The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala

The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala / Select from his Luzum ma la Yalzam and Suct us-Zand

TO ABU’L-ALA

In thy fountained peristyles of ReasonGlows the light and flame of desert noons;And in the cloister of thy pensive FancyWisdom burns the spikenard of her moons.Closed by Fate the portals of the dwellingOf thy sight, the light thus inward flowed;And on the shoulders of the crouching DarknessThou hast risen to the highest road.I have seen thee walking with CanopusThrough the stellar spaces of the night;I have heard thee asking thy Companion,“Where be now my staff, and where thy light?”Abu’l-Ala, in the heaving darkness,Didst thou not the whisperings hear of me?In thy star-lit wilderness, my Brother,Didst thou not a burdened shadow see?I have walked and I have slept beside thee,I have laughed and I have wept as well;I have heard the voices of thy silenceMelting in thy Jannat and thy hell.I remember, too, that once the SakiFilled the antique cup and gave it thee;Now, filled with the treasures of thy wisdom,Thou dost pass that very cup to me.By the God of thee, my Syrian Brother,Which is best, the Saki’s cup or thine?Which the mystery divine uncovers —If the cover covers aught divine.And if it lies hid in the soul of silenceLike incense in the dust of ambergris,Wouldst thou burn it to perfume the terrorOf the caverns of the dried-up seas?Where’er it be, Oh! let it be, my Brother. —Though “thrice-imprisoned,”1 thou hast forged us moreSolid weapons for the life-long battleThan all the Heaven-taught Armorers of yore.“Thrice-imprisoned,” thou wert e’en as mighty,In the boundless kingdom of the mind,As the whirlwind that compels the ocean,As the thunder that compels the wind.“Thrice-imprisoned,” thou wert freer trulyThan the liegeless Arab on his mare, —Freer than the bearers of the sceptre, —Freer than the winged lords of the air.“Thrice-imprisoned,” thou hast sung of freedomAs but a few of all her heroes can;Thou hast undermined the triple prisonOf the mind and heart and soul of man.In thy fountained peristyles of ReasonGlows the light and flame of desert noons;And in the cloister of thy pensive FancyWisdom burns the spikenard of her moons.Ameen Rihani.

PREFACE

When Christendom was groping amid the superstitions of the Dark Ages, and the Norsemen were ravaging the western part of Europe, and the princes of Islam were cutting each other’s throats in the name of Allah and his Prophet, Abu’l-Ala’l-Ma’arri was waging his bloodless war against the follies and evils of his age. He attacked the superstitions and false traditions of law and religion, proclaiming the supremacy of the mind; he hurled his trenchant invectives at the tyranny, the bigotry, and the quackery of his times, asserting the supremacy of the soul; he held the standard of reason high above that of authority, fighting to the end the battle of the human intellect. An intransigeant with the exquisite mind of a sage and scholar, his weapons were never idle. But he was, above all, a poet; for when he stood before the eternal mystery of Life and Death, he sheathed his sword and murmured a prayer.

Abu’l-Ala’l-Ma’arri,2 the Lucretius of Islam, the Voltaire of the East, was born in the spring of the year 973 A.D., in the obscure village of Ma’arrah,3 which is about eighteen hours’ journey south of Halab (Aleppo). And instead of Ahmad ibn Abdallah ibn Sulaiman ut-Tanukhi (of the tribe of Tanukh), he was called Abu’l-Ala (the Father of the Sublime), by which patronymic of distinction he is popularly known throughout the Arabic speaking world.

When a boy, Abu’l-Ala was instructed by his father; and subsequently he was sent to Halab, where he pursued his studies under the tutelage of the grammarian Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn us-Sad. His literary proclivity was evinced in his boyhood, and he wrote verse, we are told, before he was ten. Of these juvenile pieces, however, nothing was preserved.

He was about five years old when he fell a victim to small-pox and almost lost his sight from it. But a weakness in his eyes continued to trouble him and he became, in middle age, I presume, totally blind.4 Some of his biographers would have us believe he was born blind; others state that he completely lost his sight when he was attacked by the virulent disease; and a few intimate that he could see slightly at least with the right eye. As to whether or not he was blind when he was sent to Halab to pursue his studies, his biographers do not agree. My theory, based on the careful perusal of his poems and on a statement advanced by one of his biographers,5 is that he lost his sight gradually, and total blindness must have come upon him either in his youth or his middle age.6 Were we to believe that he was born blind or that he suffered the complete loss of his sight in his boyhood, we should be at a loss to know, not how he wrote his books, for that was done by dictation; not how he taught his pupils, for that was done by lectures; but how he himself was taught in the absence in those days of a regular system of instruction for the blind.

In 1010 A.D. he visited Baghdad, the centre of learning and intelligence and the capital of the Abbaside Khalifs, where he passed about two years and became acquainted with most of the literary men of the age.7 He attended the lectures and the readings of the leading doctors and grammarians, meeting with a civil reception at the hand of most of them.

