Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald ::

Letters and Literary Remains of Edward Fitzgerald

Edited by William Aldis Wright: In seven volumes

FitzGerald, Edward (1809-1883)

VOL. I.

VI.

VOL. VI.

VII.

VOL. VII

RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM

SALÁMÁN AND ABSÁL

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF FARÍD-UDDÍN ATTAR'S BIRD-PARLIAMENT

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VII. VOL. VII

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Square brackets indicate editorial insertions or emendations.

RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM

FIRST EDITION 1859

I

Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

Flinging a Stone into the Cup was the Signal for ‘To Horse!’ in the Desert.

And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultán's Turret in a Noose of Light.

II

Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky

The ‘False Dawn;’ Subhi Kházib, a transient Light on the Horizon about an hour before the Subhi sâdhik, or True Dawn; a well-known Phenomenon in the East. The Persians call the Morning Gray, or Dusk, ‘Wolf-and-Sheep-While.’ ‘Almost at odds with, which is which.’

I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
‘Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry.’

III

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted—‘Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.’

IV

Now the New Year reviving old Desires,

New Year. Beginning with the Vernal Equinox, it must be remembered; and (howsoever the old Solar Year is practically superseded by the clumsy Lunar Year that dates from the Mohammedan Hijra) still commemorated by a Festival that is said to have been appointed by the very Jamshyd whom Omar so often talks of, and whose yearly Calendar he helped to rectify.

‘The sudden approach and rapid advance of the Spring’ (says a late Traveller in Persia) ‘are very striking. Before the Snow is well off the Ground, the Trees burst into Blossom, and the Flowers start from the Soil. At Now Rooz (their New Year's Day) the Snow was lying in patches on the Hills and in the shaded Vallies, while the Fruit-trees in the Garden were budding beautifully, and green Plants and Flowers springing upon the Plains on every side—

‘And on old Hyem's Chin and icy Crown
An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set------’—

Among the Plants newly appear'd I recognized some old Acquaintances I had not seen for many a Year: among these, two varieties of the Thistle; a coarse species of the Daisy, like the Horse-gowan; red and white Clover; the Dock; the blue Corn-flower; and that vulgar Herb the Dandelion rearing its yellow crest on the Banks of the Watercourses.’ The Nightingale was not yet heard, for the Rose was not yet blown; but an almost identical Blackbird and Woodpecker helped to make up something of a North-country Spring.

The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough

Exodus iv. 6; where Moses draws forth his Hand—not, according to the Persians, ‘leprous as Snow,’—but white as our May-Blossom in Spring perhaps! According to them also the Healing Power of Jesus resided in his Breath.

Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

V

Irám indeed is gone with all its Rose,

Irám, planted by King Schedad, and now sunk somewhere in the Sands of Arabia. Jamshyd's Seven-ring'd Cup was typical of the Seven Heavens, 7 Planets, 7 Seas, etc. and was a Divining Cup.

And Jamshýd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows;
But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.

VI

And David's Lips are lockt; but in divine
High piping Pehleví, with ‘Wine! Wine! Wine!

Péhlevi, the old Heroic Sanskrit of Persia. Háfiz also speaks of the Nightingale's Péhlevi, which did not change with the People's.

Red Wine!’—the Nightingale cries to the Rose

I am not sure if this refers to the Red Rose looking sickly, or the Yellow Rose that ought to be Red; Red, White, and Yellow Roses all common in Persia.

That yellow Cheek of her's to'incarnadine.

VII

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

VIII

And look—a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke—and a thousand scatter'd into Clay:
And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshýd and Kaikobád away.

IX

But come with old Khayyám, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobád and Kaikhosrú forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,

Rustum, the ‘Hercules’ of Persia, whose exploits are among the most celebrated in the Shah-náma. Hátim Tai, a well-known Type of Oriental Generosity.

Or Hátim Tai cry Supper—heed them not.

X

With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultán scarce is known,
And pity Sultán Máhmúd on his Throne.

XI

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

XII

‘How sweet is mortal Sovranty!’—think some:
Others—‘How blest the Paradise to come!’
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!

A Drum—beaten outside a Palace.

XIII

Look to the Rose that blows about us—‘Lo,

That is, the Rose's Golden Centre.

Laughing,’ she says, ‘into the World I blow:
At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.’

XIV

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone.

XV

And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

XVI

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.

XVII

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshýd gloried and drank deep;

Persepolis: call'd also Takht'i Jamshyd—The Throne of Jamshyd, ‘King-Splendid,’ of the mythical Peeshdádian Dynasty, and supposed (with Shah-náma Authority) to have been founded and built by him, though others refer it to the Work of the Genie King, Ján Ibn Jann, who also built the Pyramids before the time of Adam. It is also called Chehl-minar—Forty-column; which is Persian, probably, for Column-countless; the Hall they adorned or supported with their Lotus Base and taurine Capital indicating double that Number, though now counted down to less than half by Earthquake and other Inroad. By whomsoever built, unquestionably the Monument of a long-extinguished Dynasty and Mythology; its Halls, Chambers and Galleries, inscribed with Arrow-head Characters, and sculptured with colossal, wing'd, half-human Figures like those of Nimroud; Processions of Priests and Warriors —(doubtful if any where a Woman)—and Kings sitting on Thrones or in Chariots, Staff or Lotus-flower in hand, and the Ferooher— Symbol of Existence—with his wing'd Globe, common also to Assyria and Ægypt—over their heads. All this, together with Aqueduct and Cistern, and other Appurtenance of a Royal Palace, upon a Terrace-platform, ascended by a double Flight of Stairs that may be gallop'd up, and cut out of and into the Rock-side of the Koh'i Ráhmet, Mountain of Mercy, where the old Fire-worshipping Sovereigns are buried, and overlooking the Plain of Merdasht.

Persians, like some other People, it seems, love to write their own Names, with sometimes a Verse or two, on their Country's Monuments. Mr. Binning (from whose sensible Travels the foregoing Account is mainly condens't) found several such in Persepolis; in one Place a fine Line of Háfiz: in another ‘an original, no doubt,’ he says, ‘by no great Poet,’ however ‘right in his Sentiment.’ The Words somehow looked to us, and the ‘halting metre’ sounded, familiar; and on looking back at last among the 500 Rubáyiát of the Calcutta Omar MS.—there it is: old Omar quoted by one of his Countrymen, and here turned into hasty Rhyme, at any rate—

‘This Palace that its Top to Heaven threw,
And Kings their Forehead on its Threshold drew—
I saw a Ring-dove sitting there alone,
And “Coo, Coo, Coo,” she cried, and “Coo, Coo, Coo.”’

So as it seems the Persian speaks the English Ring-dove's Péhlevi, which is also articulate Persian for ‘Where?’

Bahrám Gúr—Bahrám of the Wild Ass, from his Fame in hunting it—a Sassanian Sovereign, had also his Seven Castles (like the King of Bohemia!) each of a different Colour; each with a Royal Mistress within side; each of whom recounts to Bahrám a Romance, according to one of the most famous Poems of Persia, written by Amír Khusraw: these Sevens also figuring (according to Eastern Mysticism) the Seven Heavens, and perhaps the Book itself that Eighth, into which the mystical Seven transcend, and within which they revolve. The Ruins of Three of these Towers are yet shown by the Peasantry; as also the Swamp in which Bahrám sunk, like the Master of Ravenswood, while pursuing his Gúr.

And Bahrám, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.

XVIII

I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.

XIX

And this delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean—
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XX

Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears—
To-morrow?—Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.

A Thousand Years to each Planet.

XXI

Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to Rest.

XXII

And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?

XXIII

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!

XXIV

Alike for those who for To-day prepare,
And those that after a To-morrow stare,
A Muezzín from the Tower of Darkness cries
‘Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There!’

XXV

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

XXVI

Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

XXVII

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

XXVIII

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd—
‘I came like Water, and like Wind I go.’

XXIX

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

XXX

What, without asking, hither hurried whence?
And, without asking, whither hurried hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory of this Impertinence!

XXXI

Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,

Saturn, Lord of the Seventh Heaven.

And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.

XXXII

There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of Me and Thee

Me and Thee; that is, some Dividual Existence or Personality apart from the Whole.

There seem'd—and then no more of Thee and Me.

XXXIII

Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, ‘What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?’
And—‘A blind Understanding!’ Heav'n replied.

XXXIV

Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd—‘While you live
Drink!—for once dead you never shall return.’

XXXV

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss'd
How many Kisses might it take—and give!

XXXVI

For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd—‘Gently, Brother, gently, pray!’

XXXVII

Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!

XXXVIII

One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,
One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting and the Caravan

The Caravan travelling by Night (after their New Year's Day of the Vernal Equinox) by command of Mohammed, I believe.

Starts for the Dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!

XXXIX

How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute?
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

XL

You know, my Friends, how long since in my House
For a new Marriage I did make Carouse:
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

XLI

A Laugh at his Mathematics perhaps.

For ‘Is’ and ‘Is-not’ though with Rule and Line,
And ‘Up-and-down’ without, I could define,
I yet in all I only cared to know,
Was never deep in anything but—Wine.

XLII

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas—the Grape!

XLIII

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:

The 72 Sects into which Islamism so soon split.

The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute.

XLIV

The mighty Mahmúd, the victorious Lord,

This alludes to Mahmúd's Conquest of India and its swarthy Idolaters.

That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters and slays with his enchanted Sword.

XLV

But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.

XLVI

For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,

Fanúsi khiyál, a Magic-lanthorn still used in India; the cylindrical Interior being painted with various Figures, and so lightly poised and ventilated as to revolve round the Candle lighted within.

Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

XLVII

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in—Yes—
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be—Nothing—Thou shalt not be less.

XLVIII

While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyám the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to Thee—take that, and do not shrink.

XLIX

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

L

A very mysterious Line in the original;
U dánad u dánad u dánad u—
breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon's Note, which she is said to take up just where she left off.

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd Thee down into the Field,
He knows about it all—He knows—HE knows!

LI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

LII

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coopt we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help—for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

LIII

With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man's knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

LIV

I tell Thee this—When, starting from the Goal,
Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal
Of Heav'n Parwín and Mushtara they flung,

Parwín and Mushtara—The Pleiads and Jupiter.

In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul

LV

The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about
If clings my Being—let the Súfi flout;
Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

LVI

And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite,
One glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.

LVII

Oh Thou, who didst with Pitfall and with Gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin!

LVIII

Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give—and take!

KÚZA-NÁMA.

LIX

Listen again. One evening at the Close
Of Ramazán, ere the better Moon arose,
In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone
With the clay Population round in Rows.

LX

And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried—
‘Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?’

LXI

Then said another—‘Surely not in vain
My Substance from the common Earth was ta'en,
That He who subtly wrought me into Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again.’

LXII

Another said—‘Why, ne'er a peevish Boy,
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;
Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love
And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy!’

LXIII

None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
‘They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?’

LXIV

Said one—‘Folks of a surly Tapster tell,
And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell;
They talk of some strict Testing of us—Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well.’

LXV

Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh,
‘My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
But, fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-bye!’

LXVI

So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
One spied the little Crescent all were seeking:

At the Close of the Fasting Month, Ramazán (which makes the Musulman unhealthy and unamiable), the first Glimpse of the New Moon (who rules their Division of the Year) is looked for with the utmost Anxiety, and hailed with all Acclamation. Then it is that the Porter's Knot may be heard toward the Cellar, perhaps. Old Omar has elsewhere a pretty Quatrain about this same Moon—

‘Be of Good Cheer—the sullen Month will die,
And a young Moon requite us by and bye:
Look how the Old one meagre, bent, and wan
With Age and Fast, is fainting from the Sky!’

And then they jogg'd each other, ‘Brother! Brother!
Hark to the Porter's Shoulder-knot a-creaking!’

LXVII

Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash my Body whence the Life has died,
And in a Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt,
So bury me by some sweet Garden-side.

LXVIII

That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare
Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air,
As not a True Believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.

LXIX

Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong:
Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.

LXX

Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore—but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.

LXXI

And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour—well,
I often wonder what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.

LXXII

Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

LXXIII

Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

LXXIV

Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me—in vain!

LXXV

And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one—turn down an empty Glass!

TAMÁM SHUD

133

RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM

FOURTH EDITION 1879

147

I

Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n, and strikes
The Sultán's Turret with a Shaft of Light.

II

Before the phantom of False morning died,

The ‘False Dawn’; Subhi Kázib, a transient Light on the Horizon about an hour before the Subhi sádik, or True Dawn; a well-known Phenomenon in the East.

Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
‘When all the Temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?’

III

And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted—‘Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more.’

148

IV

Now the New Year reviving old Desires,

‘The sudden approach and rapid advance of the Spring,’ says Mr. Binning, ‘are very striking. Before the Snow is well off the Ground, the Trees burst into Blossom, and the Flowers start forth from the Soil. At Now Rooz [their New Year's Day] the Snow was lying in patches on the Hills and in the shaded Vallies, while the Fruit-trees in the Gardens were budding beautifully, and green Plants and Flowers springing up on the Plains on every side—

“And on old Hyems' Chin and icy Crown
An odorous Chaplet of sweet Summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set.”—

Among the Plants newly appeared I recognised some old Acquaintances I had not seen for many a Year: among these, two varieties of the Thistle—a coarse species of Daisy like the “Horse-gowan” —red and white Clover—the Dock—the blue Corn-flower—and that vulgar Herb the Dandelion rearing its yellow crest on the Banks of the Water-courses.’ The Nightingale was not yet heard, for the Rose was not yet blown: but an almost identical Blackbird and Woodpecker helped to make up something of a North-country Spring.

‘The White Hand of Moses.’ Exodus iv. 6; where Moses draws forth his Hand—not, according to the Persians, ‘leprous as Snow,’—but white, as our May-blossom in Spring perhaps. According to them also the Healing Power of Jesus resided in His Breath.

The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

V

Iram indeed is gone with all his Rose,

Iram, planted by King Shaddád, and now sunk somewhere in the Sands of Arabia. Jamshyd's Seven-ring'd Cup was typical of the 7 Heavens, 7 Planets, 7 Seas, etc., and was a Divining Cup.

And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows;
But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine,
And many a Garden by the Water blows.

VI

And David's lips are lockt; but in divine
High-piping Pehleví, with ‘Wine! Wine! Wine!

Pehleví, the old Heroic Sanskrit of Persia. Háfiz also speaks of the Nightingale's Pehleví, which did not change with the People's.

I am not sure if the fourth line refers to the Red Rose looking sickly, or to the Yellow Rose that ought to be Red; Red, White, and Yellow Roses all common in Persia. I think that Southey, in his Common-Place Book, quotes from some Spanish author about the Rose being White till 10 o'clock; ‘Rosa Perfecta’ at 2; and ‘perfecta incarnada’ at 5.

Red Wine!’—the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That sallow cheek of hers to' incarnadine.

VII

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.

VIII

Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

149

IX

Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say;
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobád away.

X

Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Kaikobád the Great, or Kaikhosrú?
Let Zál and Rustum bluster as they will,

Rustum, the ‘Hercules’ of Persia, and Zál his Father, whose exploits are among the most celebrated in the Sháh-náma. Hátim Tai, a well-known type of Oriental Generosity.

Or Hátim call to Supper—heed not you.

XI

With me along the strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultán is forgot—
And Peace to Mahmúd on his golden Throne!

XII

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

XIII

Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

A Drum—beaten outside a Palace.

150

XIV

Look to the blowing Rose about us—‘Lo,

That is, the Rose's Golden Centre.

Laughing,’ she says, ‘into the world I blow,
At once the silken tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.’

XV

And those who husbanded the Golden grain,
And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

XVI

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.

XVII

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.

XVIII

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:

Persepolis: call'd also Takht-i-Jamshyd—The Throne of Jamshyd, ‘King Splendid,’ of the mythical Peshdádian Dynasty, and supposed (according to the Sháh-náma) to have been founded and built by him. Others refer it to the Work of the Genie King, Ján Ibn Ján—who also built the Pyramids—before the time of Adam.

Bahrám Gúr—Bahram of the Wild Ass—a Sassanian Sovereign —had also his Seven Castles (like the King of Bohemia!) each of a different Colour: each with a Royal Mistress within; each of whom tells him a Story, as told in one of the most famous Poems of Persia, written by Amír Khusraw: all these Sevens also figuring (according to Eastern Mysticism) the Seven Heavens; and perhaps the Book itself that Eighth, into which the Mystical Seven transcend, and within which they revolve. The Ruins of Three of those Towers are yet shown by the Peasantry; as also the Swamp in which Bahrám sunk, like the Master of Ravenswood, while pursuing his Gúr.

The Palace that to Heav'n his pillars threw,
And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew—
I saw the solitary Ringdove there,
And ‘Coo, coo, coo,’ she cried; and ‘Coo, coo, coo.’

This Quatrain Mr. Binning found, among several of Háfiz and others, inscribed by some stray hand among the ruins of Persepolis. The Ringdove's ancient Pehleví Coo, Coo, Coo, signifies also in Persian ‘Where? Where? Where?’ In Attáar's ‘Bird-parliament’ she is reproved by the Leader of the Birds for sitting still, and for ever harping on that one note of lamentation for her lost Yúsuf.

Apropos of Omar's Red Roses in Stanza xix., I am reminded of an old English superstition, that our Anemone Pulsatilla, or purple ‘Pasque Flower’ (which grows plentifully about the Fleam Dyke, near Cambridge), grows only where Danish blood has been spilt.

And Bahrám, that great Hunter—the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

151

XIX

I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

XX

And this reviving Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean—
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XXI

Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and Future Fears:
To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

A thousand years to each Planet.

XXII

For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest.

XXIII

And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend—ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?

152

XXIV

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!

XXV

Alike for those who for To-day prepare,
And those that after some To-morrow stare,
A Muezzín from the Tower of Darkness cries,
‘Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There.’

XXVI

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so wisely—they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

XXVII

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.

XXVIII

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd—
‘I came like Water, and like Wind I go.’

153

XXIX

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

XXX

What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?
And, without asking, Whither hurried hence!
Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence!

XXXI

Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate;

Saturn, Lord of the Seventh Heaven.

And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.

XXXII

There was the Door to which I found no Key;
There was the Veil through which I might not see:
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee

Me-and-Thee: some dividual Existence or Personality distinct from the Whole.

There was—and then no more of Thee and Me.

XXXIII

Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn;
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd
And hidden by the sleeve of Night and Morn.

154

XXXIV

Then of the Thee in Me who works behind
The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find
A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,
As from Without—‘The Me within Thee blind!’

XXXV

Then to the lip of this poor earthen Urn
I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd—‘While you live,
Drink!—for, once dead, you never shall return.’

XXXVI

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd once did live,
And drink; and Ah! the passive Lip I kiss'd,
How many Kisses might it take—and give!

XXXVII

One of the Persian Poets—Attár, I think—has a pretty story about this. A thirsty Traveller dips his hand into a Spring of Water to drink from. By and by comes another who draws up and drinks from an earthen Bowl, and then departs, leaving his Bowl behind him. The first Traveller takes it up for another draught; but is surprised to find that the same Water which had tasted sweet from his own hand tastes bitter from the earthen Bowl. But a Voice—from Heaven, I think—tells him the clay from which the Bowl is made was once Man; and, into whatever shape renewed, can never lose the bitter flavour of Mortality.

