Chapter II

In these drear wastes of sea-born land,
these wilds where none may dwell but He,
What visionary Pasts revive,
what process of the Years we see:

Gazing beyond the thin blue line
that rims the far horizon-ring,
Our saddend sight why haunt these ghosts,
whence do these spectral shadows spring?

What endless questions vex the thought,
of Whence and Whither, When and How?
What fond and foolish strife to read
the Scripture writ on human brow;

As stand we percht on point of Time,
betwixt the two Eternities,
Whose awful secrets gathering round
with black profound oppress our eyes.

This gloomy night, these grisly waves,
these winds and whirlpools loud and dread:
What reck they of our wretched plight
who Safetys shore so lightly tread?

Thus quoth the Bard of Love and Wine,*
whose dream of Heaven neer could rise
Beyond the brimming Kausar-cup
and Houris with the white-black eyes;

* Hâfiz of Shirâz.

Ah me! my race of threescore years
is short, but long enough to pall
My sense with joyless joys as these,
with Love and Houris, Wine and all.

Another boasts he would divorce
old barren Reason from his bed,
And wed the Vine-maid in her stead;
fools who believe a word he said!*

* Omar-i-Kayyâm, the tent-maker poet of Persia.

And Dust thou art to dust returning.
neer was spoke of human soul
The Soofi cries, tis well for him
that hath such gift to ask its goal.

And this is all, for this were born
to weep a little and to die!
So sings the shallow bard whose life
still labours at the letter I.

Ear never heard, Eye never saw
the bliss of those who enter in
My heavenly kingdom, Isâ said,
who wailed our sorrows and our sin:

Too much of words or yet too few!
What to thy Godhead easier than
One little glimpse of Paradise
to ope the eyes and ears of man?

I am the Truth! I am the Truth!
we hear the God-drunk gnostic cry
The microcosm abides in ME;
Eternal Allahs nought but I!

Mansûr* was wise, but wiser they
who smote him with the hurlèd stones;
And, though his blood a witness bore,
no wisdom-might could mend his bones.

* A famous Mystic stoned for blasphemy.

Eat, drink, and sport; the rest of lifes
not worth a fillip, quoth the King;
Methinks the saying saith too much:
the swine would say the selfsame thing!

Two-footed beasts that browse through life,
by Death to serve as soil designd,
Bow prone to Earth whereof they be,
and there the proper pleasures find:

But you of finer, nobler, stuff,
ye, whom to Higher leads the High,
What binds your hearts in common bond
with creatures of the stall and sty?

In certain hope of Life-to-come
I journey through this shifting scene
The Zâhid* snarls and saunters down
his Vale of Tears with confident mien.

* The Philister of respectable belief.

Wiser than Amrâns Son* art thou,
who kenst so well the world-to-be,
The Future when the Past is not,
the Present merest dreamery;

* Moses in the Koran.

What knowst thou, man, of Life? and yet,
forever twixt the womb, the grave,
Thou pratest of the Coming Life,
of Heavn and Hell thou fain must rave.

The world is old and thou art young;
the world is large and thou art small;
Cease, atom of a moments span,
To hold thyself an All-in-All!