He also journeyed to Tripoli,8 which boasted, in those days, of many public libraries; and, stopping at Ladhekiyah, he lodged in a monastery where he met and befriended a very learned monk. They discussed theology and metaphysics, digressing now and then into the profane. Indeed, the skepticism which permeates Abu’l-Ala’s writings must have been nursed in that convent by both the monk and the poet.

These are virtually the only data extant showing the various sources of Abu’l-Ala’s learning; but to one endowed with a keen perception, a powerful intellect, a prodigious memory, together with strong innate literary predilections, they seem sufficient. He was especially noted for the extraordinary memory he possessed; and around this our Arab biographers and historians weave a thick net of anecdotes, or rather fables. I have no doubt that one with such a prodigious memory could retain in a few minutes what the average person could not; but when we are told that Abu’l-Ala once heard one of his pupils speaking with a friend in a foreign tongue, and repeated there and then the long conversation, word for word, without having the slightest idea of its meaning, we are disposed to be skeptical. Many such anecdotes are recorded and quoted by his Arab biographers without as much as intimating a single doubt.9 The fact that he was blind partly explains the abnormal development of his memory.

His career as poet and scholar dates from the time he returned from Baghdad. This, so far as is known, was the last journey he made; and his home became henceforth his earthly prison. He calls himself “A double-fettered Captive,”9 his solitude being the one and his blindness the other. Like most of the scholars of his age, in the absence of regular educational institutions, with perhaps one or two exceptions, he had to devote a part of his time to the large number of pupils that flocked to Ma’arrah from all parts of Asia Minor, Arabia, and India. Aside from this, he dictated to his numerous amanuenses on every possible and known subject. He is not only a poet of the first rank, but an essayist, a literary critic, and a mathematician as well. Everything he wrote was transcribed by many of his admirers, as was the fashion then, and thus circulated far and near. Nothing, however, was preserved but his Diwans, his Letters and the Epistle of Forgiveness,10 of which I shall yet have occasion to speak.11

His reputation as poet and scholar had now, after his return from Baghdad, overleaped the horizons, as one writer has it. Honors were conferred upon him successively by the rulers and the scholars of his age. His many noted admirers were in constant communication with him. He was now looked upon as “the master of the learned, the chief of the wise, and the sole monarch of the bards of his century.” Ma’arrah12 became the Mecca of every literary aspirant; ambitious young scholars came there for enlightenment and inspiration. And Abu’l-Ala, although a pessimist, received them with his wonted kindness and courtesy. He imparted to them what he knew, and told them candidly what he would not teach, since, unlike other philosophers, he was not able to grasp the truth, nor compass the smallest of the mysteries of creation. In his latter days, youthful admirers sought his blessing, which he, as the childless father of all, graciously conferred, but with no self-assumed spiritual or temporal authority.

For thirty years he remained a vegetarian, living the life of an ascetic.13 This mode of living led his enemies to accuse him of renouncing Islam and embracing Brahminism, one of the tenets of which forbids the slaughter of animals. The accusation was rather sustained by the dispassionate attitude he held towards it, and, furthermore, by his vehement denunciation of the barbarous practice of killing animals for food or for sport.

Most of the censors of Abu’l-Ala were either spurred to their task by bigotry or animated by jealousy and ignorance. They held him up to ridicule and opprobrium, and such epithets as heretic, atheist, renegade, etc., were freely applied. But he was supremely indifferent to them all,14 and never would he cross swords with any particular individual; he attacked the false doctrines they were teaching, turning a deaf ear to the virulent vituperations they hurled upon him. I fail to find in the three volumes of his poems, even in the Letters, one acrimonious line savoring of personality.

Ibn-Khillikan, The Plutarch of Arabia, who is cautious and guarded in his statements, speaking of Abu’l-Ala, truly says:

“His asceticism, his deep sense of right and wrong, his powerful intellect, his prodigious memory, and his wide range of learning, are alike acknowledged by both friend and foe.”

His pessimism was natural, in part hereditary. The man was nothing if not genuine and sincere. Ruthlessly he said what he thought and felt. He had no secrets to hide from the world, no thoughts which he dared not express. His soul was as open as Nature; his mind was the polished mirror of his age.15 It may be that had he not been blind-stricken and had not small-pox disfigured his features, he might have found a palliative in human society. His pessimism might not have been cured, but it might have been rendered at least enticing. Good-fellowship might have robbed it of its sting. Nor is his strong aversion to marriage, in view of these facts, surprising.

He lived to know that “his fame spread from the sequestered village of Ma’arrah to the utmost confines of the Arabic speaking world.” In the spring of 1055 A.D. he died, and was buried in a garden surrounding his home. Adh-Dhahabi states that there were present at his grave eighty poets, and that the Koran was read there two hundred times in a fortnight. Eighty poets in the small town of Ma’arrah sounds incredible. But we must bear in mind that almost every one who studies the Arabic grammar has also to study prosody and versification and thus become at least a rhymster. Even to-day, the death of a noted person among the Arabs, is always an occasion for the display of much eloquence and tears, both in prose and verse.