For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all-obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd—‘Gently, Brother, gently, pray!’

XXXVIII

And has not such a Story from of Old
Down Man's successive generations roll'd
Of such a clod of saturated Earth
Cast by the Maker into Human mould?

155

XXXIX

The custom of throwing a little Wine on the ground before drinking still continues in Persia, and perhaps generally in the East. Mons. Nicolas considers it ‘un signe de libéralité, et en même temps un avertissement que le buveur doit vider sa coupe jusqu'à la dernière goutte.’ Is it not more likely an ancient Superstition; a Libation to propitiate Earth, or make her an Accomplice in the illicit Revel? Or, perhaps, to divert the Jealous Eye by some sacrifice of superfluity, as with the Ancients of the West? With Omar we see something more is signified; the precious Liquor is not lost, but sinks into the ground to refresh the dust of some poor Wine-worshipper foregone.

Thus Háfiz, copying Omar in so many ways: ‘When thou drinkest Wine pour a draught on the ground. Wherefore fear the Sin which brings to another Gain?’

And not a drop that from our Cups we throw
For Earth to drink of, but may steal below
To quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye
There hidden—far beneath, and long ago.

XL

As then the Tulip for her morning sup
Of Heav'nly Vintage from the soil looks up,
Do you devoutly do the like, till Heav'n
To Earth invert you—like an empty Cup.

XLI

Perplext no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow's tangle to the winds resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.

XLII

And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in what All begins and ends in—Yes;
Think then you are To-day what Yesterday
You were—To-morrow you shall not be less.

XLIII

According to one beautiful Oriental Legend, Azräel accomplishes his mission by holding to the nostril an Apple from the Tree of Life.

This and the two following Stanzas would have been withdrawn, as somewhat de trop, from the Text, but for advice which I least like to disregard.

So when that Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river-brink,
And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul
Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink.

156

XLIV

Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside,
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,
Were't not a Shame—were't not a Shame for him
In this clay carcase crippled to abide?

XLV

'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest
A Sultán to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultán rises, and the dark Ferrásh
Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.

XLVI

And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Sákí from that Bowl has pour'd
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.

XLVII

When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast.

XLVIII

A Moment's Halt—a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste—
And Lo!—the phantom Caravan has reach'd
The Nothing it set out from—Oh, make haste!

157

XLIX

Would you that spangle of Existence spend
About the secret—quick about it, Friend!
A Hair perhaps divides the False and True—
And upon what, prithee, may life depend?

L

A Hair perhaps divides the False and True;
Yes; and a single Alif were the clue—
Could you but find it—to the Treasure-house,
And peradventure to The Master too;

LI

Whose secret Presence, through Creation's veins
Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Máh to Máhi; and

From Máh to Máhi; from Fish to Moon.

They change and perish all—but He remains;

LII

A moment guess'd—then back behind the Fold
Immerst of Darkness round the Drama roll'd
Which, for the Pastime of Eternity,
He doth Himself contrive, enact, behold.

LIII

But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor
Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door,
You gaze To-day, while You are You—how then
To-morrow, You when shall be You no more?

158

LIV

Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute;
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

LV

You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house;
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.

LVI

A Jest, of course, at his Studies. A curious mathematical Quatrain of Omar's has been pointed out to me; the more curious because almost exactly parallel'd by some Verses of Doctor Donne's, that are quoted in Izaak Walton's Lives! Here is Omar: ‘You and I are the image of a pair of compasses; though we have two heads (sc. our feet) we have one body; when we have fixed the centre for our circle, we bring our heads (sc. feet) together at the end.’ Dr. Donne:

If we be two, we two are so
As stiff twin-compasses are two;
Thy Soul, the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but does if the other do.

And though thine in the centre sit,
Yet when my other far does roam,
Thine leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect as mine comes home.

Such thou must be to me, who must
Like the other foot obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And me to end where I begun.

For ‘Is’ and ‘Is-not’ though with Rule and Line
And ‘Up-and-down’ by Logic I define,
Of all that one should care to fathom, I
Was never deep in anything but—Wine.

LVII

Ah, but my Computations, People say,
Reduced the Year to better reckoning?—Nay,
'Twas only striking from the Calendar
Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday.

LVIII

And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas—the Grape!

159

LIX

The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:

The Seventy-two Religions supposed to divide the World, including Islamism, as some think: but others not.

The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice
Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute:

LX

The mighty Mahmúd, Allah-breathing Lord,

Alluding to Sultan Mahmúd's Conquest of India and its dark people.

That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters before him with his whirlwind Sword.

LXI

Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare?
A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a Curse—why, then, Who set it there?

LXII

I must abjure the Balm of Life, I must,
Scared by some After-reckoning ta'en on trust,
Or lured with Hope of some Diviner Drink,
To fill the Cup—when crumbled into Dust!

LXIII

Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain—This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

160

LXIV

Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who
Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too.

LXV

The Revelations of Devout and Learn'd
Who rose before us, and as Prophets burn'd,
Are all but Stories, which, awoke from Sleep
They told their comrades, and to Sleep return'd.

LXVI

I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd ‘I Myself am Heav'n and Hell:’

LXVII

Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.

LXVIII

We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go

Fánúsi khiyál, a Magic-lantern still used in India; the cylindrical Interior being painted with various Figures, and so lightly poised and ventilated as to revolve round the lighted Candle within.

Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

161

LXIX

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

LXX

A very mysterious Line in the Original:
O dánad O dánad O dánad O—
breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon's Note, which she is said to take up just where she left off.

The Ball no question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd you down into the Field,
He knows about it all—he knows—HE knows!

LXXI

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

LXXII

And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help—for It
As impotently moves as you or I.

LXXIII

With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And there of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
And the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

162

LXXIV

Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
To-morrow's Silence, Triumph, or Despair:
Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.

LXXV

I tell you this—When, started from the Goal,
Over the flaming shoulders of the Foal
Of Heav'n Parwín and Mushtarí they flung,

Parwín and Mushtarí—The Pleiads and Jupiter.

In my predestined Plot of Dust and Soul

LXXVI

The Vine had struck a fibre: which about
If clings my being—let the Dervish flout;
Of my Base metal may be filed a Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

LXXVII

And this I know: whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath-consume me quite,
One Flash of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.

LXXVIII

What! out of senseless Nothing to provoke
A conscious Something to resent the yoke
Of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain
Of Everlasting Penalties, if broke!

163

LXXIX

What! from his helpless Creature be repaid
Pure Gold for what he lent him dross-allay'd—
Sue for a Debt he never did contract,
And cannot answer—Oh the sorry trade!

LXXX

Oh Thou, who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round
Enmesh, and then impute my Fall to Sin!

LXXXI

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd—Man's forgiveness give—and take!

LXXXII

As under cover of departing Day
Slunk hunger-stricken Ramazán away,
Once more within the Potter's house alone
I stood, surrounded by the Shapes of Clay.

LXXXIII

Shapes of all Sorts and Sizes, great and small,
That stood along the floor and by the wall;
And some loquacious Vessels were; and some
Listen'd perhaps, but never talk'd at all.

164

LXXXIV

Said one among them—‘Surely not in vain
My substance of the common Earth was ta'en
And to this Figure moulded, to be broke,
Or trampled back to shapeless Earth again.’

LXXXV

Then said a Second—‘Ne'er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in joy;
And He that with his hand the Vessel made
Will surely not in after Wrath destroy.’

LXXXVI

After a momentary silence spake
Some Vessel of a more ungainly Make;
‘They sneer at me for leaning all awry:
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?’

LXXXVII

Whereat some one of the loquacious Lot—
I think a Súfi pipkin—waxing hot—
‘All this of Pot and Potter—Tell me then,

This Relation of Pot and Potter to Man and his Maker figures far and wide in the Literature of the World, from the time of the Hebrew Prophets to the present; when it may finally take the name of ‘Pot theism,’ by which Mr. Carlyle ridiculed Sterling's ‘Pantheism.’ My Sheikh, whose knowledge flows in from all quarters, writes to me—

‘Apropos of old Omar's Pots, did I ever tell you the sentence I found in Bishop Pearson on the Creed? “Thus are we wholly at the disposal of His will, and our present and future condition framed and ordered by His free, but wise and just, decrees. Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? (Rom. ix. 21.) And can that earth-artificer have a freer power over his brother potsherd (both being made of the same metal), than God hath over him, who, by the strange fecundity of His omnipotent power, first made the clay out of nothing, and then him out of that?”’

And again—from a very different quarter—‘I had to refer the other day to Aristophanes, and came by chance on a curious Speaking-pot story in the Vespæ, which I had quite forgotten.

Φιλοκλεων.
Ακουε, μη φευγ' : εν Συβαρει γυνη ποτε
κατεαξ' εχινον.

Κατηγορος.
Ταυτ' εγω μαρτυρομαι.

Φι.
Ουχινος ουν εχων τιν' επεμαρτυρατο:
Ειθ' η Συβαριτις ειπεν, ει ναι ταν κοραν
την μαρτυριαν ταυτην εασας, εν ταχει
επιδεσμον επριω, νουν αν ειχες πλειονα.

‘The Pot calls a bystander to be a witness to his bad treatment. The woman says, “If, by Proserpine, instead of all this ‘testifying’ (comp. Cuddie and his mother in Old Mortality!) you would buy yourself a trivet, it would show more sense in you!’ The Scholiast explains echinus as αγγος τι εκ κεραμου.’

One more illustration for the oddity's sake from the Autobiography of a Cornish Rector, by the late James Hamley Tregenna, 1871.

‘There was one old Fellow in our Company—he was so like a Figure in the Pilgrim's Progress that Richard always called him the “Allegory,” with a long white beard—a rare Appendage in those days—and a Face the colour of which seemed to have been baked in, like the Faces one used to see on Earthenware Jugs. In our Country-dialect Earthenware is called “Clome”; so the Boys of the Village used to shout out after him—“Go back to the Potter, old Clome-face, and get baked over again.” For the “Allegory,” though shrewd enough in most things, had the reputation of being “saift-baked,” i.e. of weak intellect.’

Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?’

LXXXVIII

‘Why,’ said another, ‘Some there are who tell
Of one who threatens he will toss to Hell
The luckless Pots he marr'd in making—Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 't will all be well.’

165

LXXXIX

‘Well,’ murmur'd one, ‘Let whoso make or buy,
My Clay with long Oblivion is gone dry:
But fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by and by.’

XC

At the Close of the Fasting Month, Ramazán (which makes the Musulman unhealthy and unamiable), the first Glimpse of the New Moon (who rules their division of the Year) is looked for with the utmost Anxiety, and hailed with Acclamation. Then it is that the Porter's Knot may be heard—toward the Cellar. Omar has elsewhere a pretty Quatrain about the same Moon—
‘Be of Good Cheer—the sullen Month will die,
And a young Moon requite us by and by:
Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan
With Age and Fast, is fainting from the Sky!’

So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
The little Moon look'd in that all were seeking:
And then they jogg'd each other, ‘Brother! Brother!
Now for the Porter's shoulder-knot a-creaking!’

XCI

Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash the Body whence the Life has died,
And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,
By some not unfrequented Garden-side.

XCII

That ev'n my buried Ashes such a snare
Of Vintage shall fling up into the Air
As not a True-believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.

XCIII

Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my credit in this World much wrong:
Have drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.

166

XCIV

Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore—but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.

XCV

And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour—Well,
I wonder often what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.

XCVI

Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that in the branches sang,
Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

XCVII

Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield
One glimpse—if dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd,
To which the fainting Traveller might spring,
As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

XCVIII

Would but some winged Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister, or quite obliterate!

167

XCIX

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

C

Yon rising Moon that looks for us again—
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden—and for one in vain!

CI

And when like her, oh Sáki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One—turn down an empty Glass!

TAMÁM

187

SALÁMÁN AND ABSÁL

AN ALLEGORY TRANSLATED FROM THE PERSIAN OF JÁMÍ

207

PRELIMINARY INVOCATION.

Oh Thou, whose Spirit through this universe,
In which Thou dost involve thyself diffused,
Shall so perchance irradiate human clay
That men, suddenly dazzled, lose themselves
In ecstasy before a mortal shrine
Whose Light is but a Shade of the Divine;
Not till thy Secret Beauty through the cheek
Of Laila smite doth she inflame Majnún;
And not till Thou have kindled Shírín's Eyes
The hearts of those two Rivals swell with blood.
For Loved and Lover are not but by Thee,
Nor Beauty;—mortal Beauty but the veil
Thy Heavenly hides behind, and from itself
Feeds, and our hearts yearn after as a Bride
That glances past us veil'd—but ever so
That none the veil from what it hides may know.
How long wilt thou continue thus the World

208

To cozen with the fantom of a veil
From which thou only peepest? I would be
Thy Lover, and thine only—I, mine eyes
Seal'd in the light of Thee to all but Thee,
Yea, in the revelation of Thyself
Lost to Myself, and all that Self is not
Within the Double world that is but One.
Thou lurkest under all the forms of Thought,
Under the form of all Created things;
Look where I may, still nothing I discern
But Thee throughout this Universe, wherein
Thyself Thou dost reflect, and through those eyes
Of him whom Man thou madest, scrutinize.
To thy Harím Dividuality
No entrance finds—no word of This and That;
Do Thou my separate and derivèd Self
Make one with thy Essential! Leave me room
On that Diván which leaves no room for Twain;
Lest, like the simple Arab in the tale,
I grow perplext, oh God! 'twixt ‘Me’ and ‘Thee;’
If I—this Spirit that inspires me whence?
If Thou —then what this sensual Impotence?
From the solitary Desert
Up to Baghdád came a simple
Arab; there amid the rout
Grew bewilder'd of the countless

209

People, hither, thither, running,
Coming, going, meeting, parting,
Clamour, clatter, and confusion,
All about him and about.
Travel-wearied, hubbub-dizzy,
Would the simple Arab fain
Get to sleep—‘But then, on waking,
‘How,’ quoth he, ‘amid so many
‘Waking know Myself again?’
So, to make the matter certain,
Strung a gourd about his ankle,
And, into a corner creeping,
Baghdád and Himself and People
Soon were blotted from his brain.
But one that heard him and divined
His purpose, slily crept behind;
From the Sleeper's ankle slipping,
Round his own the pumpkin tied,
And laid him down to sleep beside.
By and by the Arab waking
Looks directly for his Signal—
Sees it on another's Ankle—
Cries aloud, ‘Oh Good-for-nothing
‘Rascal to perplex me so!
‘That by you I am bewilder'd,
‘Whether I be I or no!
‘If I—the Pumpkin why on You?
‘If You—then Where am I, and Who?

And yet, how long, O Jámí, stringing Verse,
Pearl after pearl, on that old Harp of thine?

210

Year after year attuning some new Song,
The breath of some old Story? Life is gone,
And that last song is not the last; my Soul
Is spent—and still a Story to be told!
And I, whose back is crooked as the Harp
I still keep tuning through the Night till Day!
That harp untuned by Time—the harper's hand
Shaking with Age—how shall the harper's hand
Repair its cunning, and the sweet old harp
Be modulated as of old? Methinks
'Twere time to break and cast it in the fire;
The vain old harp, that, breathing from its strings
No music more to charm the ears of men,
May, from its scented ashes, as it burns,
Breathe resignation to the Harper's soul,
Now that his body looks to dissolution.
My teeth fall out—my two eyes see no more
Till by Feringhí glasses turn'd to four;
Pain sits with me sitting behind my knees,
From which I hardly rise unhelpt of hand;
I bow down to my root, and like a Child
Yearn, as is likely, to my Mother Earth,
Upon whose bosom I shall cease to weep,
And on my Mother's bosom fall asleep.

The House in ruin, and its music heard
No more within, nor at the door of speech,

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Better in silence and oblivion
To fold me head and foot, remembering
What The Voice whisper'd in the Master's ear—
‘No longer think of Rhyme, but think of Me!’—
Of Whom?—Of Him whose Palace the Soul is,
And Treasure-house—who notices and knows
Its income and out-going, and then comes
To fill it when the Stranger is departed.
Yea; but whose Shadow being Earthly Kings,
Their Attributes, their Wrath and Favour, His,—
Lo! in the meditation of His glory,
The Sháh whose subject upon Earth I am,
As he of Heaven's, comes on me unaware,
And suddenly arrests me for his due.
Therefore for one last travel, and as brief
As may become the feeble breath of Age,
My weary pen once more drinks of the well,
Whence, of the Mortal writing, I may read
Anticipation of the Invisible.

One who travell'd in the Desert
Saw Majnún where he was sitting
All alone like a Magician
Tracing Letters in the Sand.
‘Oh distracted Lover! writing
‘What the Sword-wind of the Desert
‘Undeciphers so that no one
‘After you shall understand.’

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Majnún answer'd—‘I am writing
‘Only for myself, and only
‘“Laila,”—if for ever “Laila”
‘Writing, in that Word a Volume,
‘Over which for ever poring,
‘From her very Name I sip
‘In Fancy, till I drink, her Lip.’

THE STORY.

I. Part I.

A Sháh there was who ruled the realm of Yún,
And wore the Ring of Empire of Sikander;
And in his reign A Sage, of such report
For Insight reaching quite beyond the Veil,
That Wise men from all quarters of the World,
To catch the jewel falling from his lips
Out of the secret treasure as he went,
Went in a girdle round him.—Which The Sháh
Observing, took him to his secresy;
Stirr'd not a step, nor set design afoot,
Without the Prophet's sanction; till, so counsell'd,
From Káf to Káf reach'd his Dominion:

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No People, and no Prince that over them
The ring of Empire wore, but under his
Bow'd down in Battle; rising then in Peace
Under his Justice grew, secure from wrong,
And in their strength was his Dominion strong.
The Sháh that has not Wisdom in himself,
Nor has a Wise one for his Counsellor,
The wand of his Authority falls short,
And his Dominion crumbles at the base.
For he, discerning not the characters
Of Tyranny and Justice, confounds both,
Making the World a desert, and Redress
A fantom-water of the Wilderness.
God said to the Prophet David—
‘David, whom I have exalted
‘From the sheep to be my People's
‘Shepherd, by your Justice my
‘Revelation justify.
‘Lest the misbelieving—yea,
‘The Fire-adoring Princes rather
‘Be my Prophets, who fulfil,
‘Knowing not my Word, my Will.’

One night The Sháh of Yúnan as he sate
Contemplating his measureless extent
Of Empire, and the glory wherewithal,
As with a garment robed, he ruled alone;
Then found he nothing wanted to his heart

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Unless a Son, who, while he lived, might share,
And, after him, his robe of Empire wear.
And then he turn'd him to The Sage, and said:
‘O Darling of the soul of Iflatún;
‘To whom with all his school Aristo bows;
‘Yea, thou that an Eleventh to the Ten
‘Intelligences addest: Thou hast read
‘The yet unutter'd secret of my Heart;
‘Answer—Of all that man desires of God
‘Is any blessing greater than a Son?
‘Man's prime Desire; by whom his name and he
‘Shall live beyond himself; by whom his eyes
‘Shine living, and his dust with roses blows.
‘A Foot for thee to stand on, and an Arm
‘To lean by; sharp in battle as a sword;
‘Salt of the banquet-table; and a tower
‘Of salutary counsel in Diván;
‘One in whose youth a Father shall prolong
‘His years, and in his strength continue strong.’

