| |
OVERTURE
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. | |
| |
| Before the phantom of false morning died, | 5 |
| Methought a Voice within the tavern cried, | |
| “When all the temple is prepar’d within, | |
| Why nods the drowsy worshipper outside?” | |
| And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before | |
| The tavern shouted—“Open then the door! | 10 |
| You know how little while we have to stay, | |
| And, once departed, may return no more.” | |
| |
PARADISE ENOW
With me along the strip of herbage strown | |
| That just divides the desert from the sown, | |
| Where name of slave and sultán is forgot— | 15 |
| And peace to Máhmúd on his golden throne! | |
| |
| 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! | 20 |
| |
| 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! | |
| |
| Look to the blowing Rose about us—“Lo, | 25 |
| Laughing,” she says, “into the world I blow, | |
| At once the silken tassel of my purse | |
| Tear, and its treasure on the garden throw.” | |
| |
| And those who husbanded the golden grain, | |
| And those who flung it to the winds like rain, | 30 |
| Alike to no such aureate earth are turn’d | |
| As, buried once, men want dug up again. | |
| |
| The worldly hope men set their hearts upon | |
| Turns ashes—or it prospers; and anon, | |
| Like snow upon the desert’s dusty face, | 35 |
| Lighting a little hour or two—was gone. | |
| |
| Think, in this batter’d caravanserai | |
| Whose portals are alternate Night and Day, | |
| How Sultán after Sultán with his pomp | |
| Abode his destin’d hour, and went his way. | 40 |
| |
| They say the lion and the lizard keep | |
| The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: | |
| And Bahrám, that great hunter—the wild ass | |
| Stamps o’er his head, but cannot break his sleep. | |
| |
| I sometimes think that never blows so red | 45 |
| The rose as where some buried Cæsar bled; | |
| That every hyacinth the garden wears | |
| Dropp’d in her lap from some once lovely head. | |
| |
| And this reviving herb whose tender green | |
| Fledges the river lip on which we lean— | 50 |
| Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows | |
| From what once lovely lip it springs unseen! | |
| |
| Ah, my Beloved, fill the cup that clears | |
| To-day of past regrets and future fears: | |
| To-morrow!—Why to-morrow I may be | 55 |
| Myself with Yesterday’s sev’n thousand years. | |
| |
| For some we lov’d, the loveliest and the best | |
| That from his vintage rolling Time has prest, | |
| Have drunk their cup a round or two before, | |
| And one by one crept silently to rest. | 60 |
| |
| 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? | |
| |
| Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, | 65 |
| Before we too into the dust descend; | |
| Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie, | |
| Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and—sans end! | |
| |
THE MASTER-KNOT
Up from Earth’s centre through the | |
| Seventh Gate | 70 |
| I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate, | |
| And many a knot unravell’d by the road; | |
| But not the master knot of human fate. | |
| |
| There was the door to which I found no key; | |
| There was the veil through which I could not see; | 75 |
| Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee | |
| There was—and then no more of Thee and Me. | |
| |
| 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 | 80 |
| And hidden by the sleeve of night and morn. | |
| |
| 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!” | 85 |
| |
| 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.” | |
| |
| I think the Vessel, that with fugitive | 90 |
| Articulation answer’d, once did live, | |
| And drink; and ah! the passive lip I kiss’d, | |
| How many kisses might it take—and give! | |
| |
| For I remember stopping by the way | |
| To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay: | 95 |
| And with its all-obliterated tongue | |
| It murmur’d—“Gently, brother, gently, pray!” | |
| |
| Listen—a moment listen!—Of the same | |
| Poor earth from which that human whisper came | |
| The luckless mould in which mankind was cast | 100 |
| They did compose, and call’d him by the name. | |
| |
| 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. | 105 |
| |
THE PHANTOM CARAVAN
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 | |
| |
| So when the Angel of the darker drink | 110 |
| 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. | |
| |
| Why, if the Soul can fling the dust aside, | |
| And naked on the air of Heaven ride, | 115 |
| Wer ’t not a shame—wer’t not a shame for him | |
| In this clay carcase crippled to abide? | |
| |
| ’T is but a tent where takes his oneday’s rest | |
| A Sultán to the realm of Death addrest; | |
| The Sultán rises, and the dark Ferrásh | 120 |
| Strikes, and prepares it for another guest. | |
| |
| And fear not lest existence closing your | |
| Account, and mine, should know the like no more; | |
| The Eternal Sáki from that bowl has pour’d | |
| Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour. | 125 |
| |
| 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 Sev’n Seas should heed a pebble-cast. | |
| |
| A moment’s halt—a momentary taste | 130 |
| 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! | |
| |
THE MOVING FINGER WRITES
I sent my Soul through the invisible, | |
| Some letter of that after-life to spell: | 135 |
| And by and by my Soul return’d to me, | |
| And answer’d “I myself am Heav’n and Hell.” | |
| |
| Heav’n but the vision of fulfill’d desire, | |
| And Hell the shadow of a soul on fire, | |
| Cast on the darkness into which ourselves, | 140 |
| So late emerged from, shall so soon expire. | |
| |
| We are no other than a moving row | |
| Of magic shadow-shapes that come and go | |
| Round with this sun-illumin’d lantern held | |
| In midnight by the Master of the Show; | 145 |
| |
| Impotent pieces of the game He plays | |
| Upon this checker-board of nights and days; | |
| Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, | |
| And one by one back in the closet lays. | |
| |
| The ball no question makes of ayes and noes | 150 |
| But right or left as strikes the Player goes; | |
| And He that toss’d you down into the field, | |
| He knows about it all—HE knows—HE knows! | |
| |
| The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, | |
| Moves on: nor all your piety nor wit | 155 |
| Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, | |
| Nor all your tears wash out a word of it. | |
| |
| 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 | 160 |
| As impotently rolls as you or I. | |
| |
AND YET—AND YET!
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! | 165 |
| |
| 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! | |
| |
| Would but some winged Angel ere too late | 170 |
| Arrest the yet unfolded roll of fate, | |
| And make the stern Recorder otherwise | |
| Enregister, or quite obliterate! | |
| |
| Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire | |
| To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, | 175 |
| Would not we shatter it to bits—and then | |
| Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire! | |
| |
| Yon rising moon that looks for us again— | |
| How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; | |
| How oft hereafter rising look for us | 180 |
| Through this same garden—and for one in vain! | |
| |
| And when like her, oh Sáki, you shall pass | |
| Among the guests star-scatter’d on the grass, | |
| And in your blissful errand reach the spot | |
| Where I made one—turn down an empty glass! | 185 |
| |