Abu’l-Ala, beside being a poet and scholar of the first rank, was also one of the foremost thinkers of his age. Very little is said of his teachings, his characteristics, his many-sided intellect, in the biographies I have read. The fact that he was a liberal thinker, a trenchant writer, – free, candid, downright, independent, skeptical withal, – answers for the neglect on the part of Mohammedan doctors, who, when they do discuss him, try to conceal from the world what his poems unquestionably reveal. I am speaking, of course, of the neglect after his death. For during his life-time he was much honored, as I have shown, and many distinguished travellers came especially to Ma’arrah to see him. He was also often called upon to act as intercessor with the Emirs for the natives of his village.16

The larger collection of his poems, the Luzumiyat,17 was published in Cairo, in two volumes, by Azeez Zind, from an original Ms. written in the twelfth century, under Abu’l-Ala’s own title Luzum ma la Yalzam, or the Necessity of what is Unnecessary. This title refers to the special system of rhyming which the poet adopted. And the poems, published in desultory fashion, were written, it seems, at different periods of his life, and are arranged according to his particular alphabetical system of rhyming. They bear no titles except, “And he also says, rhyming with so and so,” whatever the consonant and vowel may be. In his Preface to the Luzumiyat he says:

“It happened that I composed these poems during the past years, and in them I have always aimed at the truth. They are certainly free from the blandishments of exaggeration. And while some of them are written in glorification of God, who is above such glory, others are, as it were, a reminder to those who forget, a pinch to those who sleep, and a warning to the children of the earth against the wiles of the great world, where human rights and human gratitude are often strangled by the same hand of Fate.”

As for the translation of these chosen quatrains, let me say at the outset that it is almost impossible to adhere to the letter thereof and convey the meaning without being insipid, dull, and at times even ridiculous. There being no affinity between the Arabic and the English, their standards of art and beauty widely differ, and in the process of transformation the outer garment at times must necessarily be doffed. I have always adhered to the spirit, however, preserving the native imagery where it was not too clannish or grotesque. I have added nothing that was foreign to the ruling idea, nor have I omitted anything that was necessary to the completion of the general thought. One might get an idea of what is called a scholarly translation from the works of any of the Orientalists who have made a study of Abu’l-Ala. The first English scholar to mention the poet, as far as I know, was J. D. Carlisle, who in his “Specimens of Arabic Poetry”, published in 1810, has paraphrased in verse a quatrain on Pride and Virtue. He also translated into Latin one of Abu’l-Ala’s bold epigrams, fearing, I suppose, to publish it at that time in English.

The quatrains which are here published are culled from the three Volumes of his poems, and they are arranged, as nearly as may be, in the logical order of their sequence of thought. They form a kind of eclogue, which the poet-philosopher delivers from his prison in Ma’arrah.

Once, in Damascus, I visited, with some friends, a distinguished Sufi; and when the tea was being served, our host held forth on the subject of Abu’l-Ala’s creed. He quoted from the Luzumiyat to show that the poet-philosopher of Ma’arrah was a true Sufi, and of the highest order. “In his passionate hatred of the vile world and all the vile material manifestations of life,” quoth our host, “he was like a dervish dancing in sheer bewilderment; a holy man, indeed, melting in tears before the distorted image of Divinity. In his aloofness, as in the purity of his spirit, the ecstatic negations of Abu’l-Ala can only be translated in terms of the Sufi’s creed. In his raptures, shathat, he was as distant as Ibn ul-Arabi; and in his bewilderment, heirat, he was as deeply intoxicated as Ibn ul-Fared. If others have symbolized the Divinity in wine, he symbolized it in Reason, which is the living oracle of the Soul; he has, in a word, embraced Divinity under the cover of a philosophy of extinction.”…

This, and more such from our Sufi host, to which the guests gently nodded understanding. One of them, a young poet and scholar, even added that most of the irreligious opinions that are found in the Luzumiyat were forced upon the poet by the rigorous system of rhyming he adopted. The Rhyme, then, is responsible for the heresies of Abu’l-Ala! Allah be praised! But this view of the matter was not new to me. I have heard it expressed by zealous Muslem scholars, who see in Abu’l-Ala an adversary too strong to be allowed to enlist with the enemy. They will keep him, as one of the “Pillars of the Faith,” at any cost. Coming from them, therefore, this rhyme-begotten heresy theory is not surprising.

But I am surprised to find a European scholar like Professor Margoliouth giving countenance to such views; even repeating, to support his own argument,18 such drivel. For if the system of rhyme-ending imposes upon the poet his irreligious opinions, how can we account for them in his prose writings? How, for instance, explain his book “Al-fusul wal Ghayat” (The Chapters and the Purposes), a work in which he parodied the Koran itself, and which only needed, as he said, to bring it to the standard of the Book, “the polishing of four centuries of reading in the pulpit?” And how account for his “Risalat ul-Ghufran” (Epistle of Forgiveness), a most remarkable work both in form and conception? – a Divina Comedia in its cotyledonous state, as it were, only that Abu’l-Ala does not seem to have relished the idea of visiting Juhannam. He must have felt that in his “three earthly prisons” he had had enough of it. So he visits the Jannat and there meets the pagan bards of Arabia lulling themselves in eternal bliss under the eternal shades of the sidr tree, writing and reading and discussing poetry. Now, to people the Muslem’s Paradise with heathen poets who have been forgiven, – hence the title of the Work, – and received among the blest, – is not this clear enough, bold enough, loud enough even for the deaf and the blind? “The idea,” says Professor Nicholson, speaking of The Epistle of Forgiveness,19 “is carried out with such ingenuity and in a spirit of audacious burlesque that reminds one of Lucien.”