When the shrewd Sage had heard The Sháh's discourse
In commendation of a Son, he said:
‘Thus much of a Good Son, whose wholesome growth
‘Approves the root he grew from. But for one
‘Kneaded of Evil—well, could one revoke
‘His generation, and as early pull
‘Him and his vices from the string of Time.

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‘Like Noah's, puff'd with insolence and pride,
‘Who, reckless of his Father's warning call,
‘Was by the voice of Allah from the door
‘Of refuge in his Father's Ark debarr'd,
‘And perish'd in the Deluge. And as none
Who long for children, may their children choose,
‘Beware of teazing Allah for a Son,
‘Whom having, you may have to pray to lose.’

Sick at heart for want of Children,
Ran before the Saint a Fellow,
Catching at his garment, crying,
‘Master, hear and help me! Pray
‘That Allah from the barren clay
‘Raise me up a fresh young Cypress,
‘Who my longing eyes may lighten,
‘And not let me like a vapour
‘Unremember'd pass away.’
But the Dervish said—‘Consider;
‘Wisely let the matter rest
‘In the hands of Allah wholly,
‘Who, whatever we are after,
‘Understands our business best.’
Still the man persisted—‘Master,
‘I shall perish in my longing:
‘Help, and set my prayer a-going!’
Then the Dervish raised his hand—
From the mystic Hunting-land

216

Of Darkness to the Father's arms
A musky Fawn of China drew—
A Boy—who, when the shoot of Passion
In his Nature planted grew,
Took to drinking, dicing, drabbing.
From a corner of the house-top
Ill-insulting honest women,
Dagger-drawing on the husband;
And for many a city-brawl
Still before the Cadi summon'd,
Still the Father pays for all.
Day and night the youngster's doings
Such—the city's talk and scandal;
Neither counsel, threat, entreaty,
Moved him—till the desperate Father
Once more to the Dervish running,
Catches at his garment—crying—
‘Oh my only Hope and Helper!
‘One more Prayer! That God, who laid,
‘Would take this trouble from my head!’
But the Saint replied ‘Remember
‘How that very Day I warn'd you
‘Not with blind petition Allah
‘Trouble to your own confusion;
‘Unto whom remains no more
‘To pray for, save that He may pardon
‘What so rashly pray'd before.’
‘So much for the result; and for the means—
‘Oh Sháh, who would not be himself a slave,

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‘Which Sháh least should, and of an appetite
‘Among the basest of his slaves enslaved—
‘Better let Azrael find him on his throne
‘Of Empire sitting childless and alone,
‘Than his untainted Majesty resign
‘To that seditious drink, of which one draught
‘Still for another and another craves,
‘Till it become a noose to draw the Crown
‘From off thy brows—about thy lips a ring,
‘Of which the rope is in a Woman's hand,
‘To lead thyself the road of Nothing down.
‘For what is She? A foolish, faithless thing—
‘A very Káfir in rapacity;
‘Robe her in all the rainbow-tinted woof
‘Of Susa, shot with rays of sunny Gold;
‘Deck her with jewel thick as Night with star;
‘Pamper her appetite with Houri fruit
‘Of Paradise, and fill her jewell'd cup
‘From the green-mantled Prophet's Well of Life—
‘One little twist of temper—all your cost
‘Goes all for nothing: and, as for yourself—
‘Look! On your bosom she may lie for years;
‘But, get you gone a moment out of sight,
‘And she forgets you—worse, if, as you turn,
‘Her eyes on any younger Lover light.’

Once upon the Throne together
Telling one another Secrets,

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Sate Sulaymán and Balkís;
The Hearts of both were turn'd to Truth,
Unsullied by Deception.
First the King of Faith Sulaymán
Spoke—‘However just and wise
‘Reported, none of all the many
‘Suitors to my palace thronging
‘But afar I scrutinize;
‘And He who comes not empty-handed
‘Grows to Honour in mine Eyes.’
After this, Balkís a Secret
From her hidden bosom utter'd,
Saying—‘Never night or morning
‘Comely Youth before me passes
‘Whom I look not after, longing’—

‘If this, as wise Firdausí says, the curse
‘Of better women, what then of the worse?’

The Sage his satire ended; and The Sháh,
Determined on his purpose, but the means
Resigning to Supreme Intelligence,
With Magic-mighty Wisdom his own Will
Colleagued, and wrought his own accomplishment.
For Lo! from Darkness came to Light A Child,
Of carnal composition unattaint;
A Perfume from the realm of Wisdom wafted;

219

A Rosebud blowing on the Royal stem;
The crowning Jewel of the Crown; a Star
Under whose augury triumph'd the Throne.
For whom dividing, and again in one
Whole perfect Jewel re-uniting, those
Twin Jewel-words, Salámat and Asmán,
They hail'd him by the title of Salámán.
And whereas from no Mother milk he drew,
They chose for him a Nurse—her name Absál—
So young, the opening roses of her breast
But just had budded to an infant's lip;
So beautiful, as from the silver line
Dividing the musk-harvest of her hair
Down to her foot that trampled crowns of Kings,
A Moon of beauty full; who thus elect
Should in the garment of her bounty fold
Salámán of auspicious augury,
Should feed him with the flowing of her breast.
And, once her eyes had open'd upon Him,
They closed to all the world beside, and fed
For ever doating on her Royal jewel
Close in his golden cradle casketed:
Opening and closing which her day's delight,
To gaze upon his heart-inflaming cheek,—
Upon the Babe whom, if she could, she would
Have cradled as the Baby of her eye.
In rose and musk she wash'd him—to his lip
Press'd the pure sugar from the honeycomb;

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And when, day over, she withdrew her milk,
She made, and having laid him in, his bed,
Burn'd all night like a taper o'er his head.

And still as Morning came, and as he grew,
Finer than any bridal-puppet, which
To prove another's love a woman sends,
She trick'd him up—with fresh Collyrium dew
Touch'd his narcissus eyes—the musky locks
Divided from his forehead—and embraced
With gold and ruby girdle his fine waist.

So for seven years she rear'd and tended him:
Nay, when his still-increasing moon of Youth
Into the further Sign of Manhood pass'd,
Pursued him yet, till full fourteen his years,
Fourteen-day full the beauty of his face,
That rode high in a hundred thousand hearts.
For, when Salámán was but half-lance high,
Lance-like he struck a wound in every one,
And shook down splendour round him like a Sun.

Soon as the Lord of Heav'n had sprung his horse
Over horizon into the blue field,
Salámán kindled with the wine of sleep,
Mounted a barb of fire for the Maidán;
He and a troop of Princes—Kings in blood,
Kings in the kingdom-troubling tribe of beauty,
All young in years and courage, bat in hand

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Gallop'd a-field, toss'd down the golden ball
And chased, so many crescent Moons a full:
And, all alike intent upon the Game,
Salámán still would carry from them all
The prize, and shouting ‘Hál!’ drive home the ball.

This done, Salámán bent him as a bow
To Archery—from Masters of the craft
Call'd for an unstrung bow—himself the cord
Fitted unhelpt, and nimbly with his hand
Twanging made cry, and drew it to his ear:
Then, fixing the three-feather'd fowl, discharged:
And whether aiming at the fawn a-foot,
Or bird on wing, direct his arrow flew,
Like the true Soul that cannot but go true.

When night came, that releases man from toil,
He play'd the chess of social intercourse;
Prepared his banquet-hall like Paradise,
Summon'd his Houri-faced musicians,
And, when his brain grew warm with wine, the veil
Flung off him of reserve: taking a harp,
Between its dry string and his finger quick

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Struck fire: or catching up a lute, as if
A child for chastisement, would pinch its ear
To wailing that should agèd eyes make weep.
Now like the Nightingale he sang alone;
Now with another lip to lip; and now
Together blending voice and instrument;
And thus with his associates night he spent.

His Soul rejoiced in knowledge of all kind;
The fine edge of his Wit would split a hair,
And in the noose of apprehension catch
A meaning ere articulate in word;
Close as the knitted jewel of Parwín
His jewel Verse he strung; his Rhetoric
Enlarging like the Mourners of the Bier.
And when he took the nimble reed in hand
To run the errand of his Thought along
Its paper field—the character he traced,
Fine on the lip of Youth as the first hair,
Drove Penmen, as that Lovers, to despair.

His Bounty like a Sea was fathomless
That bubbled up with jewel, and flung pearl
Where'er it touch'd, but drew not back again;
It was a Heav'n that rain'd on all below
Dirhems for drops—

223

But here that inward Voice
Arrested and rebuked me—‘Foolish Jámí!
‘Wearing that indefatigable pen
‘In celebration of an alien Sháh
‘Whose Throne, not grounded in the Eternal World,
‘If Yesterday it were, To-day is not,
‘To-morrow cannot be.’ But I replied;
‘Oh Fount of Light!—under an alien name
‘I shadow One upon whose head the Crown
‘Was and yet Is, and Shall be; whose Firmán
‘The Kingdoms Sev'n of this World, and the Seas,
‘And the Sev'n Heavens, alike are subject to.
‘Good luck to him who under other Name
‘Instructed us that Glory to disguise
‘To which the Initiate scarce dare lift his eyes.’
Sate a Lover in a garden
All alone, apostrophizing
Many a flower and shrub about him,
And the lights of Heav'n above.
Nightingaling thus, a Noodle
Heard him, and, completely puzzled,
‘What,’ quoth he, ‘and you a Lover,
‘Raving, not about your Mistress,
‘But about the stars and roses—
‘What have these to do with Love?’

224

Answer'd he; ‘Oh thou that aimest
‘Wide of Love, and Lovers' language
‘Wholly misinterpreting;
‘Sun and Moon are but my Lady's
‘Self, as any Lover knows;
‘Hyacinth I said, and meant her
‘Hair—her cheek was in the rose—
‘And I myself the wretched weed
‘That in her cypress shadow grows.’
And now the cypress stature of Sáláman
Had reached his top, and now to blossom full
The garden of his Beauty: and Absál,
Fairest of hers, as of his fellows he
The fairest, long'd to gather from the tree.
But, for that flower upon the lofty stem
Of Glory grew to which her hand fell short,
She now with woman's sorcery began
To conjure as she might within her reach.
The darkness of her eyes she darken'd round
With surma, to benight him in mid day,
And over them adorn'd and arch'd the bows
To wound him there when lost: her musky locks
Into so many snaky ringlets curl'd,
In which Temptation nestled o'er the cheek
Whose rose she kindled with vermilion dew,
And then one subtle grain of musk laid there,
The bird of that belovèd heart to snare.

225

Sometimes in passing with a laugh would break
The pearl-enclosing ruby of her lips;
Or, busied in the room, as by mischance
Would let the lifted sleeve disclose awhile
The vein of silver running up within:
Or, rising as in haste, her golden anklets
Clash, at whose sudden summons to bring down
Under her silver feet the golden Crown.
Thus, by innumerable witcheries,
She went about soliciting his eyes,
Through which she knew the robber unaware
Steals in, and takes the bosom by surprise.
Burning with her love Zulaikhá
Built a chamber, wall and ceiling
Blank as an untarnisht mirror,
Spotless as the heart of Yúsuf.
Then she made a cunning painter
Multiply her image round it;
Not an inch of wall or ceiling
But re-echoing her beauty.
Then amid them all in all her
Glory sat she down, and sent for
Yúsuf—she began a tale
Of Love—and lifted up her veil.
Bashfully beneath her burning
Eyes he turn'd away; but turning
Wheresoever, still about him
Saw Zulaikhá, still Zulaikhá,

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Still, without a veil, Zulaikhá.
But a voice as if from Canaan
Call'd him; and a Hand from Darkness
Touch'd; and ere a living Lip
Through the mirage of bewilder'd
Eyes seduced him, he recoil'd,
And let the skirt of danger slip.

II. Part II.

Alas for those who having tasted once
Of that forbidden vintage of the lips
That, press'd and pressing, from each other draw
The draught that so intoxicates them both,
That, while upon the wings of Day and Night
Time rustles on, and Moons do wax and wane,
As from the very Well of Life they drink,
And, drinking, fancy they shall never drain,
But rolling Heaven from his ambush whispers,
‘So in my license is it not set down:
‘Ah for the sweet societies I make
‘At Morning, and before the Nightfall break,
‘Ah for the bliss that coming Night fills up,
‘And Morn looks in to find an empty Cup!’
Once in Baghdád a poor Arab,
After weary days of fasting,
Into the Khalífah's banquet-
Chamber, where, aloft in State
Harún the Great at supper sate,

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Push'd and pushing, with the throng,
Got before a perfume-breathing
Pasty, like the lip of Shírín
Luscious, or the Poet's song.
Soon as seen, the famisht clown
Seizes up and swallows down.
Then his mouth undaunted wiping—
‘Oh Khalífah, hear me swear,
‘While I breathe the dust of Baghdád,
‘Ne'er at any other Table
‘Than at Thine to sup or dine.’
Grimly laugh'd Harún, and answer'd;
‘Fool! who think'st to arbitrate
‘What is in the hands of Fate—
‘Take, and thrust him from the Gate!’
While a full Year was counted by the Moon,
Salámán and Absál rejoiced together,
And neither Sháh nor Sage his face beheld.
They question'd those about him, and from them
Heard something: then himself to presence summon'd,
And all the truth was told. Then Sage and Sháh
Struck out with hand and foot in his redress.
And first with Reason, which is also best;
Reason that rights the wanderer; that completes
The imperfect; Reason that resolves the knot
Of either world, and sees beyond the Veil.
For Reason is the fountain from of old

228

From which the Prophets drew, and none beside:
Who boasts of other inspiration, lies—
There are no other Prophets than The Wise.
And first The Sháh:—‘Salámán, Oh my Soul
‘Light of the eyes of my Prosperity,
‘And making bloom the court of Hope with rose;
‘Year after year, Salámán, like a bud
‘That cannot blow, my own blood I devour'd,
‘Till, by the seasonable breath of God,
‘At last I blossom'd into thee, my Son;
‘Oh, do not wound me with a dagger thorn;
‘Let not the full-blown rose of Royalty
‘Be left to wither in a hand unclean.
‘For what thy proper pastime? Bat in hand
‘To mount and manage Rakhsh along the Field;
‘Not, with no weapon but a wanton curl
‘Idly reposing on a silver breast.
‘Go, fly thine arrow at the antelope
‘And lion—let me not My lion see
Slain by the arrow eyes of a ghazál.
Go, challenge Zál or Rustam to the Field,
‘And smite the warriors' neck; not, flying them,
‘Beneath a woman's foot submit thine own.
‘Oh wipe the woman's henna from thy hand,

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‘Withdraw thee from the minion who from thee
‘Dominion draws, and draws me with thee down;
‘Years have I held my head aloft, and all
‘For Thee—Oh shame if thou prepare my Fall!’
When before Shirúyeh's dagger
Kai Khusrau, his Father, fell,
He declared this Parable—
‘Wretch!—There was a branch that waxing
‘Wanton o'er the root he drank from,
‘At a draught the living water
‘Drain'd wherewith himself to crown;
‘Died the root—and with him died
‘The branch—and barren was brought down!’
The Sháh ceased counsel, and The Sage began.
‘Oh last new vintage of the Vine of Life
‘Planted in Paradise; Oh Master-stroke,
‘And all-concluding flourish of the Pen
‘Kun fa yakún; Thyself prime Archetype,
‘And ultimate Accomplishment of Man!

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‘The Almighty hand, that out of common earth
‘Thy mortal outward to the perfect form
‘Of Beauty moulded, in the fleeting dust
‘Inscribed Himself, and in thy bosom set
‘A mirror to reflect Himself in Thee.
‘Let not that dust by rebel passion blown
‘Obliterate that character: nor let
‘That Mirror, sullied by the breath impure,
‘Or form of carnal beauty fore-possest,
‘Be made incapable of the Divine.
‘Supreme is thine Original degree,
‘Thy Star upon the top of Heaven; but Lust
‘Will bring it down, down even to the Dust!’
Quoth a Muezzín to the crested
Cock—‘Oh Prophet of the Morning,
‘Never Prophet like to you
‘Prophesied of Dawn, nor Muezzín
‘With so shrill a voice of warning
‘Woke the sleeper to confession
‘Crying, “Lá allah illá 'llah,
‘Muhammad rasúluhu.’”
‘One, methinks, so rarely gifted
‘Should have prophesied and sung
‘In Heav'n, the Birds of Heav'n among,
‘Not with these poor hens about him,
‘Raking in a heap of dung.’
‘And,’ replied the Cock, ‘in Heaven
‘Once I was; but by my foolish

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‘Lust to this uncleanly living
‘With my sorry mates about me
‘Thus am fallen. Otherwise,
‘I were prophesying Dawn
‘Before the gates of Paradise.’

Of all the Lover's sorrows, next to that
Of Love by Love forbidden, is the voice
Of Friendship turning harsh in Love's reproof,
And overmuch of Counsel—whereby Love
Grows stubborn, and recoiling unsupprest
Within, devours the heart within the breast.

Salámán heard; his Soul came to his lips;
Reproaches struck not Absál out of him,
But drove Confusion in; bitter became
The drinking of the sweet draught of Delight,
And waned the splendour of his Moon of Beauty.
His breath was Indignation, and his heart
Bled from the arrow, and his anguish grew.
How bear it?—By the hand of Hatred dealt,
Easy to meet—and deal with, blow for blow;
But from Love's hand which one must not requite,
And cannot yield to—what resource but Flight?

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Resolved on which, he victuall'd and equipp'd
A Camel, and one night he led it forth,
And mounted—he with Absál at his side,
Like sweet twin almonds in a single shell.
And Love least murmurs at the narrow space
That draws him close and closer in embrace.

When the Moon of Canaan Yúsuf
In the prison of Egypt darken'd,
Nightly from her spacious Palace-
Chamber, and its rich array,
Stole Zulaikhá like a fantom
To the dark and narrow dungeon
Where her buried Treasure lay.
Then to those about her wond'ring—
‘Were my Palace,’ she replied,
‘Wider than Horizon-wide,
‘It were narrower than an Ant's eye,
‘Were my Treasure not inside:
‘And an Ant's eye, if but there
‘My Lover, Heaven's horizon were.’

Six days Salámán on the Camel rode,
And then the hissing arrows of reproof
Were fallen far behind; and on the Seventh
He halted on the Seashore; on the shore
Of a great Sea that reaching like a floor
Of rolling Firmament below the Sky's

233

From Káf to Káf, to Gau and Máhí down
Descended, and its Stars were living eyes.
The Face of it was as it were a range
Of moving Mountains; or a countless host
Of Camels trooping tumultuously up,
Host over host, and foaming at the lip.
Within, innumerable glittering things
Sharp as cut Jewels, to the sharpest eye
Scarce visible, hither and hither slipping,
As silver scissors slice a blue brocade;
But should the Dragon coil'd in the abyss
Emerge to light, his starry counter-sign
Would shrink into the depth of Heav'n aghast.

