delusion Ign'rance! Long ere Man drew upon Earth his earli'st breath The world was one contin'ous scene of anguish, torture, prey and Death; Where hideous Theria of the wild rended their fellows limb by limb; Where horrid Saurians of the sea in waves of blood were wont to swim: The "fair young Earth" was only fit to spawn her frightful monster brood; Now fiery hot, now icy frore, now reeking wet with steamy flood. Yon glorious Sun, the greater light, the "Bridegroom" of the royal Lyre, A flaming, boiling, bursting mine; a grim black orb of whirling fire: That gently Moon, the lesser light, the Lover's lamp, the Swain's delight, A ruined world, a globe burnt out, a corpse upon the road of night. What recked he, say, of Good or Ill who in the hill hole made his lair, The blood-fed rav'ning Beast of prey, wilder than wildest wolf or bear? How long in Man's pre-Ad'mite days to feed and swill, to sleep and breed, Were the Brute biped's only life, a perfect life sans Code or Creed? His choicest garb a shaggy fell, his choicest tool a flake of stone; His best of orn'ments tattooed skin and holes to hang his bits of bone; Who fought for female as for food when Mays awoke to warm desire; And such the Lust that grew to Love when Fancy lent a purer fire. Where *then* "Th' Eternal nature law by God engraved on human heart?" Behold his simiad sconce and own the Thing could no higher part. Yet, as long ages rolled, he learned from Beaver, Ape and Ant to build Shelter for sire and dam and brood, from blast and blaze that hurt and killed; And last came Fire; when scrap of stone cast on the flame that lit his den, Gave out the shining ore, and made the Lord of beasts a Lord of men. The "moral sense," your Zahid phrase, is but the gift of latest years; Conscience was born when man had shed his fur, his tail, his pointed ears. What conscience has the murd'rous Moor, who slays his guest with felon blow, Save sorrow he can slay no more, what prick of pen'tence can he know? You cry the "Cruelty of Things" is myst'ry to your purblind eye, Which fixed upon a point in space the general project passes by: For see! the Mammoth went his ways, became a mem'ry and a name; While the half reas'ner, with the hand survives his rank and place to claim. Earthquake and plague, storm, flight and fray, portents and curses man must deem Since he regards his self alone, nor cares to trace the scope, the scheme; The Quake that comes in eyelid's beat to ruin, level, 'gulf and kill, Builds up a world for better use, to general Good bends special Ill: The dreadest sound man's ear can hear, the war and rush of stormy Wind Depures the stuff of human life, breeds health and strength for humankind: What call ye them or Goods or Ills, ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain, When realms arise and falls a roof; a world is won, a man is slain? And thus the race of Being runs, till haply in the time to be Earth shifts he rpole and Mushtari men Another falling star shall see: Shall see it fall and fade from sight, whence come, where gone no Thought can tell,-- Drink of yon mirage stream and chase the tinkling of the camel bell! 6. All Faith is false, all Faith is true: Truth is the shattered mirror strown In myriad bits; while each believes his little bit the whole to own. What is the Truth? was asked of yore. Reply all object Truth is one As twain of halves aye make a whole; the moral Truth for all is none. Ye scantly learned Zahids learn from Aflatun and Aristu, While Truth is real like your good: th' Untrue, like ill, is real too; As palace mirrored in the stream, as vapor mingled with the skies So weaves the brain of mortal man the tangled web of Truth and Lies. What see we here? Forms, nothing more! Forms fill the brightest, strongest eye, We know not substance; 'mid the shades shadows ourselves we live and die. "Faith mountains move" I hear: I see the practice of the world unheed The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast that serves our vanity to feed. "Faith stands unmoved"; and why? Because man's silly fancies still remain, And will remain till wiser man the day dreams of his youth disdain. "'Tis blessed to believe"; you say: The saying may be true enow And it can add to Life a light:-- only remains to show us how. E'en if I could I nould believe you rtales and fables stale and trite, Irksome as