1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
|
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
<title>
The Singing Caravan by Robert Vansittart, a Project Gutenberg eBook.
</title>
<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover_caravan.jpg" />
<style type="text/css">
body {margin-left: 10%;
margin-right: 10%;}
h1,h2,h3 {
text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
clear: both;}
p { margin-top: .51em;
text-align: justify;
margin-bottom: .49em;}
.p2 {margin-top: 2em;}
.p4 {margin-top: 4em;}
.ph2 {font-size: 1.25em;
text-align: center;
text-decoration: underline;}
.ph1 {font-size: 1.5em;
text-align: center;
font-weight: bold;}
div.chap{page-break-before: always;
page-break-after: always;}
hr {width: 32%;
margin-top: 2em;
margin-bottom: 2em;
margin-left: 34%;
margin-right: 34%;
clear: both;}
hr.tb {width: 44%;
margin-left: 28%;
margin-right: 28%;}
hr.chap {width: 64%;
margin-left: 18%;
margin-right: 18%;}
#advert {list-style-type: none;
text-align: left;
display: inline-block;}
#advert li.subt {font-style: italic;
padding-top: .5em;}
#advert li.detailpad {padding-left: 2em;}
@media handheld
{
#advert {list-style-type: none;
text-align: left;
display: block;
margin-left: 1.5em;}
}
table {
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
.tdr {text-align: right;}
#recent td.ttop {padding-top: .5em;}
#recent td.tleft1 {padding-left: 1em;}
#toc td.chapnum {text-align: right;
padding-right: .5em;}
.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
position: absolute;
left: 92%;
font-size: smaller;
text-align: right;
} /* page numbers */
.center {text-align: center;}
.right {text-align: right;}
.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;}
.italic {font-style: italic;}
/* Poetry */
.poetry-container {
text-align: center; }
.poem {
margin-left:5%;
margin-right:5%;
text-align: left;
display: inline-block;
}
@media handheld
{
.poem {
margin-left: 1.5em;
text-align: left;
display: block;
}
}
.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
div.verse {padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
div.indent10 {margin-left: 5em;}
div.indent12 {margin-left: 6em;}
div.indent14 {margin-left: 7em;}
div.indent2 {margin-left: 1em;}
div.indent20 {margin-left: 10em;}
div.indent22 {margin-left: 11em;}
div.indent24 {margin-left: 12em;}
div.indent3 {margin-left: 1.5em;}
div.indent32 {margin-left: 16em;}
div.indent4 {margin-left: 2em;}
div.indent5 {margin-left: 2.5em;}
div.indent6 {margin-left: 3em;}
div.indent56 {margin-left: 28em;}
div.indent8 {margin-left: 4em;}
/* Transcriber's notes */
.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA;
color: black;
font-size:smaller;
padding:0.5em;
margin-bottom:5em;
font-family:sans-serif, serif; }
.correction { text-decoration: none;
border-bottom: thin dotted gray;}
.covernote { display: none;}
@media handheld
{
.covernote { display: inline; }
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49385 ***</div>
<div class="chap">
<p class="ph2">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<ul id="advert">
<li class="italic">FICTION</li>
<li class="detailpad">THE GATES</li>
<li class="detailpad">JOHN STUART</li>
<li class="subt">VERSE</li>
<li class="detailpad">SONGS AND SATIRES</li>
<li class="subt">THEATRE</li>
<li class="detailpad">LES PARIAHS</li>
<li class="detailpad">THE CAP AND BELLS</li>
<li class="detailpad">PEOPLE LIKE OURSELVES</li>
<li class="detailpad">CLASS</li>
<li class="subt">THEATRE IN VERSE</li>
<li class="detailpad">FOOLERY</li>
<li class="detailpad">DUSK</li>
</ul>
</div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div>
<div class="chap">
<p class="ph1">THE SINGING CARAVAN</p>
<hr class="chap" />
</div>
<div class="chap">
<p class="ph2 italic">RECENT POETRY</p>
<table id="recent" summary="Recent poetry.">
<tr><td class="ttop">THE HEART OF PEACE</td><td /></tr>
<tr><td class="tleft1">By <span class="smcap">Laurence Housman</span>.</td>
<td class="tdr">5s. net</td></tr>
<tr><td class="ttop">ESCAPE AND FANTASY</td><td /></tr>