This does not mean, however, that the work is essentially of a burlesque quality. Abu’l-Ala had humor; but his earnest tone is never so little at an ebb as when he is in his happiest mood. I quote from The Epistle of Forgiveness:

“Sometimes you may find a man skilful in his trade,” says the Author, “perfect in sagacity and in the use of arguments, but when he comes to religion he is found obstinate, so does he follow in the old groove. Piety is implanted in human nature; it is deemed a sure refuge. To the growing child, that which falls from his elders’ lips is a lesson that abides with him all his life. Monks in their cloisters and devotees in their mosques accept their creed just as a story is handed down from him who tells it, without distinguishing between a true interpreter and a false. If one of these had found his kin among the Magians, or among the Sabians, he would have become nearly or quite like them.”

It does seem, too, that the strain of heterodoxy in Abu’l-Ala is partly hereditary. His father, who was also a poet of some distinction, and his maternal uncle, were both noted for their liberal opinions in religious matters. And he himself, alluding in one of his poems to those who reproached him for not making the pilgrimage to Mecca, says that neither his father, nor his cousin, nor his uncle had pilgrimaged at all, and that he will not be denied forgiveness, if they are forgiven. And if they are not, he had as lief share their fate.

But aside from his prose writings, in which, do what we may, we can not explain away his supposed heresies, we find in the Luzumiyat themselves his dominant ideas on religion, for instance, being a superstition; wine, an unmitigated evil; virtue, its own reward; the cremation of the dead, a virtue; the slaughter or even the torture of animals a crime;20 doubt, a way to truth; reason, the only prophet and guide; – we find these ideas clothed in various images and expressed in varied forms, but unmistakable in whatever guise we find them. Here, for instance, is Professor Nicholson’s almost literal translation of a quatrain from the Luzumiyat:

Hanifs21 are stumbling, Christians gone astray,Jews wildered, Magians far on error’s way: —We mortals are composed of two great schools,Enlightened knaves or else religious fools.

And here is the same idea, done in a large picture. The translation, literal too, is mine:

’Tis strange that Kusrah and his people washTheir faces in the staling of the kine;And that the Christians say, Almighty GodWas tortured, mocked, and crucified in fine:And that the Jews should picture Him as oneWho loves the odor of a roasting chine;And stranger still that Muslems travel farTo kiss a black stone said to be divine: —Almighty God! will all the human raceStray blindly from the Truth’s most sacred shrine?22

The East still remains the battle-ground of the creeds. And the Europeans, though they shook off their fetters of moral and spiritual slavery, would keep us in ours to facilitate the conquests of European commence. Thus the terrible Dragon, which is fed by the foreign missionary and the native priest, by the theologians and the ulama, and which still preys upon the heart and mind of Orient nations, is as active to-day as it was ten centuries ago. Let those consider this, who think Von Kremer exaggerated when he said, “Abu’l-Ala is a poet many centuries ahead of his time.”

Before closing, I wish to call attention to a question which, though unimportant in itself, is nevertheless worthy of the consideration of all admirers of Arabic and Persian literature. I refer to the similarity of thought which exists between Omar Khayyam and Abu’l-Ala. The former, I have reason to believe, was an imitator or a disciple of the latter. The birth of the first poet and the death of the second are not very far apart: they both occurred about the middle of the eleventh century. The English reading public here and abroad has already formed its opinion of Khayyam. Let it not, therefore, be supposed that in making this claim I aim to shake or undermine its great faith. My desire is to confirm, not to weaken, – to expand, not contract, – the Oriental influence on the Occidental mind.

Whoever will take the trouble, however, to read Omar Khayyam in conjunction with what is here translated of Abu’l-Ala, can not fail to see the striking similarity in thought and image of certain phases of the creed or the lack of creed of both poets.23 To be sure, the skepticism and pessimism of Omar are to a great extent imported from Ma’arrah. But the Arab philosopher in his religious opinions is far more outspoken than the Persian tent-maker. I do not say that Omar was a plagiarist; but I say this: just as Voltaire, for instance, acquired most of his liberal and skeptical views from Hobbes, Locke and Bayle, so did Omar acquire his from Abu’l-Ala. In my notes to these quatrains I have quoted in comparison from both the Fitzgerald and the Herron-Allen versions of the Persian poet; and with so much or so little said, I leave the matter in the hands of the reader, who, upon a careful examination, will doubtless bear me out as to this point.