twice-sung tune that tires the dulled ear of drowsy wight. With God's foreknowledge man's free will! what monster growth of human brain, What pow'rs of light shall ever pierce this puzzle dense with words inane? Vainly the heart of Providence calls, such aid to seek were hardly wise For man must own the pitiless Law that sways the globe and sevenfold skies. "Be ye Good Boys, go seek fo Heav'n, come pay the priest that holds the key"; So spake, and speaks, and aye shall speak the last to entery Heaven,--he. Are these the words for men to hear? yet such the Church's general tongue, The horseleech cry so strong so high her heav'nward Psalms and Hymns among. What? Faith a merit and a claim, when with the brain 'tis born and bred? Go, fool, thy foolish way and dip in holy water buried dead! Yet follow not th' unwisdomm path, cleave not to this and that disclaim; Believe in all that man believes; here all and naught are both the same. But is it so? How may we know? Haply this Fate, this Law may be A word, a sound, a breath; at most the Zahid's moonstruck theory. Yes Truth may be, but 'tis not Here; mankind must seek and find it There, But Where nor *I* nor *you* can tell, nor aught earth mother ever bare. Enough to think that Truth can be: come sit we where the roses glow, Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to 'nknow. 7. Man hath no Soul, a state of things, a no-thing still, a sound, a word Which so begets substantial thnig that eye shall see what ear hath heard. Where was his Soul the savage beast Which in primeval forests strayed, What shape had it, what dwelling place, what part in nature's plan it played? This Soul to ree a riddle made; who wants the vain duality? Is not myself enough for me? what need of "I" within an "I"? Words, words that gender things! The Soul is a newcomer on the scene; Sufficeth not the breath of Life to work the matter-born machine? We know the Gen'sis of the Soul; we trace the Soul to hour of birth; We mark its growth as grew mankind to boast himself sole Lord of Earth: The race of Be'ng from dawn of Life in an unbroken course was run; What men are pleased to call their Souls was in the hog and dog begun: Life is a ladder infinite stepped, that hides its rungs from human eyes; Planted its foot in chaos gloom, its head soars high above the skies: No break the chain of Being bears; all things began in unity; And lie the links in regular line though haply none the sequence see. The Ghost, embodied natural Dread of dreary death and foul decay, Begat the Spirit, Soul and Shade with Hades' pale and wan array. The Soul required a greater Soul, a Soul of Souls, to rule the host; Hence spirit powers and hierarchies, all genedered by the savage Ghost. Not yours, ye Peoples of the Book, these fairy visions fair and fond, Got by the gods of Khemi-land and faring far the seas beyond! "Th' immortal mind of mortal man!" we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry; Whose mind but means his sum of thought, an essence of atomic "I." Thought is the work of brain and nerve, in small-skulled idiot poor and mean; In sickness sick, in sleep asleep, and dead when Death lets drop the scene. "Tush!" quoth the Zahid, "well we ken the teaching of the school abhorred "That maketh man automaton mind a secretion, soul a word." "Of molecules and protoplasm you matter mongres prompt to prate; "Of jelly-speck development and apes that grew to man's estate." Vain cavil! all that is hath come either by Mir'cle or by Law;-- Why waste on this your hate and fear, why waste on that your love and awe? Why heap such hatred on a word, why "Prototype" to type assign, Why upon matter spirit mass? Wants an appendix your design? Is not the highest honor his who from the worst hath drawn the best; May not your Maker make the world from matter, an it suit His hest? Nay more, the sordier the stuff the cunninger the workman's hand Cease, then, your own Almighty Power to bind, to bound, to understand. "Reason and Instinct!" How we love to play with words tha tplease our pride; Our noble race's mean descent by false forged titles seek to hide! For "gift divine" I bid you read the better work of higher brain, From Instinct diff'ring in degree as golden mine from leaden vein. Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Lab'rinth's single clue; Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true "Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!" Angels and Fools have equal claim To do what Nature bids them do, sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame! 8. There is no Heav'n, there is no Hell; these be the dreams of baby minds; Tools of the wily Fetisheer, to 'fright the folls his cunning blinds. Learn from the mighty Spir'ts of old to set thy foot on Heav'n and Hell; In Life to find thy hell and heav'n as thou abuse or use it well. So deemed the doughty Jew who dared by studied silence low to lay Orcus and Hades, lands of shades, the gloomy night of human day. Hard to the heart is final death: fain would an *Ens* not end in *Nil*; Love made the sent'ment kindly good: the Priest perverted all to ill. While Reason sternly bids us die, Love longs for life beyond the grave: Our hearts, affections, hopes and fears for life to be shall ever crave. Hence came the despot's darling dream, a Church to rule and sway the State; Hence sprang the train of countless griefs in priestly sway and rule innate. For future Life who dares reply? No witness at the bar have we; Save what the brother Potsherd tells,-- old tales and novel jugglery. Who e'er returned to teach the Truth, the things of Heaven and Hell to Limn? And all we hear is only fit for grandam talk and nursery hymn. "Have mercy, man!" the Zahid cries, "of our best visions rob us not! "Mankind a future life must have to balance life's unequal lot." "Nay," quoth the Magian, "'tis not so; I draw my wine for one adn all, "A cup for this a score for that, e'en as his measure's great or small: "Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; to poorest passion he was born; "Who drains the score must e'er expect to rue the headache of the morn." Safely he jogs along the way which `Golden Mean' the sages call; Who scales the brow of frowning Alp must face full many a slip and fall. Here extremes meet, anointed Kings whose crowned heads uneasy lie, Whose cup of joy contains no more than tramps that on the dunghill die. To fate-doomed Sinner born and bred for dangling form the gallows tree; To Saint who spends his holy days in rapt'rous hope his God to see; To all that breathe our upper air the hands of Dest'ny ever deal, In fixed and equal parts, their shares of joy and sorrow, woe and weal. "How comes it, then, our span of days in hunting wealth and fame we spend? "Why strive we (and all humans strive) for vain and visionary end?" Reply: mankind obeys a law that bids him labor, struggle, strain; The Sage well knowing its unworth, the Fool a-dreaming foolish gain. And who, 'mid e'en the Fools, but feels that half the joy is in the race For wealth and fame and place, nor sighs when comes success to crown the chase? Again: in Hind, Chin, Franguestan that accident of birth befell, Without our choice, our will, our voice: Faith is an accident as well. What to the Hindu saith the Frank: "Denier of the Laws divine! "However godly good thy Life, Hell is the home for thee and thine." "Go strain the draught before 'tis drunk, and learn that breathing every breath, "With every step, with every gest, something of life thou do'st to death." Replies the Hindu: "Wend thy way for foul and foolish Mlenchhas fit; "Your Pariah par'dise woo and win; at such dog Heav'n I laugh and spit. "Cannibals of the Holy Cow! who make your rav'ning maws the grave "Of Things with self-same right to live; what Fiend the filthy license gave?" What to the Moslem cries the Frank? "A polygamic Theist thou! "From an imposter Prophet turn; Thy stubborn head to Jesus bow." Rejoins the Moslem: "Allah's one though with four Moslemahs I wive, "One-wife-men ye and (damned race!) your split your God to Three and Five." The Buddhist to Confucius thus: "Like dogs ye live, like dogs ye die; "Content ye rest with wretched earth; God, Judgement, Hell ye fain defy." Retorts the Tartar: "Shall I lend mine only ready money `now,' "For vain usurious `Then' like thine, avaunt, a triple idiot Thou!" "With this poor life, with this mean world I fain complete what in me lies; "I strive to perfect this my me; my sole ambition's to be wise." When doctors differ who decides amid the milliard-headed throng? Who save the madman dares to cry: "'Tis I am right, you all are wrong?" "You all are right, you all are wrong," we hear the careless Soofi say, "For each believes his glimm'ring lamp to be the gorgeous light of day." "*Thy* faith why false, *my* faith why true? 