The Luzumiyat of Abu'l-Ala

 
Their jaded Myths along the mountain-side;
Come up with me, O Brother, to the heights
Where 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.
 

LXXIV

 
Swathe thee in wool, my Sufi friend, and go
Thy way; in cotton I the wiser grow;
But we ourselves are shreds of earth, and soon
The Tailor of the Universe will sew.
 

LXXV

 
Ay! suddenly the mystic Hand will seal
The saint’s devotion and the sinner’s weal;
They worship Saturn, but I worship One
Before whom Saturn and the Heavens kneel.
 

LXXVI

 
Among the crumbling ruins of the creeds
The Scout upon his camel played his reeds
And called out to his people, – “Let us hence!
The pasture here is full of noxious weeds.”
 

LXXVII

 
Among us falsehood is proclaimed aloud,
But truth is whispered to the phantom bowed
Of conscience; ay! and Wrong is ever crowned,
While Right and Reason are denied a shroud.
 

LXXVIII

 
And 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.”
 

LXXIX

 
Thy way unto the Sun the spaces through
Where king Orion’s black-eyed huris slew
The Mother of Night to guide the Wings that bear
The flame divine hid in a drop of dew.
 

LXXX

 
Hear ye who in the dust of ages creep,
And in the halls of wicked masters sleep: —
Arise! and out of this wan weariness
Where Allah’s laughter makes the Devil weep.
 

LXXXI

 
Arise! for lo! the Laughter and the Weeping
Reveal the Weapon which the Master’s keeping
Above your heads; Oh! take it up and strike!
The lion of tyranny is only sleeping.
 

LXXXII

 
Evil and Virtue? Shadows on the street
Of Fate and Vanity, – but shadows meet
When in the gloaming they are hast’ning forth
To drink with Night annihilation sweet.
 

LXXXIII

 
And thus the Sun will write and will efface
The mystic symbols which the sages trace
In vain, for all the worlds of God are stored
In his enduring vessels Time and Space.
 

LXXXIV

 
For 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.
 

LXXXV

 
And all my years, as vapid as my lay,
Are bitter morsels of a mystic day, —
The day of Fate, who carries in his lap
December snows and snow-white flowers of May.
 

LXXXVI

 
Allah, 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.
 

LXXXVII

 
The 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.
 

LXXXVIII

 
I give and go, grim Destiny, – I play
Upon this checker-board of Night and Day
The dark game with thee, but the day will come
When one will turn the Board the other way.
 

LXXXIX

 
If 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.
 

XC

 
Thy life with guiltless life-blood do not stain —
Hunt not the children of the woods; in vain
Thou’lt try one day to wash thy bloody hand:
Nor hunter here nor hunted long remain.
 

XCI

 
Oh! cast my dust away from thee, and doff
Thy cloak of sycophancy and like stuff:
I’m but a shadow on the sandy waste, —
Enough of thy duplicity, enough!
 

XCII

 
Behold! the Veil that hid thy soul is torn
And all thy secrets on the winds are borne:
The hand of Sin has written on thy face
“Awake, for these untimely furrows warn!”
 

XCIII

 
A 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.
 

XCIV

 
But I was not. Oh! that the Fates decree
That I now cast aside this clay of me;
My soul and body wedded for a while
Are sick and would that separation be.
 

XCV

 
“Thou shalt not kill!” – Thy words, O God, we heed,
Though thy two Soul-devouring Angels feed
Thy Promise of another life on this, —
To have spared us both, it were a boon indeed.
 

XCVI

 
Oh! that some one would but return to tell
If old Nubakht is burning now in hell,
Or if the workers for the Prophet’s prize
Are laughing at his Paradisal sell.
 

XCVII

 
Once I have tried to string a few Pearl-seeds
Upon my Rosary of wooden beads;
But I have searched, and I have searched in vain
For pearls in all the caverns of the creeds
 

XCVIII

 
And in the palaces of wealth I found
Some beads of wisdom scattered on the ground,
Around the throne of Power, beneath the feet
Of fair-faced slaves with flowers of folly crowned.
 

XCIX

 
Thy 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.
 

C

 
For me thy silks and feathers have no charm
The pillow I like best is my right arm;
The comforts of this passing show I spurn,
For Poverty can do the soul no harm.
 

CI

 
The guiding hand of Allah I can see
Upon my staff: of what use then is he
Who’d be the blind man’s guide? Thou silent oak,
No son of Eve shall walk with me and thee.
 

CII

 
My life’s the road on which I blindly speed:
My goal’s the grave on which I plant a reed
To shape my Hope, but soon the Hand unseen
Will strike, and lo! I’m but a sapless weed.
 

CIII

 
O Rabbi, curse us not if we have been
Nursed in the shadow of the Gate of Sin
Built by thy hand – yea, ev’n thine angels blink
When we are coming out and going in.
 

CIV

 
And like the dead of Ind I do not fear
To go to thee in flames; the most austere
Angel of fire a softer tooth and tongue
Hath he than dreadful Munker and Nakir.
 

CV

 
Now, at this end of Adam’s line I stand
Holding 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!
 

CVI

 
Ay, thus thy children, though they sovereigns be,
When truth upon them dawns, will turn on thee,
Who cast them into life’s dark labyrinth
Where even old Izrail can not see.
 

CVII

 
And in the labyrinth both son and sire
Awhile will fan and fuel hatred’s fire;
Sparks of the log of evil are all men
Allwhere – extinguished be the race entire!
 

CVIII

 
If 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!
 

CIX

 
Fan thou a lisping fire and it will leap
In flames, but dost thou fan an ashy heap?
They would respond, indeed, whom thou dost call,
Were they not dead, alas! or dead asleep.
 

CX

 
The 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 Soul
Has only two Companions – Whence and Why.
 

CXI

 
Whence come, O firmament, thy myriad lights?
Whence comes thy sap, O vineyard of the heights?
Whence comes the perfume of the rose, and whence
The spirit-larva which the body blights?
 

CXII

 
Whence 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!
 

CXIII

 
How many like us in the ages past
Have blindly soared, though like a pebble cast,
Seeking the veil of mystery to tear,
But fell accurst beneath the burning blast?
 

CXIV

 
Why try to con the book of earth and sky,
Why seek the truth which neither you nor I
Can grasp? But Death methinks the secret keeps,
And will impart it to us by and by.
 

CXV

 
The Sultan, too, relinquishing his throne
Must wayfare through the darkening dust alone
Where neither crown nor kingdom be, and he,
Part of the Secret, here and there is blown.
 

CXVI

 
To clay the mighty Sultan must return
And, chancing, help a praying slave to burn
His midnight oil before the face of Him,
Who of the Sultan makes an incense urn.
 

CXVII

 
Turned to a cup, who once the sword of state
Held 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.
 

CXVIII

 
For this I say, Be watchful of the Cage
Of chance; it opes alike to fool and sage;
Spy on the moment, for to-morrow’ll be,
Like yesterday, an obliterated page.
 

CXIX

 
Yea, kiss the rosy cheeks of new-born Day,
And hail eternity in every ray
Forming a halo round its infant head,
Illumining thy labyrinthine way.
 

CXX

 
But I, the thrice-imprisoned, try to troll
Strains of the song of night, which fill with dole
My blindness, my confinement, and my flesh —
The sordid habitation of my soul.
 

CXXI

 
Howbeit, my inner vision heir shall be
To the increasing flames of mystery
Which may illumine yet my prisons all,
And crown the ever living hope of me.