THE LUZUMIYAT OF ABU’L-ALA

IThe sable wings of Night pursuing dayAcross the opalescent hills, displayThe wondrous star-gems which the fiery sunsAre scattering upon their fiery way.IIO my Companion, Night is passing fair,Fairer than aught the dawn and sundown wear;And fairer, too, than all the gilded daysOf blond Illusion and its golden snare.IIIHark, in the minarets muazzens callThe evening hour that in the intervalOf darkness Ahmad might remembered be, —Remembered of the Darkness be they all.IVAnd hear the others who with cymbals tryTo stay the feet of every passer-by:The market-men along the darkling laneAre crying up their wares. – Oh! let them cry.VMohammed or Messiah! Hear thou me,The truth entire nor here nor there can be;How should our God who made the sun and moonGive all his light to One, I cannot see.VICome, let us with the naked Night now restAnd read in Allah’s Book the sonnet best:The Pleiads – ah, the Moon from them departs, —She draws her veil and hastens toward the west.VIIThe Pleiads follow; and our Ethiop Queen,Emerging from behind her starry screen,Will steep her tresses in the saffron dyeOf dawn, and vanish in the morning sheen.VIIIThe secret of the day and night is inThe constellations, which forever spinAround each other in the comet-dust; —The comet-dust and humankind are kin.IXBut whether of dust or fire or foam, the glaiveOf Allah cleaves the planet and the waveOf this mysterious Heaven-Sea of life,And lo! we have the Cradle of the Grave.XThe Grave and Cradle, the untiring twain,Who in the markets of this narrow laneBordered of darkness, ever give and takeIn equal measure – what’s the loss or gain?XIAy, like the circles which the sun doth spinOf gossamer, we end as we begin;Our feet are on the heads of those that pass,But ever their Graves around our Cradles grin.XIIAnd what avails it then that Man be bornTo joy or sorrow? – why rejoice or mourn?The doling doves are calling to the rose;The dying rose is bleeding o’er the thorn.XIIIAnd he the Messenger, who takes awayThe faded garments, purple, white, and grayOf all our dreams unto the Dyer, willBring back new robes to-morrow – so they say.XIVBut now the funeral is passing by,And in its trail, beneath this moaning sky,The howdaj comes, – both vanish into night;To me are one, the sob, the joyous cry.XVWith tombs and ruined temples groans the landIn which our forbears in the drifting sandArise as dunes upon the track of TimeTo mark the cycles of the moving handXVIOf Fate. Alas! and we shall follow soonInto the night eternal or the noon;The wayward daughters of the spheres returnUnto the bosom of their sun or moon.XVIIAnd from the last days of Thamud and ‘AdUp to the first of Hashem’s fearless lad,Who smashed the idols of his mighty tribe,What idols and what heroes Death has had!XVIIITread lightly, for the mighty that have beenMight now be breathing in the dust unseen;Lightly, the violets beneath thy feetSpring from the mole of some Arabian queen.XIXMany a grave embraces friend and foeBehind the curtain of this sorry showOf love and hate inscrutable; alas!The Fates will always reap the while they sow.XXThe silken fibre of the fell Zakkum,As warp and woof, is woven on the loomOf life into a tapestry of dreamsTo decorate the chariot-seat of Doom.XXIAnd still we weave, and still we are contentIn slaving for the sovereigns who have spentThe savings of the toiling of the mindUpon the glory of Dismemberment.XXIINor king nor slave the hungry Days will spare;Between their fangéd Hours alike we fare:Anon they bound upon us while we playUnheeding at the threshold of their Lair.XXIIIThen Jannat or Juhannam? From the heightOf reason I can see nor fire nor lightThat feeds not on the darknesses; we passFrom world to world, like shadows through the night.XXIVOr sleep – and shall it be eternal sleepSomewhither in the bosom of the deepInfinities of cosmic dust, or hereWhere gracile cypresses the vigil keep!XXVUpon the threshing-floor of life I burnBeside the Winnower a word to learn;And only this: Man’s of the soil and sun,And to the soil and sun he shall return.XXVIAnd like a spider’s house or sparrow’s nest,The Sultan’s palace, though upon the crestOf glory’s mountain, soon or late must go:Ay, all abodes to ruin are addrest.XXVIISo, too, the creeds of Man: the one prevailsUntil the other comes; and this one failsWhen that one triumphs; ay, the lonesome worldWill always want the latest fairy-tales.XXVIIISeek not the Tavern of Belief, my friend,Until the Sakis there their morals mend;A lie imbibed a thousand lies will breed,And thou’lt become a Saki in the end.XXIXBy fearing whom I trust I find my wayTo truth; by trusting wholly I betrayThe trust of wisdom; better far is doubtWhich brings the false into the light of day.XXXOr wilt thou commerce have with those who makeRugs of the rainbow, rainbows of the snake,Snakes of a staff, and other wondrous things? —The burning thirst a mirage can not slake.XXXIReligion is a maiden veiled in prayer,Whose bridal gifts and dowry those who careCan buy in