'tis all the work of Thine and Mine, "The fond and foolish love of self that makes the Mine excel the Thine." Cease then to mumble rotten bones; and strive to clothe with flesh and blood The skel'ton; and to shape a Form that all shall hail as fair and good. "For gen'rous youth," an Arab saith, "Jahim's the only genial state; "Give us the fire but not the shame with the sad, sorry blest to mate." And if your Heav'n and Hell be true, and Fate that forced me to be born Force me to Heav'n or Hell--I go, and hold Fate's insolence in scorn. I want not this, I want not that already sick of Me and Thee; And if we're both transformed and changed, what then becomes of Thee and Me? Enough to think such things may be; to say they are not or they are Were folly: leave them all to Fate, nor wage on shadows useless war. Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his selfmade laws. All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell, A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel bell. 9. How then shall man so order life that when his tale of years is told, Like sated guest he wend his way; how shall his even tenor hold? Despite the Write that stores the skull; despite the Table and the Pen; Mauger the Fate that plays us down, her board the world, her pieces men? How when the light and glow of life wax dim in thickly gath'ring gloom, Shall mortal scoff at sting of death, shall scorn the victory of the Tomb? One way, two paths, one end the grave. This runs athwart the flow'ry plain, That breasts the bush, the steep, the crag, in sun and wind and snow and rain: Who treads the first must look adown, must deem his life an all-in-all; Must see no heights where man may rise, must sight no depths where man may fall. Allah in Adam form must view; adore the Maker in the made Content to bask in Maya's smile, in joys of pain, in lights of shade. He breaks the Law, he burns the Book, he sends the Moolah back to school; Laughs at the beards of Saintly men; and dubs the prophet dolt and fool, Embraces Cypress' taper waist; cools feet on wavy breast of rill; Smiles in the Nargis' love-lorn eyes, and 'joys the dance of Daffodil; Melts in the saffron light of Dawn to hear the moaning of the Dove; Delights in Sundow's purpling hues when Bulbul woos the Rose's love. Finds mirth and joy in Jamshid bowl; toys with the Daughter of the vine; And bids the beauteous cup boy say, "Master I bring the ruby wine!" Sips from the maiden's lips the dew; brushes the bloom from virgin brow;-- Such is his fleshly bliss that strives the Maker through the Made to know. I've tried them all, I find them all so same and tame, so drear, so dry; My gorge ariseth at the thought; I commune with myself and cry:-- Better the myriad toils and pains that make the man to manhood true, This be the rule that guideth life; these be the laws for me and you: With Ign'rance wage eternal war, to know thyself forever strain, Thine ignorance of thine ignorance is thy fiercest foe, thy deadliest bane; That blunts thy sense, and dulls thy taste; that deafs thine ears, and blinds thine eyes; Creates the thing that never was, the Thing that ever is defies. The finite Atom infinite that forms thy circle's center dot, So full-sufficient for itself, for other selves existing not, Finds the world mighty as 'tis small; yet must be fought the unequal fray; A myriad giants here; and there a pinch of dust, a clod of clay. Yes! mauger all the dreams of peace still must the fight unfair be fought; where thou mayst learn the noblest lore to know that all we know is nought. True to thy Nature, to Thy self, Fame and Disfame nor hope nor fear: Enough to thee the small still voice aye thund'ring in thine inner ear. From self-approval seek applause; What ken not men though kennest, thou! Spurn ev'ry idol others raise: Before htine own Ideal bow: Be thine own Deus: Make self free, liberal as the circling air: Thy Thought to thee an Emperor be; break every pris'ning lock and bar: Do thou the Ought to self aye owed; here all the duties meet and blend, In widest sense, withouten care of what began, for what shall end. Thus, as though view the Phantom forms which in the misty Past were thine, To be again the thing thou wast with honest pride th may'st