Salámán eyed the moving wilderness
On which he thought, once launcht, no foot, nor eye
Should ever follow; forthwith he devised
Of sundry scented woods along the shore
A little shallop like a Quarter-moon,
Wherein Absál and He like Sun and Moon
Enter'd as into some Celestial Sign;

234

That, figured like a bow, but arrow-like
In flight, was feather'd with a little sail,
And, pitcht upon the water like a duck,
So with her bosom sped to her Desire.

When they had sail'd their vessel for a Moon,
And marr'd their beauty with the wind o' the Sea,
Suddenly in mid sea reveal'd itself
An Isle, beyond imagination fair;
An Isle that all was Garden; not a Flower,
Nor Bird of plumage like the flower, but there;
Some like the Flower, and others like the Leaf;
Some, as the Pheasant and the Dove adorn'd
With crown and collar, over whom, alone,
The jewell'd Peacock like a Sultan shone;
While the Musicians, and among them Chief
The Nightingale, sang hidden in the trees
Which, arm in arm, from fingers quivering
With any breath of air, fruit of all kind
Down scatter'd in profusion to their feet,
Where fountains of sweet water ran between,
And Sun and shadow chequer-chased the green.
Here Iram-garden seem'd in secresy
Blowing the rosebud of its Revelation;
Or Paradise, forgetful of the dawn
Of Audit, lifted from her face the veil.

Salámán saw the Isle, and thought no more
Of Further—there with Absál he sate down,

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Absál and He together side by side
Together like the Lily and the Rose,
Together like the Soul and Body, one.
Under its trees in one another's arms
They slept—they drank its fountains hand in hand—
Paraded with the Peacock—raced the Partridge—
Chased the green Parrot for his stolen fruit,
Or sang divisions with the Nightingale.
There was the Rose without a thorn, and there
The Treasure and no Serpent to beware—
Oh think of such a Mistress at your side
In such a Solitude, and none to chide!

Said to Wámik one who never
Knew the Lover's passion—‘Why
‘Solitary thus and silent
‘Solitary places haunting,
‘Like a Dreamer, like a Spectre,
‘Like a thing about to die?’
Wámik answer'd—‘Meditating
‘Flight with Azrá to the Desert:
‘There by so remote a Fountain
‘That, whichever way one travell'd,
‘League on league, one yet should never
‘See the face of Man; for ever
‘There to gaze on my Belovèd;
‘Gaze, till Gazing out of Gazing

236

‘Grew to Being Her I gaze on,
‘She and I no more, but in One
‘Undivided Being blended.
‘All that is by Nature twain
‘Fears, or suffers by, the pain
‘Of Separation: Love is only
‘Perfect when itself transcends
‘Itself, and, one with that it loves,
‘In undivided Being blends.’
When by and by the Sháh was made aware
Of that heart-breaking Flight, his royal robe
He changed for ashes, and his Throne for dust,
And wept awhile in darkness and alone.
Then rose; and, taking counsel from the Sage,
Pursuit set everywhere afoot: but none
Could trace the footstep of the flying Deer.
Then from his secret Art the Sage-Vizyr
A Magic Mirror made; a Mirror like
The bosom of All-wise Intelligence
Reflecting in its mystic compass all
Within the sev'n-fold volume of the World
Involved; and, looking in that Mirror's face,
The Sháh beheld the face of his Desire.
Beheld those Lovers, like that earliest pair
Of Lovers, in this other Paradise
So far from human eyes in the mid sea,
And yet within the magic glass so near
As with a finger one might touch them, isled.
The Sháh beheld them; and compassion touch'd

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His eyes and anger died upon his lips;
And arm'd with Righteous Judgment as he was,
Yet, seeing those two Lovers with one lip
Drinking that cup of Happiness and Tears
In which Farewell had never yet been flung,
He paused for their repentance to recall
The lifted arm that was to shatter all.
The Lords of Wrath have perish'd by the blow
Themselves had aim'd at others long ago.
Draw not in haste the sword, which Fate, may be,
Will sheathe, hereafter to be drawn on Thee.

Farhád, who the shapeless mountain
Into human likeness moulded,
Under Shírín's eyes as slavish
Potters' earth himself became.

Then the secret fire of jealous
Frenzy, catching and devouring
Kai Khusrau, broke into flame.

With that ancient Hag of Darkness
Plotting, at the midnight Banquet
Farhád's golden cup he poison'd,
And in Shírín's eyes alone

238

Reign'd—But Fate that Fate revenges,
Arms Shírúyeh with the dagger
That at once from Shírín tore,
And hurl'd him lifeless from his throne.

But as the days went on, and still The Sháh
Beheld his Son how in the Woman lost,
And still the Crown that should adorn his head,
And still the Throne that waited for his foot,
Both trampled under by a base desire,
Of which the Soul was still unsatisfied—
Then from the sorrow of The Sháh fell Fire;
To Gracelessness ungracious he became,
And, quite to shatter that rebellious lust,
Upon Salámán all his Will, with all
His Sage-Vizyr's Might-magic arm'd, discharged.
And Lo! Salámán to his Mistress turn'd,
But could not reach her—look'd and look'd again,
And palpitated tow'rd her—but in vain!
Oh Misery! As to the Bankrupt's eyes
The Gold he may not finger! or the Well

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To him who sees a-thirst, and cannot reach,
Or Heav'n above reveal'd to those in Hell!
Yet when Salámán's anguish was extreme,
The door of Mercy open'd, and he saw
That Arm he knew to be his Father's reacht
To lift him from the pit in which he lay:
Timidly tow'rd his Father's eyes his own
He lifted, pardon-pleading, crime-confest,
And drew once more to that forsaken Throne,
As the stray bird one day will find her nest.

One was asking of a Teacher,
‘How a Father his reputed
‘Son for his should recognize?’
Said the Master, ‘By the stripling,
‘As he grows to manhood, growing
‘Like to his reputed Father,
‘Good or Evil, Fool or Wise.

‘Lo the disregarded Darnel
‘With itself adorns the Wheat-field,
‘And for all the vernal season
‘Satisfies the farmer's eye;
‘But the hour of harvest coming,
‘And the thrasher by and by,
‘Then a barren ear shall answer,
‘“Darnel, and no Wheat, am I.”’

Yet Ah for that poor Lover! ‘Next the curse
‘Of Love by Love forbidden, nothing worse

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‘Than Friendship turn'd in Love's reproof unkind,
‘And Love from Love divorcing’—Thus I said:
Alas, a worse, and worse, is yet behind—
Love's back-blow of Revenge for having fled!

Salámán bow'd his forehead to the dust
Before his Father; to his Father's hand
Fast—but yet fast, and faster, to his own
Clung one, who by no tempest of reproof
Or wrath might be dissever'd from the stem
She grew to: till, between Remorse and Love,
He came to loathe his Life and long for Death.
And, as from him She would not be divorced,
With Her he fled again: he fled—but now
To no such Island centred in the sea
As lull'd them into Paradise before;
But to the Solitude of Desolation,
The Wilderness of Death. And as before
Of sundry scented woods along the shore
A shallop he devised to carry them
Over the waters whither foot nor eye
Should ever follow them, he thought—so now
Of sere wood strewn about the plain of Death,
A raft to bear them through the wave of Fire
Into Annihilation, he devised,
Gather'd, and built; and, firing with a Torch,
Into the central flame Absál and He
Sprung hand in hand exulting. But the Sage
In secret all had order'd; and the Flame,

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Directed by his self-fulfilling Will,
Devouring Her to ashes, left untouch'd
Salámán—all the baser metal burn'd,
And to itself the authentic Gold return'd.

III. Part III.

From the Beginning such has been the Fate
Of Man, whose very clay was soak'd in tears.
For when at first of common Earth they took,
And moulded to the stature of the Soul,
For Forty days, full Forty days, the cloud
Of Heav'n wept over him from head to foot:
And when the Forty days had passed to Night,
The Sunshine of one solitary day
Look'd out of Heav'n to dry the weeping clay.
And though that sunshine in the long arrear
Of darkness on the breathless image rose,
Yet, with the Living, every wise man knows
Such consummation scarcely shall be here!

Salámán fired the pile; and in the flame
That, passing him, consumed Absál like straw,
Died his Divided Self, his Individual
Survived, and, like a living Soul from which
The Body falls, strange, naked, and alone.

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Then rose his cry to Heaven—his eyelashes
Wept blood—his sighs stood like a smoke in Heaven,
And Morning rent her garment at his anguish.
And when Night came, that drew the pen across
The written woes of Day for all but him,
Crouch'd in a lonely corner of the house,
He seem'd to feel about him in the dark
For one who was not, and whom no fond word
Could summon from the Void in which she lay.

And so the Wise One found him where he sate
Bow'd down alone in darkness; and once more
Made the long-silent voice of Reason sound
In the deserted Palace of his Soul;
Until Salámán lifted up his head
To bow beneath the Master; sweet it seem'd,
Sweeping the chaff and litter from his own,
To be the very dust of Wisdom's door,
Slave of the Firmán of the Lord of Life,
Who pour'd the wine of Wisdom in his cup,
Who laid the dew of Peace upon his lips;
Yea, wrought by Miracle in his behalf.
For when old Love return'd to Memory,
And broke in passion from his lips, The Sage,
Under whose waxing Will Existence rose
From Nothing, and, relaxing, waned again,
Raising a Fantom Image of Absál,
Set it awhile before Salámán's eyes,
Till, having sow'd the seed of comfort there,
It went again down to Annihilation.

243

But ever, as the Fantom past away,
The Sage would tell of a Celestial Love;
‘Zuhrah,’ he said, ‘Zuhrah, compared with whom
‘That brightest star that bears her name in Heav'n
‘Was but a winking taper; and Absál,
‘Queen-star of Beauties in this world below,
‘But her distorted image in the stream
‘Of fleeting Matter; and all Eloquence,
‘And Soul-enchaining harmonies of Song,
‘A far-off echo of that Harp in Heav'n
‘Which Dervish-dances to her harmony.’

Salámán listen'd, and inclined—again
Entreated, inclination ever grew;
Until The Sage beholding in his Soul
The Spirit quicken, so effectually
With Zuhrah wrought, that she reveal'd herself
In her pure lustre to Salámán's Soul,
And blotting Absál's Image from his breast
There reign'd instead. Celestial Beauty seen,
He left the Earthly; and, once come to know
Eternal Love, the Mortal he let go.

The Crown of Empire how supreme a lot!
The Sultan's Throne how lofty! Yea, but not

244

For All—None but the Heaven-ward foot may dare
To mount—The head that touches Heaven to wear!—

When the Beloved of Royal augury
Was rescued from the bondage of Absál,
Then he arose, and shaking off the dust
Of that lost travel, girded up his heart,
And look'd with undefilèd robe to Heaven.
Then was his Head worthy to wear the Crown,
His Foot to mount the Throne. And then The Sháh
From all the quarters of the World-wide realm
Summon'd all those who under Him the ring
Of Empire wore, King, Counsellor, Amír;
Of whom not one but to Salámán did
Obeisance, and lifted up his neck
To yoke it under His supremacy.
Then The Sháh crown'd him with the Golden Crown,
And set the Golden Throne beneath his feet,
And over all the heads of the Assembly,
And in the ears of all, his Jewel-word
With the Diamond of Wisdom cut, and said:—

‘My Son, the Kingdom of the World is not
‘Eternal, nor the sum of right desire;

245

‘Make thou the Law reveal'd of God thy Law,
‘The voice of Intellect Divine within
‘Interpreter; and considering To-day
‘To-morrow's Seed-field, ere That come to bear,
‘Sow with the harvest of Eternity.
‘And, as all Work, and, most of all, the Work
‘That Kings are born to, wisely should be wrought,
‘Where doubtful of thine own sufficiency,
‘Ever, as I have done, consult the Wise.
‘Turn not thy face away from the Old ways,
‘That were the canon of the Kings of Old;
‘Nor cloud with Tyranny the glass of Justice:
‘By Mercy rather to right Order turn
‘Confusion, and Disloyalty to Love.
‘In thy provision for the Realm's estate,
‘And for the Honour that becomes a King,
‘Drain not thy People's purse—the Tyranny
‘Which thee enriches at thy Subject's cost,
‘Awhile shall make thee strong; but in the end
‘Shall bow thy neck beneath thy People's hate,
‘And lead thee with the Robber down to Hell.
‘Thou art a Shepherd, and thy Flock the People,
‘To help and save, not ravage and destroy;
‘For which is for the other, Flock or Shepherd?
‘And join with thee True men to keep the Flock—
‘Dogs, if you will—but trusty—head in leash,
‘Whose teeth are for the Wolf, not for the Lamb,
‘And least of all the Wolf's accomplices.
‘For Sháhs must have Vizyrs—but be they Wise

246

‘And Trusty—knowing well the Realm's estate—
‘Knowing how far to Sháh and Subject bound
‘On either hand—not by extortion, nor
‘By usury wrung from the People's purse,
‘Feeding their Master, and themselves (with whom
‘Enough is apt enough to make rebel)
‘To such a surfeit feeding as feeds Hell.
‘Proper in soul and body be they—pitiful
‘To Poverty—hospitable to the Saint—
‘Their sweet Access a salve to wounded Hearts;
‘Their Wrath a sword against Iniquity,
‘But at thy bidding only to be drawn;
‘Whose Ministers they are, to bring thee in
‘Report of Good or Evil through the Realm:
‘Which to confirm with thine immediate Eye,
‘And least of all, remember—least of all,
‘Suffering Accuser also to be Judge,
‘By surest steps up-builds Prosperity.’

Meaning of The Story.

Under the leaf of many a Fable lies
The Truth for those who look for it; of this
If thou wouldst look behind and find the Fruit,
(To which the Wiser hand hath found his way)
Have thy desire—No Tale of Me and Thee,
Though I and Thou be its Interpreters.

247

What signifies The Sháh? and what The Sage?
And what Salámán not of Woman born?
Who was Absál who drew him to Desire?
And what the Kingdom that awaited him
When he had drawn his Garment from her hand?
What means That Sea? And what that Fiery Pile?
And what that Heavenly Zuhrah who at last
Clear'd Absál from the Mirror of his Soul?
Listen to me, and you shall understand
The Word that Lover wrote along the sand.

The Incomparable Creator, when this World
He did create, created first of all
The First Intelligence—First of a Chain

248

Of Ten Intelligences, of which the Last
Sole Agent is in this our Universe,
Active Intelligence so call'd; The One
Distributer of Evil and of Good,
Of Joy and Sorrow. Himself apart from Matter,
In Essence and in Energy—He yet
Hath fashion'd all that is—Material Form,
And Spiritual, all from Him—by Him
Directed all, and in his Bounty drown'd.
Therefore is He that Firmán-issuing Sháh
To whom the World was subject. But because
What He distributes to the Universe
Another and a Higher Power supplies,
Therefore all those who comprehend aright,
That Higher in The Sage will recognise.

HIS the Prime Spirit that, spontaneously
Projected by the Tenth Intelligence,
Was from no womb of Matter reproduced
A special Essence called The Soul of Man;
A Child of Heaven, in raiment unbeshamed
Of Sensual taint, and so Salámán named.

And who Absál?—The Sense-adoring Body,
Slave to the Blood and Sense—through whom The Soul,
Although the Body's very Life it be,
Doth yet imbibe the knowledge and delight
Of things of Sense; and these in such a bond
United as God only can divide,
As Lovers in this Tale are signified.

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And what the Flood on which they sail'd, with those
Fantastic creatures peopled; and that Isle
In which their Paradise awhile they made,
And thought, for ever?—That false Paradise
Amid the fluctuating Waters found
Of Sensual passion, in whose bosom lies
A world of Being from the light of God
Deep as in unsubsiding Deluge drown'd.

And why was it that Absál in that Isle
So soon deceived in her Delight, and He
Fell short of his Desire?—that was to show
How soon the Senses of their Passion tire,
And in a surfeit of themselves expire.

And what the turning of Salámán's Heart
Back to The Shah, and to the throne of Might
And Glory yearning?—What but the return
Of the lost Soul to his true Parentage,
And back from Carnal error looking up
Repentant to his Intellectual Right.

And when the Man between his living Shame
Distracted, and the Love that would not die,
Fled once again—what meant that second Flight
Into the Desert, and that Pile of Fire
On which he fain his Passion with Himself
Would immolate?—That was the Discipline
To which the living Man himself devotes,
Till all the Sensual dross be scorcht away,
And, to its pure integrity return'd,

250

His Soul alone survives. But forasmuch
As from a darling Passion so divorced
The wound will open and will bleed anew,
Therefore The Sage would ever and anon
Raise up and set before Salámán's eyes
That Fantom of the past; but evermore
Revealing one Diviner, till his Soul
She fill'd, and blotted out the Mortal Love.
For what is Zuhrah?—What but that Divine
Original, of which the Soul of Man
Darkly possesst, by that fierce Discipline
At last he disengages from the Dust,
And flinging off the baser rags of Sense,
And all in Intellectual Light array'd,
As Conqueror and King he mounts the Throne,
And wears the Crown of Human Glory—Whence,
Throne over Throne surmounting, he shall reign
One with the Last and First Intelligence.

This is the meaning of this Mystery,
Which to know wholly ponder in thy Heart,
Till all its ancient Secret be enlarged.
Enough—The written Summary I close,
And set my Seal—

THE TRUTH GOD ONLY KNOWS

255

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF FARÍD-UDDÍN ATTAR'S BIRD-PARLIAMENT

257

Once on a time from all the Circles seven
Between the stedfast Earth and rolling Heaven
The Birds, of all Note, Plumage, and Degree,
That float in Air, and roost upon the Tree;
And they that from the Waters snatch their Meat,
And they that scour the Desert with long Feet:
Birds of all Natures, known or not to Man,
Flock'd from all Quarters into full Divan,
On no less solemn business than to find
Or choose, a Sultán Khalif of their kind,
For whom, if never their's, or lost, they pined.
The Snake had his, 'twas said; and so the Beast
His Lion-lord: and Man had his, at least:
And that the Birds, who nearest were the Skies,
And went apparell'd in its Angel Dyes,
Should be without—under no better Law
Than that which lost all other in the Maw—
Disperst without a Bond of Union—nay,
Or meeting to make each the other's Prey—
This was the Grievance—this the solemn Thing
On which the scatter'd Commonwealth of Wing,

258

From all the four Winds, flying like to Cloud
That met and blacken'd Heav'n, and Thunder-loud
With Sound of whirring Wings and Beaks that clash'd
Down like a Torrent on the Desert dash'd:
Till by Degrees, the Hubbub and Pell-mell
Into some Order and Precedence fell,
And, Proclamation made of Silence, each
In special Accent, but in general Speech
That all should understand, as seem'd him best,
The Congregation of all Wings addrest.

And first, with Heart so full as from his Eyes
Ran weeping, up rose Tájidár the Wise;
The mystic Mark upon whose Bosom show'd
That he alone of all the Birds The Road
Had travell'd: and the Crown upon his Head
Had reach'd the Goal; and He stood forth and said.