Mutakallem’s shop of wordsBut I for such, a dirham can not spare.XXXIIWhy linger here, why turn another page?Oh! seal with doubt the whole book of the age;Doubt every one, even him, the seeming slaveOf righteousness, and doubt the canting sage.XXXIIISome day the weeping daughters of HadilWill say unto the bulbuls: “Let’s appealTo Allah in behalf of Brother ManWho’s at the mercy now of Ababil.”XXXIVOf Ababil! I would the tale were true, —Would all the birds were such winged furies too;The scourging and the purging were a boonFor me, O my dear Brothers, and for you.XXXVMethinks Allah divides me to completeHis problem, which with Xs is replete;For I am free and I am too in chainsGroping along the labyrinthine street.XXXVIAnd round the Well how oft my Soul doth gropeAthirst; but lo! my Bucket hath no Rope:I cry for water, and the deep, dark WellEchoes my wailing cry, but not my hope.XXXVIIAh, many have I seen of those who fellWhile drawing, with a swagger, from the Well;They came with Rope and Bucket, and they wentEmpty of hand another tale to tell.XXXVIIIThe I in me standing upon the brinkWould leap into the Well to get a drink;But how to rise once in the depth, I cry,And cowardly behind my logic slink.XXXIXAnd she: “How long must I the burden bear?How long this tattered garment must I wear?”And I: “Why wear it? Leave it here, and goAway without it – little do I care.”XLBut once when we were quarreling, the doorWas opened by a Visitor who boreBoth Rope and Pail; he offered them and said:“Drink, if you will, but once, and nevermore.”XLIOne draught, more bitter than the Zakkum tree,Brought us unto the land of mysteryWhere rising Sand and Dust and Flame concealThe door of every Caravanseri.XLIIWe reach a door and there the legend find.“To all the Pilgrims of the Human Mind:Knock and pass on!” We knock and knock and knock;But no one answers save the moaning wind.XLIIIHow like a door the knowledge we attain,Which door is on the bourne of the Inane;It opens and our nothingness is closed, —It closes and in darkness we remain.XLIVHither we come unknowing, hence we go;Unknowing we are messaged to and fro;And yet we think we know all things of earthAnd sky – the suns and stars we think we know.XLVApply thy wit, O Brother, here and thereUpon this and upon that; but bewareLest in the end – ah, better at the startGo to the Tinker for a slight repair.XLVIAnd why so much ado, and wherefore layThe burden of the years upon the dayOf thy vain dreams? Who polishes his swordMorning and eve will polish it away.XLVIII heard it whispered in the cryptic streetsWhere every sage the same dumb shadow meets:“We are but words fallen from the lipe of TimeWhich God, that we might understand, repeats.”XLVIIIAnother said: “The creeping worm hath shown,In her discourse on human flesh and bone,That Man was once the bed on which she slept —The walking dust was once a thing of stone.”XLIXAnd still another: “We are coins which fadeIn circulation, coins which Allah madeTo cheat Iblis: the good and bad alikeAre spent by Fate upon a passing shade.”LAnd in the pottery the potter cried,As on his work shone all the master’s pride —“How is it, Rabbi, I, thy slave, can makeSuch vessels as nobody dare deride?”LIThe Earth then spake: “My children silent be;Same are to God the camel and the flea:He makes a mess of me to nourish you,Then makes a mess of you to nourish me.”LIINow, I believe the Potter will essayOnce more the Wheel, and from a better clayWill make a better Vessel, and perchanceA masterpiece which will endure for aye.LIIIWith better skill he even will remouldThe scattered potsherds of the New and Old;Then you and I will not disdain to buy,Though in the mart of Iblis they be sold.LIVSooth I have told the masters of the martOf rusty creeds and Babylonian artOf magic. Now the truth about myself —Here is the secret of my wincing heart.LVI muse, but in my musings I recallThe days of my iniquity; we’re all —An arrow shot across the wilderness,Somewhither, in the wilderness must fall.LVII laugh, but in my laughter-cup I pourThe tears of scorn and melancholy sore;I who am shattered by the hand of Doubt,Like glass to be remoulded nevermore.LVIII wheedle, too, even like my slave Zeidun,Who robs at dawn his brother, and at noonProstrates himself in prayer – ah, let us prayThat Night might blot us and our sins, and soon.LVIIIBut in the fatal coils, without intent,We sin; wherefore a future punishment?They say the metal dead a deadly steelBecomes with Allah’s knowledge and consent.LIXAnd even the repentant sinner’s tearFalling into Juhannam’s very ear,Goes to its heart, extinguishes its fireFor ever and forever, – so I hear.LXBetween the white and purple Words of TimeIn motley garb with Destiny I rhyme:The colored glasses to the water giveThe colors of a symbolry sublime.LXIHow oft, when young, my brothers I would shunIf their religious feelings were not spunOf my own cobweb, which I find was butA spider’s revelation of the sun.LXIINow, mosques and churches – even a Kaaba Stone,Korans and Bibles – even a