decline; And, glancing down the range of years; fear not thy future self to see; Resigned to life, to death resigned, as though the choice were nought to thee. On Thought itself feed not thy thought; nor turn from Sun and Light to gaze, At darkling cloisters paved with tombs, where rot the bones of bygone days: "Eat not thy heart," the Sages said; "nor mourn the Past, the buried Past"; Do what thou dost, be strong, be brave; and, like the Star, nor rest nor haste. Pluck the old woman from thy breast: Be stout in woe, be stark in weal; Do good for Good is good to do: Spurn bride of Heav'n and threat of Hell. To seek the True, to glad the heart, such is of life the HIGHER LAW, Whose differ'nce is the Man's degree, the Man of gold, the Man of straw. See not that something in Mankind that rouses hate or scorn or strife, Better the worm of Izrail than Death that walks in form of life. Survey thy kind as One whose wants in the great Human Whole unite; The Homo rising high from earth to seek the Heav'ns of Life-in-Light; And hold Humanity one man, whose universal agnoy Still strains and strives to gain the goal where agonies shall cease to be. Believe in all things; none believe; judge not nor warp by "Facts" the thought; See clear, hear clear, though life may seem Maya and Mirage, Dream and Naught. Abjure the Why and seek the How: the God and gods enthroned on high, Are silent all, are silent still; nor hear thy voice, nor deign reply. The Now, that indivis'ble point which studs the length of inf'nite line Whose ends are nowhere, is thine all, the puny all thou callest thine. Perchance the law some Giver hath: Let be! let be! what canst thou know? A myriad races came and went; this Sphinx hath seen them come and go. Haply the Law that rules the world allows man the widest range; And haply Fate's a Theist word, subject to human chance and change. This "I" may find a future Life, a nobler copy of our own, Where every riddle shall be ree'd where every knowledge shall be known; Where 'twill be man's to see the whole of what on Earth he sees in part; Where change shall ne'er surcharge the thought; nor hope deferred shall hurt the heart. But!--faded flow'r and fallen leaf no more shall deck the parent tree; And man once dropped by Tree of Life what hope of other life has he? The shattered bowl shall know repair; the riven lute shall sound once more; But who shall mend the clay of man? the stolen breath to man restore? The shivered clock again shall strike; the broken reed shall pipe again: But we, we die, and death is one, the doom of brutes the doom of men. Then, if Nirwana round our life with nothingness, 'tis haply best; Thy toils and troubles, want and woe at length have won the guerdon--Rest. Cease, Abdu, cease! Thy song is sung, nor think the gain the singer's prize; Till men hold Ign'rance deadly sin, till man deserves his title "Wise:" In Days to come, Days slow to dawn, when Wisdom deigns to dwell with men, These echoes of a voice long stilled haply shall wake responsive strain: Wend now thy way with brow serene, fear not thy humble tale to tell;-- The whispers of the Desert wind; the tinkling of the camel's bell. GLOSSARY -------- `Aflatun' Plato. `Allah's Holy Hill' Arafat, near Mecca. `Amran's Son' Moses, in the Koran. `Aristu' Aristotle. `Bard of Love and Wine' Hafiz of Shiraz. `Camel Rider' Death in Arabia rides a camel, not a pale horse. `Chin' China. `China's Perfect Sage' Confucius. `Drawer of the Wine' The Soofi or Gnostic, opposed to the Zahid. `Franguestan' Europe. `Ghoul' The Demon of the Desert. `Hind' India. `Hindu Prince' Buddha `Isa' Jesus, the Mohammedan name. `Izrail' The Angel of Death. `Jahim' Jehannum, Gehenna, Hell. `Kayanian' Of the race of Cyprus, old Gueber heroes. `Kismet' Fate. `Khizr' Supposed to be the prophet Elijah. `Khemi Land' Egypt; Kam, Kem, Khem (hierogl.), in the Demotic, Khemi. `Mansur' A famous Mystic stoned for blasphemy. `Maya's smile' Illusion. `Musa' Moses. `Mushtari' The planet Jupiter. `Nirwana' Comparative annihilation. `Shinar plain' Site of the tower of Babel. `Table and the Pen' Emblems of Kismet, or Destiny. `Two Eternities' Azal, eternity without beginning; and Abad, eternity without end. "Wise." "Home [sic] Sapiens." `Wolf tail' The false dawn. `Yahveh' Jehovah. `Zahid' The "Philister" of "respectable" belief (2). Religious, monkish (5).