‘Oh Birds, by what Authority divine
I speak you know by His authentic Sign,
And Name, emblazon'd on my Breast and Bill:
Whose Counsel I assist at, and fulfil:
At His Behest I measured as he plann'd
The Spaces of the Air and Sea and Land;

259

I gauged the secret sources of the Springs
From Cloud to Fish: the Shadow of my Wings
Dream'd over sleeping Deluge: piloted
The Blast that bore Sulaymán's Throne: and led
The Cloud of Birds that canopied his Head;
Whose Word I brought to Balkís: and I shared
The Counsel that with Ásaf he prepared.
And now you want a Khalif: and I know
Him, and his whereabout, and How to go:
And go alone I could, and plead your cause
Alone for all: but, by the eternal laws,
Yourselves by Toil and Travel of your own
Must for your old Delinquency atone.
Were you indeed not blinded by the Curse
Of Self-exile, that still grows worse and worse,
Yourselves would know that, though you see him not,
He is with you this Moment, on this Spot,
Your Lord through all Forgetfulness and Crime,
Here, There, and Everywhere, and through all Time.
But as a Father, whom some wayward Child
By sinful Self-will has unreconciled,

260

Waits till the sullen Reprobate at cost
Of long Repentance should regain the Lost,
Therefore, yourselves to see as you are seen,
Yourselves must bridge the Gulf you made between
By such a Search and Travel to be gone
Up to the mighty mountain Káf, whereon
Hinges the World, and round about whose Knees
Into one Ocean mingle the Sev'n Seas;
In whose impenetrable Forest-folds
Of Light and Dark ‘Sýmurgh’ his Presence holds;
Not to be reach'd, if to be reach'd at all
But by a Road the stoutest might appal;
Of Travel not of Days or Months, but Yeàrs—
Life-long perhaps: of Dangers, Doubts, and Fears
As yet unheard of: Sweat of Blood and Brain
Interminable—often all in vain—
And, if successful, no Return again:
A Road whose very Preparation scared
The Traveller who yet must be prepared.
Who then this Travel to Result would bring
Needs both a Lion's Heart beneath the Wing,
And even more, a Spirit purified
Of Worldly Passion, Malice, Lust, and Pride:
Yea, ev'n of Worldly Wisdom, which grows dim
And dark, the nearer it approaches Him,
Who to the Spirit's Eye alone reveal'd,
By sacrifice of Wisdom's self unseal'd;

261

Without which none who reach the Place could bear
To look upon the Glory dwelling there.’

One Night from out the swarming City Gate
Stept holy Bajazyd, to meditate
Alone amid the breathing Fields that lay
In solitary Silence leagues away,
Beneath a Moon and Stars as bright as Day.
And the Saint wondering such a Temple were,
And so lit up, and scarce one worshipper,
A voice from Heav'n amid the stillness said;
‘The Royal Road is not for all to tread,
Nor is the Royal Palace for the Rout,
Who, even if they reach it, are shut out.
The Blaze that from my Harím window breaks
With fright the Rabble of the Roadside takes;
And ev'n of those that at my Portal din,
Thousands may knock for one that enters in.’

Thus spoke the Tájidár: and the wing'd Crowd,
That underneath his Word in Silence bow'd,
Clapp'd Acclamation: and their Hearts and Eyes
Were kindled by the Firebrand of the Wise.
They felt their Degradation: they believed
The word that told them how to be retrieved,
And in that glorious Consummation won
Forgot the Cost at which it must be done.
‘They only long'd to follow: they would go
Whither he led, through Flood, or Fire, or Snow.’—

262

So cried the Multitude. But some there were
Who listen'd with a cold disdainful air,
Content with what they were, or grudging Cost
Of Time or Travel that might all be lost;
These, one by one, came forward, and preferr'd
Unwise Objection: which the wiser Word
Shot with direct Reproof, or subtly round
With Argument and Allegory wound.

The Pheasant first would know by what pretence
The Tájidár to that pre-eminence
Was raised—a Bird, but for his lofty Crest
(And such the Pheasant had) like all the Rest—

Who answer'd—‘By no Virtue of my own
Sulaymán chose me, but by His alone:
Not by the Gold and Silver of my Sighs
Made mine, but the free Largess of his Eyes.
Behold the Grace of Allah comes and goes
As to Itself is good: and no one knows
Which way it turns: in that mysterious Court
Not he most finds who furthest travels for't.
For one may crawl upon his knees Life-long,
And yet may never reach, or all go wrong:
Another just arriving at the Place
He toil'd for, and—the Door shut in his Face:
Whereas Another, scarcely gone a Stride,
And suddenly—Behold he is Inside!—
But though the Runner win not, he that stands,
No Thorn will turn to Roses in his Hands:
Each one must do his best and all endure,
And all endeavour, hoping but not sure.

263

Heav'n its own Umpire is; its Bidding do,
And Thou perchance shalt be Sulaymán's too.’

One day Shah Mahmúd, riding with the Wind
A-hunting, left his Retinue behind,
And coming to a River, whose swift Course
Doubled back Game and Dog, and Man and Horse,
Beheld upon the Shore a little Lad
A-fishing, very poor, and Tatter-clad
He was, and weeping as his Heart would break.
So the Great Sultán, for Good humour's sake
Pull'd in his Horse a moment, and drew nigh,
And after making his Salám, ask'd why
He wept—weeping, the Sultán said, so sore
As he had never seen one weep before.
The Boy look'd up, and ‘Oh Amír,’ he said,
‘Sev'n of us are at home, and Father dead,
And Mother left with scarce a Bit of Bread:
And now since Sunrise have I fish'd—and see!
Caught nothing for our Supper—Woe is Me!’
The Sultán lighted from his Horse. ‘Behold,’
Said he, ‘Good Fortune will not be controll'd:
And, since To-day yours seems to turn from you,
Suppose we try for once what mine will do,
And we will share alike in all I win.’
So the Shah took, and flung his Fortune in,
The Net; which, cast by the Great Mahmúd's Hand,
A hundred glittering Fishes brought to Land.

264

The Lad look'd up in Wonder—Mahmúd smiled
And vaulted into Saddle. But the Child
Ran after—‘Nay, Amír, but half the Haul
Is yours by Bargain’—‘Nay, To-day take all,’
The Sultán cried, and shook his Bridle free—
‘But mind—To-morrow All belongs to Me—’
And so rode off. Next morning at Divan
The Sultán's Mind upon his Bargain ran,
And being somewhat in a mind for sport
Sent for the Lad: who, carried up to Court,
And marching into Royalty's full Blaze
With such a Catch of Fish as yesterday's,
The Sultán call'd and set him by his side,
And asking him, ‘What Luck?’ The Boy replied,
‘This is the Luck that follows every Cast,
Since o'er my Net the Sultán's Shadow pass'd.’

Then came The Nightingale, from such a Draught
Of Ecstasy that from the Rose he quaff'd
Reeling as drunk, and ever did distil
In exquisite Divisions from his Bill
To inflame the Hearts of Men—and thus sang He—
‘To me alone, alone, is giv'n the Key
Of Love; of whose whole Mystery possesst,
When I reveal a little to the Rest,
Forthwith Creation listening forsakes
The Reins of Reason, and my Frenzy takes:

265

Yea, whosoever once has quaff'd this wine
He leaves unlisten'd David's Song for mine.
In vain do Men for my Divisions strive,
And die themselves making dead Lutes alive:
I hang the Stars with Meshes for Men's Souls:
The Garden underneath my Music rolls.
The long, long Morns that mourn the Rose away
I sit in silence, and on Anguish prey:
But the first Air which the New Year shall breathe
Up to my Boughs of Message from beneath
That in her green Harím my Bride unveils,
My Throat bursts silence and her Advent hails,
Who in her crimson Volume registers
The Notes of Him whose Life is lost in hers.
The Rose I love and worship now is here;
If dying, yet reviving, Year by Year;
But that you tell of, all my Life why waste
In vainly searching; or, if found, not taste?’

So with Division infinite and Trill
On would the Nightingale have warbled still,
And all the World have listen'd; but a Note
Of sterner Import check'd the love-sick Throat.

‘Oh watering with thy melodious Tears
Love's Garden, and who dost indeed the Ears

266

Of men with thy melodious Fingers mould
As David's Finger Iron did of old:
Why not, like David, dedicate thy Dower
Of Song to something better than a Flower?
Empress indeed of Beauty, so they say,
But one whose Empire hardly lasts a Day,
By Insurrection of the Morning's Breath
That made her hurried to Decay and Death:
And while she lasts contented to be seen,
And worshipt, for the Garden's only Queen,
Leaving thee singing on thy Bough forlorn,
Or if she smile on Thee, perhaps in Scorn.’

Like that fond Dervish waiting in the throng
When some World-famous Beauty went along,
Who smiling on the Antic as she pass'd—
Forthwith Staff, Bead and Scrip away he cast,
And grovelling in the Kennel, took to whine
Before her Door among the Dogs and Swine.
Which when she often went unheeding by,
But one day quite as heedless ask'd him—‘Why?’—
He told of that one Smile, which, all the Rest
Passing, had kindled Hope within his Breast—
Again she smiled and said, ‘Oh self-beguiled
Poor Wretch, at whom and not on whom I smiled.’

Then came the subtle Parrot in a coat
Greener than Greensward, and about his Throat

267

A Collar ran of sub-sulphureous Gold;
And in his Beak a Sugar-plum he troll'd,
That all his Words with luscious Lisping ran,
And to this Tune—‘Oh cruel Cage, and Man
More iron still who did confine me there,
Who else with him whose Livery I wear
Ere this to his Eternal Fount had been,
And drunk what should have kept me ever-green.
But now I know the Place, and I am free
To go, and all the Wise will follow Me.
Some’—and upon the Nightingale one Eye
He leer'd—‘for nothing but the Blossom sigh:
But I am for the luscious Pulp that grows
Where, and for which the Blossom only blows:
And which so long as the Green Tree provides
What better grows along Káf's dreary Sides?
And what more needful Prophet there than He
Who gives me Life to nip it from the Tree?’

To whom the Tájidár—‘Oh thou whose Best
In the green leaf of Paradise is drest,
But whose Neck kindles with a lower Fire—
Oh slip the collar off of base Desire,
And stand apparell'd in Heav'n's Woof entire!

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This Life that hangs so sweet about your Lips
But, spite of all your Khizar, slips and slips,
What is it but itself the coarser Rind
Of the True Life withinside and behind,
Which he shall never never reach unto
Till the gross Shell of Carcase he break through?’

For what said He, that dying Hermit, whom
Your Prophet came to, trailing through the Gloom
His Emerald Vest, and tempted—‘Come with Me,
And Live.’ The Hermit answered—‘Not with Thee.
Two Worlds there are, and This was thy Design,
And thou hast got it; but The Next is mine;
Whose Fount is this Life's Death, and to whose Side
Ev'n now I find my Way without a Guide.’

Then like a Sultán glittering in all Rays
Of Jewelry, and deckt with his own Blaze,
The glorious Peacock swept into the Ring:
And, turning slowly that the glorious Thing
Might fill all Eyes with wonder, thus said He.
‘Behold, the Secret Artist, making me,

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With no one Colour of the skies bedeckt,
But from its Angel's Feathers did select
To make up mine withal, the Gabriel
Of all the Birds: though from my Place I fell
In Eden, when Acquaintance I did make
In those blest Days with that Sev'n-headed Snake,
And thence with him, my perfect Beauty marr'd
With these ill Feet, was thrust out and debarr'd.
Little I care for Worldly Fruit or Flower,
Would you restore me to lost Eden's Bower,
But first my Beauty making all complete
With reparation of these ugly Feet.’

‘Were it,’ 'twas answer'd, ‘only to return
To that lost Eden, better far to burn
In Self-abasement up thy plumèd Pride,
And ev'n with lamer feet to creep inside—
But all mistaken you and all like you
That long for that lost Eden as the true;
Fair as it was, still nothing but the Shade
And Out-court of the Majesty that made
That which I point you tow'rd, and which the King
I tell you of broods over with his Wing,
With no deciduous leaf, but with the Rose
Of Spiritual Beauty, smells and glows:
No plot of Earthly Pleasance, but the whole
True Garden of the Universal Soul.’

270

For so Creation's Master-jewel fell
From that same Eden: loving which too well,
The Work before the Artist did prefer,
And in the Garden lost the Gardener.
Wherefore one Day about the Garden went
A voice that found him in his false Content,
And like a bitter Sarsar of the North
Shrivell'd the Garden up, and drove him forth
Into the Wilderness: and so the Eye
Of Eden closed on him till by and by.
Then from a Ruin where conceal'd he lay
Watching his buried Gold, and hating Day,
Hooted The Owl.—‘I tell you, my Delight
Is in the Ruin and the Dead of Night
Where I was born, and where I love to wone
All my Life long, sitting on some cold stone,
Away from all your roystering Companies,
In some dark Corner where a Treasure lies;
That, buried by some Miser in the Dark,
Speaks up to me at Midnight like a Spark;
And o'er it like a Talisman I brood,
Companion of the Serpent and the Toad.
What need of other Sovereign, having found,
And keeping as in Prison underground,
One before whom all other Kings bow down,
And with his glittering Heel their Foreheads crown?’

271

‘He that a Miser lives and Miser dies,
At the Last Day what Figure shall he rise?’
A Fellow all his life lived hoarding Gold,
And, dying, hoarded left it. And behold,
One Night his Son saw peering through the House
A Man, with yet the semblance of a Mouse,
Watching a crevice in the Wall—and cried—
‘My Father?’—‘Yes,’ the Musulman replied,
‘Thy Father!’—‘But why watching thus?’—‘For fear
Lest any smell my Treasure buried here.’
‘But wherefore, Sir, so metamousified?’
‘Because, my Son, such is the true outside
Of the inner Soul by which I lived and died.’

‘Ay,’ said The Partridge, with his Foot and Bill
Crimson with raking Rubies from the Hill,
And clattering his Spurs—‘Wherewith the Ground
‘I stab,’ said he, ‘for Rubies, that, when found
I swallow; which, as soon as swallow'd, turn
To Sparks which through my beak and eyes do burn.
Gold, as you say, is but dull Metal dead,
And hanging on the Hoarder's Soul like Lead:
But Rubies that have Blood within, and grown
And nourisht in the Mountain Heart of Stone,

272

Burn with an inward Light, which they inspire,
And make their Owners Lords of their Desire.’

To whom the Tájidár—‘As idly sold
To the quick Pebble as the drowsy Gold,
As dead when sleeping in their mountain mine
As dangerous to Him who makes them shine:
Slavish indeed to do their Lord's Commands,
And slave-like, aptest to escape his Hands,
And serve a second Master like the first,
And working all their wonders for the worst.’

Never was Jewel after or before
Like that Sulaymán for a Signet wore:
Whereby one Ruby, weighing scarce a grain
Did Sea and Land and all therein constrain,
Yea, ev'n the Winds of Heav'n—made the fierce East
Bear his League-wide Pavilion like a Beast,
Whither he would: yea, the Good Angel held
His subject, and the lower Fiend compell'd.
Till, looking round about him in his pride,
He overtax'd the Fountain that supplied,
Praying that after him no Son of Clay
Should ever touch his Glory. And one Day
Almighty God his Jewel stole away,

273

And gave it to the Div, who with the Ring
Wore also the Resemblance of the King,
And so for forty days play'd such a Game
As blots Sulaymán's forty years with Shame.

Then The Shah-Falcon, tossing up his Head
Blink-hooded as it was—‘Behold,’ he said,
‘I am the chosen Comrade of the King,
And perch upon the Fist that wears the Ring;
Born, bred, and nourisht, in the Royal Court,
I take the Royal Name and make the Sport.
And if strict Discipline I undergo
And half my Life am blinded—be it so;
Because the Shah's Companion ill may brook
On aught save Royal Company to look.
And why am I to leave my King, and fare
With all these Rabble Wings I know not where?’—

‘Oh blind indeed’—the Answer was, ‘and dark
To any but a vulgar Mortal Mark,
And drunk with Pride of Vassalage to those
Whose Humour like their Kingdom comes and goes;
All Mutability: who one Day please
To give: and next Day what they gave not seize:
Like to the Fire: a dangerous Friend at best,
Which who keeps farthest from does wiseliest.’

274

A certain Shah there was in Days foregone
Who had a lovely Slave he doated on,
And cherish'd as the Apple of his Eye,
Clad gloriously, fed sumptuously, set high,
And never was at Ease were He not by,
Who yet, for all this Sunshine, Day by Day
Was seen to wither like a Flower away.
Which, when observing, one without the Veil
Of Favour ask'd the Favourite—‘Why so pale
And sad?’ thus sadly answer'd the poor Thing—
‘No Sun that rises sets until the King,
Whose Archery is famous among Men,
Aims at an Apple on my Head; and when
The stricken Apple splits, and those who stand
Around cry “Lo! the Shah's unerring Hand!”
Then He too laughing asks me “Why so pale
And sorrow-some? as could the Sultan fail,
Who such a master of the Bow confest,
And aiming by the Head that he loves best.”’

Then on a sudden swoop'd The Phœnix down
As though he wore as well as gave The Crown:

275

And cried—‘I care not, I, to wait on Kings,
Whose crowns are but the Shadow of my Wings!’

‘Ay,’ was the Answer—‘And, pray, how has sped,
On which it lighted, many a mortal Head?’

A certain Sultán dying, his Vizier
In Dream beheld him, and in mortal Fear
Began—‘Oh mighty Shah of Shahs! Thrice-blest’—
But loud the Vision shriek'd and struck its Breast,
And ‘Stab me not with empty Title!’ cried—
‘One only Shah there is, and none beside,
Who from his Throne above for certain Ends
Awhile some Spangle of his Glory lends
To Men on Earth; but calling in again
Exacts a strict account of every Grain.
Sultán I lived, and held the World in scorn:
Oh better had I glean'd the Field of Corn!
Oh better had I been a Beggar born,
And for my Throne and Crown, down in the Dust
My living Head had laid where Dead I must!
Oh wither'd, wither'd, wither'd, be the Wing
Whose overcasting Shadow made me King!’

Then from a Pond, where all day long he kept,
Waddled the dapper Duck demure, adept
At infinite Ablution, and precise
In keeping of his Raiment clean and nice.

276

And ‘Sure of all the Race of Birds,’ said He,
‘None for Religious Purity like Me,
Beyond what strictest Rituals prescribe—
Methinks I am the Saint of all our Tribe,
To whom, by Miracle, the Water, that
I wash in, also makes my Praying-Mat.’

To whom, more angrily than all, replied
The Leader, lashing that religious Pride,
That under ritual Obedience
To outer Law with inner might dispense:
For, fair as all the Feather to be seen,
Could one see through, the Maw was not so clean:
But He that made both Maw and Feather too
Would take account of, seeing through and through.