<tr><td class="tleft1">By <span class="smcap">George Rostrevor</span>.</td>
<td class="tdr">3s. 6d. net</td></tr>
<tr><td class="ttop">THE SAILING SHIPS</td><td /></tr>
<tr><td class="tleft1">By <span class="smcap">Enid Bagnold</span>.</td>
<td class="tdr">5s. net</td></tr>
<tr><td class="ttop">COUNTER-ATTACK</td><td /></tr>
<tr><td class="tleft1">By <span class="smcap">Siegfried Sassoon</span>.</td>
<td class="tdr">2s. 6d. net</td></tr>
<tr><td class="ttop">POEMS</td><td /></tr>
<tr><td class="tleft1">By <span class="smcap">Geoffrey Dearmer</span>.</td>
<td class="tdr">2s. 6d. net</td></tr>
</table>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<h1><a name="THE_SINGING_CARAVAN" id="THE_SINGING_CARAVAN"></a>THE SINGING
CARAVAN</h1>
<p class="center">A SUFI TALE</p>
<p class="center p2">BY</p>
<p class="center">ROBERT VANSITTART</p>
<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Each man is many as a caravan;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">His straggling selves collect in tales like these.</div>
<div class="verse">Only the love of one can make him one.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Who takes the Sufi Way—the Way of Peace?</div>
</div></div></div>
<p class="center">NEW YORK<br />
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br />
1919</p>
<p class="center"><i>Printed in Great Britain</i></p>
<hr class="chap" />
</div>
<div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="IN_MEMORIAM" id="IN_MEMORIAM"></a><i>IN MEMORIAM</i></h2>
<p class="ph1">MY BROTHER ARNOLD</p>
<p class="center"><span class="smcap">2nd Lieutenant, 11th Hussars</span><br />
KILLED IN ACTION NEAR YPRES<br />
MAY 1915</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse italic">In twenty years of lands and seas and cities</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">I had small joy and sought for it the more,</div>
<div class="verse italic">Thinking: "If ever I am <span class="correction" title="Greek: polymêtis">πολύμητις</span>,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">'Tis yours to draw upon the hard-won store."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse italic">I had some bouts from Samarkand to Paris,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">And took some falls 'twixt Sweden and Sudan.</div>
<div class="verse italic">If I was slow and patient learning parries,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">I hoped to teach you when you were a man.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse italic">I cannot fall to whining round the threshold</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Where Death awaited you. I lack the skill</div>
<div class="verse italic">Of hands for ever working out a fresh hold</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">On life. In mystic ways I serve you still.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse italic">The age of miracles is not yet ended.</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">As on the humble feast of Galilee</div>
<div class="verse italic">Surely a touch of heaven has descended</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">On the cheap earthen vessel, even on me,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse italic">Whose weak content—the soul I travail under—</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Unstable as water, to myself untrue,</div>
<div class="verse italic">God's mercy makes an everlasting wonder,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Stronger than life or death, my love of you.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="acknowledgements" id="acknowledgements"></a></h2>
<p>I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Humphreys, Mr. John Murray, and the
Editor of the <i>Spectator</i> for kind permission to reproduce a few of
the shorter poems in this tale of Persian mystics. I have included
them, firstly, because I wished otherwise new work, being a memorial,
to include such fragments of the past as might be worth preserving;