martyr’s bone, —All these and more my heart can tolerate,For my religion’s love, and love alone.LXIIITo humankind, O Brother, consecrateThy heart, and shun the hundred Sects that prateAbout the things they little know about —Let all receive thy pity, none thy hate.LXIVThe tavern and the temple also shun,For sheikh and libertine in sooth are one;And when the pious knave begins to pule,The knave in purple breaks his vow anon.LXV“The wine’s forbidden,” say these honest folk,But for themselves the law they will revoke;The snivelling sheikh says he’s without a garb,When in the tap-house he had pawned his cloak.LXVIOr in the house of lust. The priestly nameAnd priestly turban once were those of Shame —And Shame is preaching in the pulpit now —If pulpits tumble down, I’m not to blame.LXVIIFor after she declaims upon the vowsOf Faith, she pusillanimously bowsBefore the Sultan’s wine-empurpled throne,While he and all his courtezans carouse.LXVIIICarouse, ye sovereign lords! The wheel will rollForever to confound and to console:Who sips to-day the golden cup will drinkMayhap to-morrow in a wooden bowl —LXIXAnd silent drink. The tumult of our mirthIs worse than our mad welcoming of birth: —The thunder hath a grandeur, but the rains,Without the thunder, quench the thirst of Earth.LXXThe Prophets, too, among us come to teach,Are one with those who from the pulpit preach;They pray, and slay, and pass away, and yetOur ills are as the pebbles on the beach.LXXIAnd though around the temple they should runFor seventy times and seven, and in the sunOf mad devotion drool, their prayers are stillLike their desires of feasting-fancies spun.LXXIIOh! let them in the marshes grope, or rideTheir jaded Myths along the mountain-side;Come up with me, O Brother, to the heightsWhere Reason is the prophet and the guide.LXXIII“What is thy faith and creed,” they ask of me,“And who art thou? Unseal thy pedigree.” —I am the child of Time, my tribe, mankind,And now this world’s my caravanseri.LXXIVSwathe thee in wool, my Sufi friend, and goThy way; in cotton I the wiser grow;But we ourselves are shreds of earth, and soonThe Tailor of the Universe will sew.LXXVAy! suddenly the mystic Hand will sealThe saint’s devotion and the sinner’s weal;They worship Saturn, but I worship OneBefore whom Saturn and the Heavens kneel.LXXVIAmong the crumbling ruins of the creedsThe Scout upon his camel played his reedsAnd called out to his people, – “Let us hence!The pasture here is full of noxious weeds.”LXXVIIAmong us falsehood is proclaimed aloud,But truth is whispered to the phantom bowedOf conscience; ay! and Wrong is ever crowned,While Right and Reason are denied a shroud.LXXVIIIAnd why in this dark Kingdom tribute pay?With clamant multitudes why stop to pray?Oh! hear the inner Voice: – “If thou’lt be right,Do what they deem is wrong, and go thy way.”LXXIXThy way unto the Sun the spaces throughWhere king Orion’s black-eyed huris slewThe Mother of Night to guide the Wings that bearThe flame divine hid in a drop of dew.LXXXHear ye who in the dust of ages creep,And in the halls of wicked masters sleep: —Arise! and out of this wan wearinessWhere Allah’s laughter makes the Devil weep.LXXXIArise! for lo! the Laughter and the WeepingReveal the Weapon which the Master’s keepingAbove your heads; Oh! take it up and strike!The lion of tyranny is only sleeping.LXXXIIEvil and Virtue? Shadows on the streetOf Fate and Vanity, – but shadows meetWhen in the gloaming they are hast’ning forthTo drink with Night annihilation sweet.LXXXIIIAnd thus the Sun will write and will effaceThe mystic symbols which the sages traceIn vain, for all the worlds of God are storedIn his enduring vessels Time and Space.LXXXIVFor all my learning’s but a veil, I guess,Veiling the phantom of my nothingness;Howbeit, there are those who think me wise,And those who think me – even these I bless.LXXXVAnd all my years, as vapid as my lay,Are bitter morsels of a mystic day, —The day of Fate, who carries in his lapDecember snows and snow-white flowers of May.LXXXVIAllah, my sleep is woven through, it seems,With burning threads of night and golden beams;But when my dreams are evil they come true;When they are not, they are, alas! but dreams.LXXXVIIThe subtle ways of Destiny I know;In me she plays her game of “Give and Go.”Misfortune I receive in cash, but joy,In drafts on Heaven or on the winds that blow.LXXXVIIII give and go, grim Destiny, – I playUpon this checker-board of Night and DayThe dark game with thee, but the day will comeWhen one will turn the Board the other way.LXXXIXIf my house-swallow, laboring with zest,Felt like myself the burden of unrest,Unlightened by inscrutable designs,She would not build her young that cozy nest.XCThy life with guiltless life-blood do not stain —Hunt not the children of the woods; in vainThou’lt try one day to wash thy bloody hand:Nor hunter here nor hunted long remain.XCIOh! cast my dust away from thee, and doffThy cloak of sycophancy and like stuff:I’m but a shadow on the sandy waste, —Enough of thy