A Shah returning to his Capital,
His subjects drest it forth in Festival,
Thronging with Acclamation Square and Street,
And kneeling flung before his Horse's feet
Jewel and Gold. All which with scarce an Eye
The Sultán superciliously rode by:
Till coming to the public Prison, They
Who dwelt within those grisly Walls, by way
Of Welcome, having neither Pearl nor Gold,
Over the wall chopt Head and Carcase roll'd,
Some almost parcht to Mummy with the Sun,
Some wet with Execution that day done.
At which grim Compliment at last the Shah
Drew Bridle: and amid a wild Hurrah

277

Of savage Recognition, smiling threw
Silver and Gold among the wretched Crew,
And so rode forward. Whereat of his Train
One wondering that, while others sued in vain
With costly gifts, which carelessly he pass'd,
But smiled at ghastly Welcome like the last;
The Shah made answer—‘All that Pearl and Gold
Of ostentatious Welcome only told:
A little with great Clamour from the Store
Of Hypocrites who kept at home much more.
But when those sever'd Heads and Trunks I saw—
Save by strict Execution of my Law
They had not parted company; not one
But told my Will not talk'd about, but done.’
Then from a Wood was heard unseen to coo
The Ring-dove—‘Yúsuf! Yúsuf! Yúsuf! Yú-’
(For thus her sorrow broke her Note in twain,
And, just where broken, took it up again)
‘-suf! Yúsuf! Yúsuf! Yúsuf!’—But one Note,
Which still repeating, she made hoarse her throat:
Till checkt—‘Oh You, who with your idle Sighs
Block up the Road of better Enterprize;
Sham Sorrow all, or bad as sham if true,
When once the better thing is come to do;
Beware lest wailing thus you meet his Doom
Who all too long his Darling wept, from whom
You draw the very Name you hold so dear,
And which the World is somewhat tired to hear.’

278

When Yúsuf from his Father's Home was torn,
The Patriarch's Heart was utterly forlorn,
And, like a Pipe with but one stop, his Tongue
With nothing but the name of ‘Yúsuf’ rung.
Then down from Heaven's Branches flew the Bird
Of Heav'n, and said ‘God wearies of that word:
Hast thou not else to do and else to say?’
So Yacúb's lips were sealéd from that Day.
But one Night in a Vision, far away
His darling in some alien Field he saw
Binding the Sheaf; and what between the Awe
Of God's Displeasure and the bitter Pass
Of passionate Affection, sigh'd ‘Alas—’
And stopp'd—But with the morning Sword of Flame
That oped his Eyes the sterner Angel's came—
‘For the forbidden Word not utter'd by
Thy Lips was yet sequester'd in that Sigh.’
And the right Passion whose Excess was wrong
Blinded the aged Eyes that wept too long.

And after these came others—arguing,
Enquiring and excusing—some one Thing,
And some another—endless to repeat,
But, in the Main, Sloth, Folly, or Deceit.
Their Souls were to the vulgar Figure cast
Of earthly Victual not of Heavenly Fast.

279

At last one smaller Bird, of a rare kind,
Of modest Plume and unpresumptuous Mind,
Whisper'd, ‘Oh Tájidár, we know indeed
How Thou both knowest, and would'st help our Need;
For thou art wise and holy, and hast been
Behind the Veil, and there The Presence seen.

But we are weak and vain, with little care
Beyond our yearly Nests and daily Fare—
How should we reach the Mountain? and if there
How get so great a Prince to hear our Prayer?
For there, you say, dwells The Symurgh alone
In Glory, like Sulaymán on his Throne,
And we but Pismires at his feet: can He
Such puny Creatures stoop to hear, or see;
Or hearing, seeing, own us—unakin
As He to Folly, Woe, and Death, and Sin?’—

To whom the Tájidár, whose Voice for those
Bewilder'd ones to full Compassion rose—
‘Oh lost so long in Exile, you disclaim
The very Fount of Being whence you came,
Cannot be parted from, and, will or no,
Whither for Good or Evil must re-flow!
For look—the Shadows into which the Light
Of his pure Essence down by infinite
Gradation dwindles, which at random play
Through Space in Shape indefinite—one Ray
Of his Creative Will into defined
Creation quickens: We that swim the Wind,

280

And they the Flood below, and Man and Beast
That walk between, from Lion to the least
Pismire that creeps along Sulaymán's Wall—
Yea, that in which they swim, fly, walk, and crawl—
However near the Fountain Light, or far
Removed, yet His authentic Shadows are;
Dead Matter's Self but the dark Residue
Exterminating Glory dwindles to.
A Mystery too fearful in the Crowd
To utter—scarcely to Thyself aloud—
But when in solitary Watch and Prayer
Consider'd: and religiously beware
Lest Thou the Copy with the Type confound;
And Deity, with Deity indrown'd,—
For as pure Water into purer Wine
Incorporating shall itself refine
While the dull Drug lies half-resolved below,
With Him and with his Shadows is it so:
The baser Forms, to whatsoever Change
Subject, still vary through their lower Range:
To which the higher even shall decay,
That, letting ooze their better Part away
For Things of Sense and Matter, in the End
Shall merge into the Clay to which they tend.
Unlike to him, who straining through the Bond
Of outward Being for a Life beyond,
While the gross Worldling to his Centre clings,
That draws him deeper in, exulting springs
To merge him in the central Soul of Things.
And shall not he pass home with other Zest
Who, with full Knowledge, yearns for such a Rest,

281

Than he, who with his better self at strife,
Drags on the weary Exile call'd This Life?—
One, like a child with outstretcht Arms and Face
Up-turn'd, anticipates his Sire's Embrace;
The other crouching like a guilty Slave
Till flogg'd to Punishment across the Grave.
And, knowing that His glory ill can bear
The unpurged Eye; do thou Thy Breast prepare;
And the mysterious Mirror He set there,
To temper his reflected Image in,
Clear of Distortion, Doubleness, and Sin:
And in thy Conscience understanding this,
The Double only seems, but The One is,
Thy-self to Self-annihilation give
That this false Two in that true One may live.
For this I say: if, looking in thy Heart,
Thou for Self-whole mistake thy Shadow-part,
That Shadow-part indeed into The Sun
Shall melt, but senseless of its Union:
But in that Mirror if with purgèd eyes
Thy Shadow Thou for Shadow recognize,
Then shalt Thou back into thy Centre fall
A conscious Ray of that eternal All.’

He ceased, and for a while Amazement quell'd
The Host, and in the Chain of Silence held:
A Mystery so awful who would dare—
So glorious who would not wish—to share?
So Silence brooded on the feather'd Folk,
Till here and there a timid Murmur broke

282

From some too poor in honest Confidence,
And then from others of too much Pretence;
Whom both, as each unduly hoped or fear'd,
The Tájidár in answer check'd or cheer'd.

Some said their Hearts were good indeed to go
The Way he pointed out: but they were slow
Of Comprehension, and scarce understood
Their present Evil or the promised Good:
And so, tho' willing to do all they could,
Must not they fall short, or go wholly wrong,
On such mysterious Errand, and so long?
Whom the wise Leader bid but Do their Best
In Hope and Faith, and leave to Him the rest,
For He who fix'd the Race, and knew its Length
And Danger, also knew the Runner's Strength.

Shah Mahmúd, absent on an Enterprize,
Ayas, the very Darling of his eyes,
At home under an Evil Eye fell sick,
Then cried the Sultán to a soldier ‘Quick!
To Horse! to Horse! without a Moment's Stay,—
The shortest Road with all the Speed you may,—
Or, by the Lord, your Head shall pay for it!’—
Off went the Soldier, plying Spur and Bit—
Over the Sandy Desert, over green
Valley, and Mountain, and the Stream between,
Without a Moment's Stop for rest or bait,—
Up to the City—to the Palace Gate—
Up to the Presence-Chamber at a Stride—
And Lo! The Sultán at his Darling's side!—

283

Then thought the Soldier—‘I have done my Best,
And yet shall die for it.’ The Sultán guess'd
His Thought and smiled. ‘Indeed your Best you did,
The nearest Road you knew, and well you rid:
And if I knew a shorter, my Excess
Of Knowledge does but justify thy Less.’

And then, with drooping Crest and Feather, came
Others, bow'd down with Penitence and Shame.
They long'd indeed to go; ‘but how begin,
Mesh'd and entangled as they were in Sin
Which often-times Repentance of past Wrong
As often broken had but knit more strong?’

Whom the wise Leader bid be of good cheer,
And, conscious of the Fault, dismiss the Fear,
Nor at the very Entrance of the Fray
Their Weapon, ev'n if broken, fling away:
Since Mercy on the broken Branch anew
Would blossom were but each Repentance true.

For did not God his Prophet take to Task?
‘Sev'n-times of Thee did Kárún Pardon ask;
Which, hadst thou been like Me his Maker—yea,
But present at the Kneading of his Clay
With those twain Elements of Hell and Heav'n,—
One prayer had won what Thou deny'st to Sev'n.’

For like a Child sent with a fluttering Light
To feel his way along a gusty Night

284

Man walks the World: again and yet again
The Lamp shall be by Fits of Passion slain:
But shall not He who sent him from the Door
Relight the Lamp once more, and yet once more?

When the rebellious Host from Death shall wake
Black with Despair of Judgment, God shall take
Ages of holy Merit from the Count
Of Angels to make up Man's short Amount,
And bid the murmuring Angel gladly spare
Of that which, undiminishing his Share
Of Bliss, shall rescue Thousands from the Cost
Of Bankruptcy within the Prison lost.
Another Story told how in the Scale
Good Will beyond mere Knowledge would prevail.
In Paradise the Angel Gabriel heard
The Lips of Allah trembling with the Word
Of perfect Acceptation: and he thought
‘Some perfect Faith such perfect Answer wrought,
But whose?’—And therewith slipping from the Crypt
Of Sidra, through the Angel-ranks he slipt
Watching what Lip yet trembled with the Shot
That so had hit the Mark—but found it not.

285

Then, in a Glance to Earth, he threaded through
Mosque, Palace, Cell and Cottage of the True
Belief—in vain; so back to Heaven went
And—Allah's Lips still trembling with assent!
Then the tenacious Angel once again
Threaded the Ranks of Heav'n and Earth—in vain—
Till, once again return'd to Paradise,
There, looking into God's, the Angel's Eyes
Beheld the Prayer that brought that Benison
Rising like Incense from the Lips of one
Who to an Idol bow'd—as best he knew
Under that False God worshipping the True.
And then came others whom the summons found
Not wholly sick indeed, but far from sound:
Whose light inconstant Soul alternate flew
From Saint to Sinner, and to both untrue;
Who like a niggard Tailor, tried to match
Truth's single Garment with a worldly Patch.
A dangerous Game; for, striving to adjust
The hesitating Scale of either Lust,
That which had least within it upward flew,
And still the weightier to the Earth down drew,
And, while suspended between Rise and Fall,
Apt with a shaking Hand to forfeit all.
There was a Queen of Egypt like the Bride
Of Night, Full-moon-faced and Canopus-eyed,
Whom one among the meanest of her Crowd
Loved—and she knew it, (for he loved aloud)

286

And sent for him, and said ‘Thou lovest thy Queen:
Now therefore Thou hast this to choose between:
Fly for thy Life: or for this one night Wed
Thy Queen, and with the Sunrise lose thy Head.’
He paused—he turn'd to fly—she struck him dead.
‘For had he truly loved his Queen,’ said She,
‘He would at once have given his Life for me,
And Life and Wife had carried: but he lied;
And loving only Life, has justly died.’

And then came one who having clear'd his Throat
With sanctimonious Sweetness in his Note
Thus lisp'd—‘Behold I languish from the first
With passionate and unrequited Thirst
Of Love for more than any mortal Bird.
Therefore have I withdrawn me from the Herd
To pine in Solitude. But Thou at last
Hast drawn a line across the dreary Past,
And sure I am by Fore-taste that the Wine
I long'd for, and Thou tell'st of, shall be mine.’

But he was sternly checkt. ‘I tell thee this:
Such Boast is no Assurance of such Bliss:
Thou canst not even fill the sail of Prayer
Unless from Him breathe that authentic Air
That shall lift up the Curtain that divides
His Lover from the Harím where He hides—
And the Fulfilment of thy Vows must be,
Not from thy Love for Him, but His for Thee.’

287

The third night after Bajazyd had died,
One saw him, in a dream, at his Bed-side,
And said, ‘Thou Bajazyd? Tell me Oh Pýr,
How fared it there with Munkar and Nakýr?’
And Bajazyd replied, ‘When from the Grave
They met me rising, and “If Allah's slave”
Ask'd me, “or collar'd with the Chain of Hell?”
I said “Not I but God alone can tell:
My Passion for his service were but fond
Ambition had not He approved the Bond:
Had He not round my neck the Collar thrown
And told me in the Number of his own;
And that He only knew. What signifies
A hundred Years of Prayer if none replies?”’

‘But’ said Another, ‘then shall none the Seal
Of Acceptation on his Forehead feel
Ere the Grave yield them on the other Side
Where all is settled?’

But the Chief replied—
‘Enough for us to know that who is meet
Shall enter, and with unreprovéd Feet,
(Ev'n as he might upon the Waters walk)
The Presence-room, and in the Presence talk
With such unbridled License as shall seem
To the Uninitiated to blaspheme.’

Just as another Holy Spirit fled,
The Skies above him burst into a Bed

288

Of Angels looking down and singing clear
‘Nightingale! Nightingale! thy Rose is here!’
And yet, the Door wide open to that Bliss,
As some hot Lover slights a scanty Kiss,
The Saint cried ‘All I sigh'd for come to this?
I who life-long have struggled, Lord, to be
Not of thy Angels one, but one with Thee!’

Others were sure that all he said was true:
They were extremely wicked, that they knew:
And much they long'd to go at once—but some,
They said, so unexpectedly had come
Leaving their Nests half-built—in bad Repair—
With Children in—Themselves about to pair—
‘Might he not choose a better Season—nay,
Better perhaps a Year or Two's Delay,
Till all was settled, and themselves more stout
And strong to carry their Repentance out—
And then’—

‘And then, the same or like Excuse,
With harden'd Heart and Resolution loose
With dallying: and old Age itself engaged
Still to shirk that which shirking we have aged;
And so with Self-delusion, till, too late,
Death upon all Repentance shuts the Gate;
Or some fierce blow compels the Way to choose,
And forced Repentance half its Virtue lose.’

As of an aged Indian King they tell
Who, when his Empire with his Army fell

289

Under young Mahmúd's Sword of Wrath, was sent
At sunset to the Conqueror in his Tent;
But, ere the old King's silver head could reach
The Ground, was lifted up—with kindly Speech,
And with so holy Mercy re-assured,
That, after due Persuasion, he abjured
His Idols, sate upon Mahmúd's Diván,
And took the Name and Faith of Musulman.
But when the Night fell, in his Tent alone
The poor old King was heard to weep and groan
And smite his Bosom; which, when Mahmúd knew,
He went to him and said ‘Lo, if Thou rue
Thy lost Dominion, Thou shalt wear the Ring
Of thrice as large a Realm.’ But the dark King
Still wept, and Ashes on his Forehead threw
And cried ‘Not for my Kingdom lost I rue;
But thinking how at the Last Day, will stand
The Prophet with The Volume in his Hand,
And ask of me “How was't that, in thy Day
Of Glory, Thou didst turn from Me and slay
My People; but soon as thy Infidel
Before my True Believers' Army fell
Like Corn before the Reaper—thou didst own
His Sword who scoutedst Me.” Of seed so sown
What profitable Harvest should be grown?’

Then after cheering others who delay'd,
Not of the Road but of Themselves afraid,

290

The Tájidár the Troop of those address'd,
Whose uncomplying Attitude confess'd
Their Souls entangled in the old Deceit,
And hankering still after forbidden Meat—

‘Oh ye who so long feeding on the Husk
Forgo the Fruit, and doating on the Dusk
Of the false Dawn, are blinded to the True:
That in the Maidán of this World pursue
The Golden Ball which, driven to the Goal,
Wins the World's Game but loses your own Soul:
Or like to Children after Bubbles run
That still elude your Fingers; or, if won,
Burst in Derision at your Touch; all thin
Glitter without, and empty Wind within.
So as a prosperous Worldling on the Bed
Of Death—“Behold, I am as one,” he said,
“Who all my Life long have been measuring Wind,
And, dying, now leave even that behind”—
This World's a Nest in which the Cockatrice
Is warm'd and hatcht of Vanity and Vice:
A false Bazár whose Wares are all a lie,
Or never worth the Price at which you buy:
A many-headed Monster that, supplied
The faster, faster is unsatisfied;
So as one, hearing a rich Fool one day
To God for yet one other Blessing pray,
Bid him no longer bounteous Heaven tire
For Life to feed, but Death to quench, the Fire.

291

And what are all the Vanities and Wiles
In which the false World decks herself and smiles
To draw Men down into her harlot Lap?
Lusts of the Flesh that Soul and Body sap,
And, melting Soul down into carnal Lust,
Ev'n that for which 'tis sacrificed disgust:
Or Lust of worldly Glory—hollow more
Than the Drum beaten at the Sultán's Door,
And fluctuating with the Breath of Man
As the Vain Banner flapping in the Van.
And Lust of Gold—perhaps of Lusts the worst;
The mis-created Idol most accurst
That between Man and Him who made him stands:
The Felon that with suicidal hands
He sweats to dig and rescue from his Grave,
And sets at large to make Himself its Slave.

‘For lo, to what worse than oblivion gone
Are some the cozening World most doated on?
Pharaoh tried Glory: and his Chariots drown'd:
Kárún with all his Gold went underground:
Down toppled Nembroth with his airy Stair:
Schedád among his Roses lived—but where?

‘And as the World upon her victims feeds
So She herself goes down the Way she leads.
For all her false allurements are the Threads
The Spider from her Entrail spins, and spreads

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For Home and hunting-ground: And by and by
Darts at due Signal on the tangled Fly,
Seizes, dis-wings, and drains the Life, and leaves
The swinging Carcase, and forthwith re-weaves
Her Web: each Victim adding to the store
Of poison'd Entrail to entangle more.
And so She bloats in Glory: till one Day
The Master of the House, passing that way,
Perceives, and with one flourish of his Broom
Of Web and Fly and Spider clears the Room.

‘Behold, dropt through the Gate of Mortal Birth,
The Knightly Soul alights from Heav'n on Earth;
Begins his Race, but scarce the Saddle feels,
When a foul Imp up from the distance steals,
And, double as he will, about his Heels
Closer and ever closer circling creeps,
Then, half-invited, on the Saddle leaps,
Clings round the Rider, and, once there, in vain
The strongest strives to thrust him off again.
In Childhood just peeps up the Blade of Ill,
That Youth to Lust rears, Fury, and Self-will:
And, as Man cools to sensual Desire,
Ambition catches with as fierce a Fire;
Until Old Age sends him with one last Lust
Of Gold, to keep it where he found—in Dust.
Life at both Ends so feeble and constrain'd
How should that Imp of Sin be slain or chain'd?

‘And woe to him who feeds the hateful Beast
That of his Feeder makes an after-feast!

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We know the Wolf: by Stratagem and Force
Can hunt the Tiger down: but what Resource
Against the Plague we heedless hatch within,
Then, growing, pamper into full-blown Sin
With the Soul's self: ev'n, as the wise man said,
Feeding the very Devil with God's own Bread;
Until the Lord his Largess misapplied
Resent, and drive us wholly from his Side?

