 | The poems of Richard Henry Stoddard |  |
[The flying of the arrow]
“The flying of the arrow
In the air;
The shifting of the shuttle
In the loom;
The sinking of the water
In the sand;
The passing from the cradle
To the tomb;
Tell me, Sufi, tell me, is it all?
In the air;
The shifting of the shuttle
In the loom;
389
In the sand;
The passing from the cradle
To the tomb;
Tell me, Sufi, tell me, is it all?
What the bow that shoots us
Into life?
Where the loom that throws us
To and fro?
Whose the hands that spills us
Into death?
What in the making mars us
Here below?
O tell me, tell me, Sufi, what it is!”
Into life?
Where the loom that throws us
To and fro?
Whose the hands that spills us
Into death?
What in the making mars us
Here below?
O tell me, tell me, Sufi, what it is!”
“I see the arrow flying,
Not what sends it,
The bow that shoots it hither,
And who bends it;
I see the shuttle shifting,
Not what throws it,
The weaver who begun it,
And will close it;
I see the water sinking,
Not what spills it;
The emptied pitcher filling,
And who fills it;
But where the arrow flieth,
And what the loom is weaving,
And where the water sinketh,
I do not see at all.
What in the cradle lieth,
And what it is that thinketh,
And what it is that dieth,
The living and the leaving,
I do not know at all.
Perhaps it is not, Hadje,
Perhaps it does but seem:
The shadow of a vanished cloud
On a troubled stream;
What some Power remembers—the Phantom of its Dream!”
Not what sends it,
The bow that shoots it hither,
And who bends it;
I see the shuttle shifting,
Not what throws it,
The weaver who begun it,
And will close it;
I see the water sinking,
Not what spills it;
The emptied pitcher filling,
And who fills it;
But where the arrow flieth,
And what the loom is weaving,
And where the water sinketh,
I do not see at all.
What in the cradle lieth,
And what it is that thinketh,
And what it is that dieth,
390
I do not know at all.
Perhaps it is not, Hadje,
Perhaps it does but seem:
The shadow of a vanished cloud
On a troubled stream;
What some Power remembers—the Phantom of its Dream!”
| The poems of Richard Henry Stoddard | |