duplicity, enough!XCIIBehold! the Veil that hid thy soul is tornAnd all thy secrets on the winds are borne:The hand of Sin has written on thy face“Awake, for these untimely furrows warn!”XCIIIA prince of souls, ‘tis sung in ancient lay,One morning sought a vesture of the clay;He came into the Pottery, the fool —The lucky fool was warned to stay away.XCIVBut I was not. Oh! that the Fates decreeThat I now cast aside this clay of me;My soul and body wedded for a whileAre sick and would that separation be.XCV“Thou shalt not kill!” – Thy words, O God, we heed,Though thy two Soul-devouring Angels feedThy Promise of another life on this, —To have spared us both, it were a boon indeed.XCVIOh! that some one would but return to tellIf old Nubakht is burning now in hell,Or if the workers for the Prophet’s prizeAre laughing at his Paradisal sell.XCVIIOnce I have tried to string a few Pearl-seedsUpon my Rosary of wooden beads;But I have searched, and I have searched in vainFor pearls in all the caverns of the creedsXCVIIIAnd in the palaces of wealth I foundSome beads of wisdom scattered on the ground,Around the throne of Power, beneath the feetOf fair-faced slaves with flowers of folly crowned.XCIXThy wealth can shed no tears around thy bier,Nor can it wash thy hands of shame and fear;Ere thou departest with it freely part, —Let others plead for thee and God will hear.CFor me thy silks and feathers have no charmThe pillow I like best is my right arm;The comforts of this passing show I spurn,For Poverty can do the soul no harm.CIThe guiding hand of Allah I can seeUpon my staff: of what use then is heWho’d be the blind man’s guide? Thou silent oak,No son of Eve shall walk with me and thee.CIIMy life’s the road on which I blindly speed:My goal’s the grave on which I plant a reedTo shape my Hope, but soon the Hand unseenWill strike, and lo! I’m but a sapless weed.CIIIO Rabbi, curse us not if we have beenNursed in the shadow of the Gate of SinBuilt by thy hand – yea, ev’n thine angels blinkWhen we are coming out and going in.CIVAnd like the dead of Ind I do not fearTo go to thee in flames; the most austereAngel of fire a softer tooth and tongueHath he than dreadful Munker and Nakir.CVNow, at this end of Adam’s line I standHolding my father’s life-curse in my hand,Doing no one the wrong that he did me: —Ah, would that he were barren as the sand!CVIAy, thus thy children, though they sovereigns be,When truth upon them dawns, will turn on thee,Who cast them into life’s dark labyrinthWhere even old Izrail can not see.CVIIAnd in the labyrinth both son and sireAwhile will fan and fuel hatred’s fire;Sparks of the log of evil are all menAllwhere – extinguished be the race entire!CVIIIIf miracles were wrought in ancient years,Why not to-day, O Heaven-cradled seers?The highway’s strewn with dead, the lepers weep,If ye but knew, – if ye but saw their tears!CIXFan thou a lisping fire and it will leapIn flames, but dost thou fan an ashy heap?They would respond, indeed, whom thou dost call,Were they not dead, alas! or dead asleep.CXThe way of vice is open as the sky,The way of virtue’s like the needle’s eye;But whether here or there, the eager SoulHas only two Companions – Whence and Why.CXIWhence come, O firmament, thy myriad lights?Whence comes thy sap, O vineyard of the heights?Whence comes the perfume of the rose, and whenceThe spirit-larva which the body blights?CXIIWhence does the nettle get its bitter sting?Whence do the honey bees their honey bring?Whence our Companions, too – our Whence and Why?O Soul, I do not know a single thing!CXIIIHow many like us in the ages pastHave blindly soared, though like a pebble cast,Seeking the veil of mystery to tear,But fell accurst beneath the burning blast?CXIVWhy try to con the book of earth and sky,Why seek the truth which neither you nor ICan grasp? But Death methinks the secret keeps,And will impart it to us by and by.CXVThe Sultan, too, relinquishing his throneMust wayfare through the darkening dust aloneWhere neither crown nor kingdom be, and he,Part of the Secret, here and there is blown.CXVITo clay the mighty Sultan must returnAnd, chancing, help a praying slave to burnHis midnight oil before the face of Him,Who of the Sultan makes an incense urn.CXVIITurned to a cup, who once the sword of stateHeld o’er the head of slave and potentate,Is now held in the tippler’s trembling hand,Or smashed upon the tavern-floor of Fate.CXVIIIFor this I say, Be watchful of the CageOf chance; it opes alike to fool and sage;Spy on the moment, for to-morrow’ll be,Like yesterday, an obliterated page.CXIXYea, kiss the rosy cheeks of new-born Day,And hail eternity in every rayForming a halo round its infant head,Illumining thy labyrinthine way.CXXBut I, the thrice-imprisoned, try to trollStrains of the song of night, which fill with doleMy blindness, my confinement, and my flesh —The sordid habitation of my soul.CXXIHowbeit, my inner vision heir shall beTo the increasing flames of mysteryWhich may illumine yet my prisons all,And crown the ever living hope of me.