‘For should the Grey-hound whom a Sultán fed,
And by a jewell'd String a-hunting led,
Turn by the Way to gnaw some nasty Thing
And snarl at Him who twitch'd the silken String,
Would not his Lord soon weary of Dispute,
And turn adrift the incorrigible Brute?

‘Nay, would one follow, and without a Chain,
The only Master truly worth the Pain,
One must beware lest, growing over-fond
Of even Life's more consecrated Bond,
We clog our Footsteps to the World beyond.
Like that old Arab Chieftain, who confess'd
His soul by two too Darling Things possess'd—
That only Son of his: and that one Colt
Descended from the Prophet's Thunderbolt.
“And I might well bestow the last,” he said,
“On him who brought me Word the Boy was dead.”

‘And if so vain the glittering Fish we get,
How doubly vain to doat upon the Net,

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Call'd Life, that draws them, patching up this thin
Tissue of Breathing out and Breathing in,
And so by husbanding each wretched Thread
Spin out Death's very Terror that we dread—
For as the Rain-drop from the sphere of God
Dropt for a while into the Mortal Clod
So little makes of its allotted Time
Back to its Heav'n itself to re-sublime,
That it but serves to saturate its Clay
With Bitterness that will not pass away.’

One day the Prophet on a River Bank,
Dipping his Lips into the Channel, drank
A Draught as sweet as Honey. Then there came
One who an earthen Pitcher from the same
Drew up, and drank: and after some short stay
Under the Shadow, rose and went his Way,
Leaving his earthen Bowl. In which, anew
Thirsting, the Prophet from the River drew,
And drank from: but the Water that came up
Sweet from the Stream, drank bitter from the Cup.
At which the Prophet in a still Surprise
For Answer turning up to Heav'n his Eyes,
The Vessel's Earthen Lips with Answer ran—
‘The Clay that I am made of once was Man,
Who dying, and resolved into the same
Obliterated Earth from which he came,
Was for the Potter dug, and chased in turn
Through long Vicissitude of Bowl and Urn:
But howsoever moulded, still the Pain
Of that first mortal Anguish would retain,

295

And cast, and re-cast, for a Thousand years
Would turn the sweetest Water into Tears.’

And after Death?—that, shirk it as we may,
Will come, and with it bring its After-Day—

For ev'n as Yúsuf, (when his Brotherhood
Came up from Egypt to buy Corn, and stood
Before their Brother in his lofty Place,
Nor knew him, for a Veil before his Face,)
Struck on his Mystic Cup, which straightway then
Rung out their Story to those guilty Ten:—
Not to them only, but to every one;
Whatever he have said and thought and done,
Unburied with the Body shall fly up,
And gather into Heav'n's inverted Cup,
Which, stricken by God's Finger, shall tell all
The Story whereby we must stand or fall.
And though we walk this World as if behind
There were no Judgment, or the Judge half-blind,
Beware, for He with whom we have to do
Outsees the Lynx, outlives the Phœnix too—

So Sultán Mahmúd, coming Face to Face
With mightier numbers of the swarthy Race,
Vow'd that if God to him the battle gave,
God's Dervish People all the Spoil should have.
And God the Battle gave him; and the Fruit
Of a great Conquest coming to compute,
A Murmur through the Sultán's Army stirr'd
Lest, ill committed to one hasty Word,

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The Shah should squander on an idle Brood
What should be theirs who earn'd it with their Blood,
Or go to fill the Coffers of the State.
So Mahmúd's Soul began to hesitate:
Till looking round in Doubt from side to side
A raving Zealot in the Press he spied,
And call'd and had him brought before his Face,
And, telling, bid him arbitrate the case.
Who, having listen'd, said—‘The Thing is plain:
If Thou and God should never have again
To deal together, rob him of his share:
But if perchance you should—why then Beware!’
So spake the Tájidár: but Fear and Doubt
Among the Birds in Whispers went about:
Great was their Need: and Succour to be sought
At any Risk: at any Ransom bought:
But such a Monarch—greater than Mahmúd
The Great Himself! Why how should he be woo'd
To listen to them? they too having come
So suddenly, and unprepared from home
With any Gold, or Jewel, or rich Thing
To carry with them to so great a King—
Poor Creatures! with the old and carnal Blind,
Spite of all said, so thick upon the Mind,
Devising how they might ingratiate
Access, as to some earthly Potentate.

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‘Let him that with this Monarch would engage
Bring the Gold Dust of a long Pilgrimage:
The Ruby of a bleeding Heart, whose Sighs
Breathe more than Amber-incense as it dies;
And while in naked Beggary he stands
Hope for the Robe of Honour from his Hands.
And, as no gift this Sovereign receives
Save the mere Soul and Self of him who gives,
So let that Soul for other none Reward
Look than the Presence of its Sovereign Lord.’
And as his Hearers seem'd to estimate
Their Scale of Glory from Mahmúd the Great,
A simple Story of the Sultán told
How best a subject with his Shah made bold—
One night Shah Mahmúd who had been of late
Somewhat distemper'd with Affairs of State
Stroll'd through the Streets disguised, as wont to do—
And, coming to the Baths, there on the Flue
Saw the poor Fellow who the Furnace fed
Sitting beside his Water-jug and Bread.
Mahmúd stept in—sat down—unask'd took up
And tasted of the untasted Loaf and Cup,
Saying within himself, ‘Grudge but a bit,
And, by the Lord, your Head shall pay for it!’
So having rested, warm'd and satisfied
Himself without a Word on either side,
At last the wayward Sultán rose to go.
And then at last his Host broke silence—‘So?—

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Art satisfied? Well, Brother, any Day
Or Night, remember, when you come this Way
And want a bit of Provender—why, you
Are welcome, and if not—why, welcome too.’—
The Sultán was so tickled with the whim
Of this quaint Entertainment and of him
Who offer'd it, that many a Night again
Stoker and Shah forgather'd in that Vein—
Till, the poor Fellow having stood the Test
Of true Good-fellowship, Mahmúd confess'd
One Night the Sultán that had been his Guest:
And in requital of the scanty Dole
The Poor Man offer'd with so large a soul,
Bid him ask any Largess that he would—
A Throne—if he would have it, so he should.
The Poor Man kiss'd the Dust, and ‘All,’ said he,
‘I ask is what and where I am to be;
If but the Shah from time to time will come
As now and see me in the lowly Home
His presence makes a palace, and my own
Poor Flue more royal than another's Throne.’

So said the cheery Tale: and, as they heard,
Again the Heart beneath the Feather stirr'd:
Again forgot the Danger and the Woes
Of the long Travel in its glorious Close:—
‘Here truly all was Poverty, Despair
And miserable Banishment—but there
That more than Mahmúd, for no more than Prayer

299

Who would restore them to their ancient Place,
And round their Shoulders fling his Robe of Grace.’
They clapp'd their Wings, on Fire to be assay'd
And prove of what true Metal they were made,
Although defaced, and wanting the true Ring
And Superscription of their rightful King.
‘The Road! The Road!’ in countless voices cried
The Host—‘The Road! and who shall be our Guide?’
And they themselves ‘The Tájidá!r’ replied:
Yet to make doubly certain that the Voice
Of Heav'n accorded with the People's Choice,
Lots should be drawn; and He on whom should light
Heav'n's Hand—they swore to follow him outright.
This settled, and once more the Hubbub quell'd,
Once more Suspense the Host in Silence held,
While, Tribe by Tribe, the Birds their Fortune drew;
And Lo! upon the Tájidár it flew.
Then rising up again in wide and high
Circumference of wings that mesh'd the sky
‘The Tájidár! The Tájidár!’ they cry—
‘The Tájidár! The Tájidár!’ with Him
Was Heav'n, and They would follow Life and Limb!
Then, once more fluttering to their Places down,
Upon his Head they set the Royal Crown

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As Khalif of their Khalif so long lost,
And Captain of his now repentant Host;
And setting him on high, and Silence call'd,
The Tájidár, in Pulpit-throne install'd,
His Voice into a Trumpet-tongue so clear
As all the wingèd Multitude should hear
Raised, to proclaim the Order and Array
Of March; which, many as it frighten'd—yea,
The Heart of Multitudes at outset broke,
Yet for due Preparation must be spoke.

—A Road indeed that never Wing before
Flew, nor Foot trod, nor Heart imagined—o'er
Waterless Deserts—Waters where no Shore—
Valleys comprising cloudhigh Mountains: these
Again their Valleys deeper than the Seas:
Whose Dust all Adders, and whose vapour Fire:
Where all once hostile Elements conspire
To set the Soul against herself, and tear
Courage to Terror—Hope into Despair,
And Madness; Terrors, Trials, to make stray
Or stop where Death to wander or delay:
Where when half dead with Famine, Toil, and Heat,
'Twas Death indeed to rest, or drink, or eat.
A Road still waxing in Self-sacrifice
As it went on: still ringing with the Cries
And Groans of Those who had not yet prevail'd,
And bleaching with the Bones of those who fail'd:

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Where, almost all withstood, perhaps to earn
Nothing: and, earning, never to return.—

And first the VALE OF SEARCH: an endless Maze,
Branching into innumerable Ways
All courting Entrance: but one right: and this
Beset with Pitfall, Gulf, and Precipice,
Where Dust is Embers, Air a fiery Sleet,
Through which with blinded Eyes and bleeding Feet
The Pilgrim stumbles, with Hyæna's Howl
Around, and hissing Snake, and deadly Ghoul,
Whose Prey he falls if tempted but to droop,
Or if to wander famish'd from the Troop
For fruit that falls to ashes in the Hand,
Water that reacht recedes into the Sand.
The only word is ‘Forward!’ Guide in sight,
After him, swerving neither left nor right,
Thyself for thine own Victual by Day,
At night thine own Self's Caravanserai.
Till suddenly, perhaps when most subdued
And desperate, the Heart shall be renew'd
When deep in utter Darkness, by one Gleam
Of Glory from the far remote Harím,
That, with a scarcely conscious Shock of Change,
Shall light the Pilgrim toward the Mountain Range

302

Of Knowledge: where, if stronger and more pure
The Light and Air, yet harder to endure;
And if, perhaps, the Footing more secure,
Harder to keep up with a nimble Guide,
Less from lost Road than insufficient Stride—
Yet tempted still by false Shows from the Track,
And by false Voices call'd aside or back,
Which echo from the Bosom, as if won
The Journey's End when only just begun,
And not a Mountain Peak with Toil attain'd
But shows a Top yet higher to be gain'd.

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Wherefore still Forward, Forward! Love that fired
Thee first to search, by Search so re-inspired
As that the Spirit shall the carnal Load
Burn up, and double wing Thee on the Road;
That wert thou knocking at the very Door
Of Heav'n, thou still would'st cry for More, More, More!

Till loom in sight Káf's Mountain Peak ashroud
In Mist—uncertain yet Mountain or Cloud,
But where the Pilgrim 'gins to hear the Tide
Of that one Sea in which the Sev'n subside;
And not the Sev'n Seas only: but the sev'n
And self-enfolded Spheres of Earth and Heav'n—
Yea, the Two Worlds, that now as Pictures sleep
Upon its Surface—but when once the Deep
From its long Slumber 'gins to heave and sway—
Under that Tempest shall be swept away
With all their Phases and Phenomena:
Not senseless Matter only, but combined
With Life in all Varieties of Kind;
Yea, ev'n the abstract Forms that Space and Time
Men call, and Weal and Woe, Virtue and Crime,
And all the several Creeds, like those who fell
Before them, Musulman and Infidel
Shall from the Face of Being melt away,
Cancell'd and swept as Dreams before the Day.
So hast thou seen the Astrologer prepare
His mystic Table smooth of Sand, and there

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Inscribe his mystic Figures, Square, and Trine,
Circle and Pentagram, and heavenly Sign
Of Star and Planet: from whose Set and Rise,
Meeting and Difference, he prophesies;
And, having done it, with his Finger clean
Obliterates as never they had been.

Such is when reacht the Table Land of One
And Wonder: blazing with so fierce a Sun
Of Unity that blinds while it reveals
The Universe that to a Point congeals,
So, stunn'd with utter Revelation, reels
The Pilgrim, when that Double-seeming House,
Against whose Beams he long had chafed his Brows,
Crumbles and cracks before that Sea, whose near
And nearer Voice now overwhelms his Ear.
Till blinded, deafen'd, madden'd, drunk with doubt
Of all within Himself as all without,
Nay, whether a Without there be, or not,
Or a Within that doubts: and if, then what?—
Ev'n so shall the bewilder'd Pilgrim seem
When nearest waking deepliest in Dream,
And darkest next to Dawn; and lost what had
When All is found: and just when sane quite Mad—
As one that having found the Key once more
Returns, and Lo! he cannot find the Door
He stumbles over—So the Pilgrim stands
A moment on the Threshold—with raised Hands

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Calls to the eternal Sáki for one Draught
Of Light from the One Essence: which when quaff'd,
He plunges headlong in: and all is well
With him who never more returns to tell.

Such being then the Race and such the Goal,
Judge if you must not Body both and Soul
With Meditation, Watch, and Fast prepare.
For he that wastes his Body to a Hair
Shall seize the Locks of Truth: and he that prays
Good Angels in their Ministry way-lays:
And the Midnightly Watcher in the Folds
Of his own Darkness God Almighty holds.
He that would prosper here must from him strip
The World, and take the Dervish Gown and Scrip:
And as he goes must gather from all Sides
Irrelevant Ambitions, Lusts, and Prides,
Glory and Gold, and sensual Desire,
Whereof to build the fundamental Pyre
Of Self-annihilation: and cast in
All old Relations and Regards of Kin
And Country: and, the Pile with this perplext
World platform'd, from the Fables of the Next
Raise it tow'rd Culmination, with the torn
Rags and Integuments of Creeds out-worn;
And top the giddy Summit with the Scroll
Of Reason that in dingy Smoke shall roll
Over the true Self-sacrifice of Soul:
(For such a Prayer was his—‘Oh God, do Thou
With all my Wealth in the other World endow

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My Friends: and with my Wealth in this my Foes,
Till bankrupt in thy Riches I repose!’)
Then, all the Pile completed of the Pelf
Of either World—at last throw on Thyself,
And with the Torch of Self-negation fire;
And ever as the Flames rise high and higher,
With Cries of agonizing Glory still
All of that Self burn up that burn up will,
Leaving the Phœnix that no Fire can slay
To spring from its own Ashes kindled—nay,
Itself an inextinguishable Spark
Of Being, now beneath Earth-ashes dark,
Transcending these, at last Itself transcends
And with the One Eternal Essence blends.

The Moths had long been exiled from the Flame
They worship: so to solemn Council came,
And voted One of them by Lot be sent
To find their Idol. One was chosen: went.
And after a long Circuit in sheer Gloom,
Seeing, he thought, the Taper in a Room
Flew back at once to say so. But the chief
Of Mothistán slighted so slight Belief,
And sent another Messenger, who flew
Up to the House, in at the window, through
The Flame itself; and back the Message brings
With yet no sign of Conflict on his wings.
Then went a Third, who spurr'd with true Desire,
Plunging at once into the sacred Fire,

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Folded his Wings within, till he became
One Colour and one Substance with the Flame.
He only knew the Flame who in it burn'd;
And only He could tell who ne'er to tell return'd.

After declaring what of this declared
Must be, that all who went should be prepared,
From his high Station ceased the Tájidár—
And lo! the Terrors that, when told afar,
Seem'd but as Shadows of a Noon-day Sun,
Now that the talkt of Thing was to be done,
Lengthening into those of closing Day
Strode into utter Darkness: and Dismay
Like Night on the husht Sea of Feathers lay,
Late so elate—‘So terrible a Track!
Endless—or, ending, never to come back!—
Never to Country, Family, or Friend!’—
In sooth no easy Bow for Birds to bend!—
Even while he spoke, how many Wings and Crests
Had slunk away to distant Woods and Nests;
Others again in Preparation spent
What little Strength they had, and never went:
And others, after Preparation due—
When up the Veil of that first Valley drew
From whose waste Wilderness of Darkness blew
A Sarsar, whether edged of Flames or Snows,
That through from Root to Tip their Feathers froze—
Up went a Multitude that overhead
A moment darken'd, then on all sides fled

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Dwindling the World-assembled Caravan
To less than half the Number that began.
Of those who fled not, some in Dread and Doubt
Sat without stirring: others who set out
With frothy Force, or stupidly resign'd,
Before a League, flew off or fell behind.
And howsoever the more Brave and Strong
In Courage, Wing, or Wisdom push'd along,
Yet League by League the Road was thicklier spread
By the fast falling Foliage of the Dead:
Some spent with Travel over Wave and Ground;
Scorcht, frozen, dead for Drought, or drinking drown'd.
Famisht, or poison'd with the Food when found:
By Weariness, or Hunger, or Affright
Seduced to stop or stray, become the Bite
Of Tiger howling round or hissing Snake,
Or Crocodile that eyed them from the Lake:
Or raving Mad, or in despair Self-slain:
Or slaying one another for a Grain:—

Till of the mighty Host that fledged the Dome
Of Heav'n and Floor of Earth on leaving Home,
A Handfull reach'd and scrambled up the Knees
Of Káf whose Feet dip in the Seven Seas;
And of the few that up his Forest-sides
Of Light and Darkness where The Presence hides,

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But Thirty—thirty desperate draggled Things,
Half-dead, with scarce a Feather on their Wings,
Stunn'd, blinded, deafen'd with the Crash and Craze
Of Rock and Sea collapsing in a Blaze
That struck the Sun to Cinder—fell upon
The Threshold of the Everlasting One,
With but enough of Life in each to cry,
On That which all absorb'd—

And suddenly
Forth flash'd a wingèd Harbinger of Flame
And Tongue of Fire, and ‘Who?’ and ‘Whence they came?’
And ‘Why?’ demanded. And the Tájidár
For all the Thirty answer'd him—‘We are
Those Fractions of the Sum of Being, far
Dis-spent and foul disfigured, that once more
Strike for Admission at the Treasury Door.’

To whom the Angel answer'd—‘Know ye not
That He you seek recks little who or what
Of Quantity and Kind—himself the Fount
Of Being Universal needs no Count
Of all the Drops o'erflowing from his Urn,
In what Degree they issue or return?’

Then cried the Spokesman, ‘Be it even so:
Let us but see the Fount from which we flow,
And, seeing, lose Ourselves therein!’ And, Lo!
Before the Word was utter'd, or the Tongue
Of Fire replied, or Portal open flung,

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They were within—they were before the Throne,
Before the Majesty that sat thereon,
But wrapt in so insufferable a Blaze
Of Glory as beat down their baffled Gaze,
Which, downward dropping, fell upon a Scroll
That, Lightning-like, flash'd back on each the whole
Past half-forgotten Story of his Soul:
Like that which Yúsuf in his Glory gave
His Brethren as some Writing he would have
Interpreted; and at a Glance, behold
Their own Indenture for their Brother sold!
And so with these poor Thirty: who, abasht
In Memory all laid bare and Conscience lasht,
By full Confession and Self-loathing flung
The Rags of carnal Self that round them clung;
And, their old selves self-knowledged and self-loathed,
And in the Soul's Integrity re-clothed,
Once more they ventured from the Dust to raise
Their Eyes—up to the Throne—into the Blaze
And in the Centre of the Glory there
Beheld the Figure of—Themselves—as 'twere
Transfigured—looking to Themselves, beheld
The Figure on the Throne en-miracled,
Until their Eyes themselves and That between
Did hesitate which Sëer was, which Seen;
They That, That They: Another, yet the Same;
Dividual, yet One: from whom there came

311

A Voice of awful Answer, scarce discern'd
From which to Aspiration whose return'd
They scarcely knew; as when some Man apart
Answers aloud the Question in his Heart—
‘The Sun of my Perfection is a Glass
Wherein from Seeing into Being pass
All who, reflecting as reflected see
Themselves in Me, and Me in Them: not Me,
But all of Me that a contracted Eye
Is comprehensive of Infinity:
Nor yet Themselves: no Selves, but of The All
Fractions, from which they split and whither fall.
As Water lifted from the Deep, again
Falls back in individual Drops of Rain
Then melts into the Universal Main.
All you have been, and seen, and done, and thought,
Not You but I, have seen and been and wrought:
I was the Sin that from Myself rebell'd:
I the Remorse that tow'rd Myself compell'd:
I was the Tájidár who led the Track:
I was the little Briar that pull'd you back:
Sin and Contrition—Retribution owed,
And cancell'd—Pilgrim, Pilgrimage, and Road,
Was but Myself toward Myself: and Your
Arrival but Myself at my own Door:
Who in your Fraction of Myself behold
Myself within the Mirror Myself hold

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To see Myself in, and each part of Me
That sees himself, though drown'd, shall ever see.
Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return, and back into your Sun subside.”—

This was the Parliament of Birds: and this
The Story, of the Host who went amiss,
And of the Few that better Upshot found;
Which being now recounted, Lo, the Ground
Of Speech fails underfoot: But this to tell—
Their Road is thine—Follow—and Fare thee well.

313

THE TWO GENERALS

I. LUCIUS ÆMILIUS PAULLUS.

[_]

His Speech to the Roman People after his Triumph over Perseus, King of Macedonia, A. U. C. 585. Livy xlv. 41. (And unfaithful to the few and simple words recorded in the Original.)

With what success, Quirites, I have served
The Commonwealth, and, in the very hour
Of Glory, what a double Thunderbolt
From Heav'n has struck upon my private roof,
Rome needs not to be told, who lately saw
So close together treading through her streets
My Triumph, and the Funeral of my Sons.
Yet bear with me while, in a few brief words,
And uninvidious spirit, I compare
Beside the fulness of the general Joy
My single Destitution.

When the time
For leaving Italy was come, the Ships

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With all their Armament and men complete,
As the Sun rose I left Brundusium:
With all my Ships before that Sun was down
I made Corcyra: thence, within five days
To Delphi: where, Lustration to the God
Made for myself, the Army, and the Fleet,
In five days more I reach'd the Roman Camp;
Took the Command; redress'd what was amiss:
And, for King Perseus would not forth to fight,
And, for his Camp's strength, forth could not be forced,
I slipp'd beside him through the Mountain-pass
To Pydna; whither when himself forced back,
And fight he must, I fought, I routed him:
And all the War that, swelling for four years,
Consul to Consul handed over worse
Than from his Predecessor he took up,
In fifteen days victoriously I closed.
Nor stay'd my Fortune here. Upon Success
Success came rolling: with their Army lost,
The Macedonian Cities all gave in;
Into my hands the Royal Treasure then—
And, by and by, the King's self and his Sons,
As by the very finger of the Gods
Betray'd, whose Temple they had fled to—fell.
And now my swollen Fortune to myself
Became suspicious: I began to dread
The seas that were to carry such a freight
Of Conquest, and of Conquerors. But when
With all-propitious Wind and Wave we reach'd
Italian Earth again, and all was done

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That was to be, and nothing furthermore
To deprecate or pray for—still I pray'd;
That, whereas human Fortune, having touch'd
The destined height it may not rise beyond,
Forthwith begins as fatal a decline,
Its Fall might but myself and mine involve,
Swerving beside my Country. Be it so!
By my sole sacrifice may jealous Fate
Absolve the Public; and by such a Triumph
As, in derision of all Human Glory,
Began and closed with those two Funerals.
Yes, at that hour were Perseus and myself
Together two notorious monuments
Standing of Human Instability:
He that was late so absolute a King,
Now Bondsman, and his Sons along with him
Still living Trophies of my Conquest led;
While I, the Conqueror, scarce had turn'd my face
From one still unextinguisht Funeral,
And from my Triumph to the Capitol
Return—return to close the dying Eyes
Of the last Son I yet might call my own,
Last of all those who should have borne my name
To after Ages down. For ev'n as one
Presuming on a rich Posterity,
And blind to Fate, my two surviving Sons
Into two noble Families of Rome
I had adopted—
And Paullus is the last of all his Name.

316

II. SIR CHARLES NAPIER

(Writing home after the Battle of Meeanee)

[_]

(See his Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 429)

[Leaving the Battle to be fought again
Over the wine with all our friends at home,
I needs must tell, before my letter close,
Of one result that you will like to hear.]

The Officers who under my command
Headed and led the British Troops engaged
In this last Battle that decides the War,
Resolved to celebrate the Victory
With those substantial Honours that, you know,
So much good English work begins and ends with.
Resolved by one and all, the day was named;
One mighty Tent, with ‘room and verge enough’
To hold us all, of many Tents made up
Under the very walls of Hydrabad,
And then and there were they to do me honour.
Some of them grizzled Veterans like myself:

317

Some scorcht with Indian Sun and Service; some
With unrecover'd wound or sickness pale;
And some upon whose boyish cheek the rose
They brought with them from England scarce had faded.
Imagine these in all varieties
Of Uniform, Horse, Foot, Artillery,
Ranged down the gaily decorated Tent,
Each with an Indian servant at his back,
Whose dusky feature, Oriental garb,
And still, but supple, posture of respect
Served as a foil of contrast to the lines
Of animated English Officers.
Over our heads our own victorious Colours
Festoon'd with those wrencht from the Indian hung,
While through the openings of the tent were seen
Darkling the castle walls of Hydrabad;
And, further yet, the monumental Towers
Of the Kalloras and Talpoors; and yet
Beyond, and last,—the Field of Meeanee.
Yes, there in Triumph as upon the tombs
Of two extinguisht Dynasties we sate,
Beside the field of blood we quench'd them in.
And I, chief Actor in that Scene of Death,
And foremost in the passing Triumph—I,
Veteran in Service as in years, though now
First call'd to play the General—I myself
So swiftly disappearing from the stage
Of all this world's transaction!—As I sate,
My thoughts reverted to that setting Sun

318

That was to rise on our victorious march;
When from a hillock by my tent alone
I look'd down over twenty thousand Men
Husht in the field before me, like a Fire
Prepared, and waiting but my breath to blaze.
And now, methought, the Work is done; is done,
And well; for those who died, and those who live
To celebrate our common Glory, well;
And, looking round, I whisper'd to myself—
‘These are my Children—these whom I have led
Safe through the Vale of Death to Victory,
And in a righteous cause; righteous, I say,
As for our Country's welfare, so for this,
Where from henceforth Peace, Order, Industry,
Blasted and trampled under heretofore
By every lawless Ruffian of the Soil,
Shall now strike root, and’—I was running on
With all that was to be, when suddenly
My Name was call'd; the glass was fill'd; all rose;
And, as they pledged me cheer on cheer, the Cannon
Roar'd it abroad, with each successive burst
Of Thunder lighting up the banks now dark
Of Indus, which at Inundation-height,
Beside the Tent we revell'd in roll'd down
Audibly growling—‘But a hand-breadth higher,
And whose the Land you boast as all your own!’

319

BREDFIELD HALL

Lo, an English mansion founded
In the elder James's reign,
Quaint and stately, and surrounded
With a pastoral domain.

With well-timber'd lawn and gardens
And with many a pleasant mead,
Skirted by the lofty coverts
Where the hare and pheasant feed.

Flank'd it is with goodly stables,
Shelter'd by coeval trees:
So it lifts its honest gables
Toward the distant German seas;

Where it once discern'd the smoke
Of old sea-battles far away:
Saw victorious Nelson's topmasts
Anchoring in Hollesley Bay.

320

But whatever storm might riot,
Cannon roar, and trumpet ring,
Still amid these meadows quiet
Did the yearly violet spring:

Still Heaven's starry hand suspended
That light balance of the dew,
That each night on earth descended,
And each morning rose anew:

And the ancient house stood rearing
Undisturb'd her chimneys high,
And her gilded vanes still veering
Toward each quarter of the sky:

While like wave to wave succeeding
Through the world of joy and strife,
Household after household speeding
Handed on the torch of life:

First, sir Knight in ruff and doublet,
Arm in arm with stately dame;
Then the Cavaliers indignant
For their monarch brought to shame:

Languid beauties limn'd by Lely;
Full-wigg'd Justice of Queen Anne:
Tory squires who tippled freely;
And the modern Gentleman:

321

Here they lived, and here they greeted,
Maids and matrons, sons and sires,
Wandering in its walks, or seated
Round its hospitable fires:

Oft their silken dresses floated
Gleaming through the pleasure ground:
Oft dash'd by the scarlet-coated
Hunter, horse, and dappled hound.

Till the Bell that not in vain
Had summon'd them to weekly prayer,
Call'd them one by one again
To the church—and left them there!

They with all their loves and passions,
Compliment, and song, and jest,
Politics, and sports, and fashions,
Merged in everlasting rest!

So they pass—while thou, old Mansion,
Markest with unalter'd face
How like the foliage of thy summers
Race of man succeeds to race.

To most thou stand'st a record sad,
But all the sunshine of the year
Could not make thine aspect glad
To one whose youth is buried here.

322

In thine ancient rooms and gardens
Buried—and his own no more
Than the youth of those old owners,
Dead two centuries before.

Unto him the fields around thee
Darken with the days gone by:
O'er the solemn woods that bound thee
Ancient sunsets seem to die.

Sighs the selfsame breeze of morning
Through the cypress as of old;
Ever at the Spring's returning
One same crocus breaks the mould.

Still though 'scaping Time's more savage
Handywork this pile appears,
It has not escaped the ravage
Of the undermining years.

And though each succeeding master,
Grumbling at the cost to pay,
Did with coat of paint and plaster
Hide the wrinkles of decay;

Yet the secret worm ne'er ceases,
Nor the mouse behind the wall;
Heart of oak will come to pieces,
And farewell to Bredfield Hall!

325

CHRONOMOROS

In all the actions that a Man performs, some part of his life passeth. We die with doing that, for which only our sliding life was granted. Nay, though we do nothing, Time keeps his constant pace, and flies as fast in idlenesse, as in employment. Whether we play or labour, or sleep, or dance, or study, THE SUNNE POSTETH, AND THE SAND RUNNES. —Owen Felltham.

Wearied with hearing folks cry,
That Time would incessantly fly,
Said I to myself, ‘I don't see
Why Time should not wait upon me;
I will not be carried away,
Whether I like it, or nay:’—
But ere I go on with my strain,
Pray turn me that hour-glass again!

I said, ‘I will read, and will write,
And labour all day, and all night,
And Time will so heavily load,
That he cannot but wait on the road;’—
But I found, that, balloon-like in size,
The more fill'd, the faster he flies;
And I could not the trial maintain,
Without turning the hour-glass again!

326

Then said I, ‘If Time has so flown
When laden, I'll leave him alone;
And I think that he cannot but stay,
When he's nothing to carry away!’
So I sat, folding my hands,
Watching the mystical sands,
As they fell, grain after grain,
Till I turn'd up the hour-glass again!

Then I cried, in a rage, ‘Time shall stand!’
The hour-glass I smash'd with my hand,
My watch into atoms I broke
And the sun-dial hid with a cloak!
‘Now,’ I shouted aloud, ‘Time is done!’
When suddenly, down went the Sun;
And I found to my cost and my pain,
I might buy a new hour-glass again!

Whether we wake, or we sleep,
Whether we carol, or weep,
The Sun, with his Planets in chime,
Marketh the going of Time;
But Time, in a still better trim,
Marketh the going of him:
One link in an infinite chain,
Is this turning the hour-glass again!

The robes of the Day and the Night,
Are not wove of mere darkness and light;

327

We read that, at Joshua's will,
The Sun for a Time once stood still!
So that Time by his measure to try,
Is Petitio Principii!
Time's Scythe is going amain,
Though he turn not his hour-glass again!

And yet, after all, what is Time?
Renowned in Reason, and Rhyme,
A Phantom, a Name, a Notion,
That measures Duration or Motion?
Or but an apt term in the lease
Of Beings, who know they must cease?
The hand utters more than the brain,
When turning the hour-glass again!

The King in a carriage may ride,
And the Beggar may crawl at his side;
But, in the general race,
They are travelling all the same pace,
And houses, and trees, and high-way,
Are in the same gallop as they:
We mark our steps in the train,
When turning the hour-glass again!

People complain, with a sigh,
How terribly Chroniclers lie;
But there is one pretty right,
Heard in the dead of the night,

328

Calling aloud to the people,
Out of St. Dunstan's Steeple,
Telling them under the vane,
To turn their hour-glasses again!

MORAL.

Masters! we live here for ever,
Like so many fish in a river;
We may mope, tumble, or glide,
And eat one another beside;
But, whithersoever we go,
The River will flow, flow, flow!
And now, that I've ended my strain,
Pray turn me that hour-glass again!

329

VIRGIL'S GARDEN

Laid out à la Delille.

‘There is more pleasantness in the little platform of a Garden which he gives us about the middle of this Book’ (‘Georgick’ IV. 115–148) ‘than in all the spacious Walks and Waterfalls of Monsieur Rapin.’—Dryden; two of whose lines are here marked by inverted commas.

But that, my destined voyage almost done,
I think to slacken sail and shoreward run,
I would enlarge on that peculiar care
Which makes the Garden bloom, the Orchard bear,
Pampers the Melon into girth, and blows
Twice to one summer the Calabrian Rose:
Nor many a shrub with flower and berries hung,
Nor Myrtle of the seashore leave unsung.

‘For where the Tower of old Tarentum stands,
And dark Galesus soaks the yellow sands,’

330

I mind me of an old Corycian swain,
Who from a plot of disregarded plain,
That neither Corn, nor Vine, nor Olive grew,
Yet such a store of garden-produce drew
That made him rich in heart as Kings with all
Their wealth, when he returned at even-fall,
And from the conquest of the barren ground
His table with unpurchased plenty crown'd.
For him the Rose first open'd; his, somehow,
The first ripe Apple redden'd on the bough;
Nay, even when melancholy Winter still
Congeal'd the glebe, and check'd the wandering rill,
The sturdy veteran might abroad be seen,
With some first slip of unexpected green,
Upbraiding Nature with her tardy Spring,
And those south winds so late upon the wing.
He sow'd the seed; and, under Sun and Shower,
Up came the Leaf, and after it the Flower,
From which no busier bees than his derived
More, or more honey for their Master hived:
Under his skilful hand no savage root
But sure to thrive with its adopted shoot;
No sapling but, transplanted, sure to grow,
Sizable standards set in even row;
Some for their annual crop of fruit, and some
For longer service in the years to come;
While his young Plane already welcome made
The guest who came to drink beneath the shade.

331

But, by the stern conditions of my song
Compell'd to leave where I would linger long,
To other bards the Garden I resign
Who with more leisure step shall follow mine.

332

FROM PETRARCH

(Se la mia vita dall' aspro tormento.)

If it be destined that my Life, from thine
Divided, yet with thine shall linger on
Till, in the later twilight of Decline,
I may behold those Eyes, their lustre gone;
When the gold tresses that enrich thy brow
Shall all be faded into silver-gray,
From which the wreaths that well bedeck them now
For many a Summer shall have fall'n away:
Then should I dare to whisper in your ears
The pent-up Passion of so long ago,
That Love which hath survived the wreck of years
Hath little else to pray for, or bestow,
Thou wilt not to the broken heart deny
The boon of one too-late relenting Sigh.

333

OCCASIONAL VERSES

TO A LADY SINGING.

Canst thou, my Clora, declare,
After thy sweet song dieth
Into the wild summer air,
Whither it falleth or flieth?
Soon would my answer be noted,
Wert thou but sage as sweet throated.

Melody, dying away,
Into the dark sky closes,
Like the good soul from her clay
Like the fair odour of roses:

334

Therefore thou now art behind it,
But thou shalt follow, and find it.

Nothing can utterly die;
Music, aloft upspringing,
Turns to pure atoms of sky
Each golden note of thy singing:
And that to which morning did listen
At eve in a Rainbow may glisten.

Beauty, when laid in the grave,
Feedeth the lily beside her,
Therefore the soul cannot have
Station or honour denied her;
She will not better her essence,
But wear a crown in God's presence.

[ON ANNE ALLEN.]

I

The wind blew keenly from the Western sea,
And drove the dead leaves slanting from the tree—
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith—
Heaping them up before her Father's door
When I saw her whom I shall see no more—
We cannot bribe thee, Death.

335

2

She went abroad the falling leaves among,
She saw the merry season fade, and sung
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith—
Freely she wander'd in the leafless wood,
And said that all was fresh, and fair, and good,
She knew thee not, O Death.

3

She bound her shining hair across her brow,
She went into the garden fading now;
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith—
And if one sigh'd to think that it was sere,
She smiled to think that it would bloom next year:
She fear'd thee not, O Death.

4

Blooming she came back to the cheerful room
With all the fairer flowers yet in bloom,
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith—
A fragrant knot for each of us she tied,
And placed the fairest at her Father's side—
She cannot charm thee, Death.

5

Her pleasant smile spread sunshine upon all;
We heard her sweet clear laughter in the Hall;—

336

Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith—
We heard her sometimes after evening prayer,
As she went singing softly up the stair—
No voice can charm thee, Death.

6

Where is the pleasant smile, the laughter kind,
That made sweet music of the winter wind?
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith—
Idly they gaze upon her empty place,
Her kiss hath faded from her Father's face;—
She is with thee, O Death

[TO A VIOLET.]

Fair violet! sweet saint!
Answer us—Whither art thou gone?
Ever thou wert so still, and faint,
And fearing to be look'd upon.
We cannot say that one hath died,
Who wont to live so unespied,
But crept away unto a stiller spot,
Where men may stir the grass, and find thee not.

University of Virginia Library

VII. VOL. VII

RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM

FIRST EDITION 1859

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XLI A Laugh at his Mathematics perhaps.

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L A very mysterious Line in the original; U dánad u dánad u dánad u— breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon's Note, which she is said to take up just where she left off.

LI

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KÚZA-NÁMA.

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XLI

A Laugh at his Mathematics perhaps.

L

A very mysterious Line in the original;
U dánad u dánad u dánad u—
breaking off something like our Wood-pigeon's Note, which she is said to take up just where she left off.

XLIII

According to one beautiful Oriental Legend, Azräel accomplishes his mission by holding to the nostril an Apple from the Tree of Life.

This and the two following Stanzas would have been withdrawn, as somewhat de trop, from the Text, but for advice which I least like to disregard.