secondly, because decreasing leisure inspires a diffidence in the
future that may justify me in asking a reader or a friend to judge or
remember me only by "Foolery" and "The Singing Caravan."</p>
<p class="right">
R. V.
</p>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</a></h2>
<table id="toc" summary="Table of Contents">
<tr><th> </th><th> </th><th class="tdr">PAGE</th></tr>
<tr><td /><td><a href="#IN_MEMORIAM"><span class="correction" title="Added by transcriber">IN MEMORIAM</span></a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_vi">vi</a></td></tr>
<tr><td /><td><a href="#acknowledgements"><span class="correction" title="Added by transcriber">ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS</span></a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_viii">viii</a></td></tr>
<tr><td /><td><a href="#PRELUDE">PRELUDE</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#I">I.</a></td><td><a href="#I">THE VIEW OF THE WATCHMEN</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#II">II.</a></td><td><a href="#II">THE JOY OF THE WORDS</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#III">III.</a></td><td><a href="#III">THE DEPTH OF THE NIGHT</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></td><td><a href="#IV">THE INWARDNESS OF THE MERCHANT</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#V">V.</a></td><td><a href="#V">THE LESSON OF THE CAMEL</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#VI">VI.</a></td><td><a href="#VI">THE BOASTING OF YOUTH</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#VII">VII.</a></td><td><a href="#VII">THE HEART OF THE SLAVE</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#VIII">VIII.</a></td><td><a href="#VIII">THE TALE OF THE CHEAPJACK</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#IX">IX.</a></td><td><a href="#IX">THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DOOR</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#X">X.</a></td><td><a href="#X">THE SONG OF THE SELVES</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XI">XI.</a></td><td><a href="#XI">THE STORY OF THE SUTLER</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_57">57</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XII">XII.</a></td><td><a href="#XII">THE LEGEND OF THE PEASANT</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XIII">XIII.</a></td><td><a href="#XIII">THE PROMOTION OF THE SOLDIER</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XIV">XIV.</a></td><td><a href="#XIV">THE MORAL OF THE SCHOLAR</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XV">XV.</a></td><td><a href="#XV">THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE SHEIKH</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81">81</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XVI">XVI.</a></td><td><a href="#XVI">THE ARGUMENT OF THE SCEPTIC</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XVII">XVII.</a></td><td><a href="#XVII">THE PRIDE OF THE TAILOR</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_100">100</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td><a href="#XVIII">THE HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURER</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_103">103</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XIX">XIX.</a></td><td><a href="#XIX">FUSION</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_161">161</a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chapnum"><a href="#XX">XX.</a></td><td><a href="#XX">LONG LEAVE</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
<tr><td /><td><a href="#EPILOGUE">EPILOGUE</a></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr>
</table>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span>
<h2><a name="PRELUDE" id="PRELUDE"></a>PRELUDE</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The sun smote Elburz like a gong.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Slow down the mountain's molten face</div>
<div class="verse">Zigzagged the caravan of song.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Time was its slave and went its pace.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">It bore a white Transcaspian Queen</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Whose barque had touched at Enzelí.</div>
<div class="verse">Splendid in jewelled palanquin</div>
<div class="verse indent2">She cleft Iran from sea to sea,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Bound for the Persian Gulf of Pearls,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where demons sail for drifting isles</div>
<div class="verse">With bodyguards of dancing girls</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And four tamed winds for music, smiles</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For passports. Thus the caravan,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Singing from chief to <i>charvadar</i>,</div>
<div class="verse">Reached the great gate of screened Tehran.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The burrows of the dim bazaar</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Swarmed thick to see the vision pass</div>
<div class="verse indent2">On broidered camels like a fleet</div>
<div class="verse">Of swaying silence. One there was</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Who joined the strangers in the street.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">They called him Dreamer-of-the-Age,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The least of Allah's <i>Muslimeen</i></div>
<div class="verse">Who knew the joys of pilgrimage</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And wore the sign of sacred green,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A poet, poor and wistful-eyed.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Him all the beauty and the song</div>
<div class="verse">Drew by swift magic to her side,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And in a trance he went along</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Past friends who questioned of his goal:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"The Brazen Cliffs? The Realms of Musk?</div>
<div class="verse">Goes he to Mecca for his soul?..."</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The town-light dwindled in the dusk</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Behind. Ahead Misr? El Katíf?</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The moon far up a brine-green sky</div>
<div class="verse">Made Demavend a huge pale reef</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Set in an ocean long gone dry.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Bleached mosques like dwarf cave-stalagmites,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Smooth silver-bouldered <i>biyaban</i></div>
<div class="verse">And sevenfold velvet of white nights</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Vied with the singing caravan</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To make her pathway plain.</div>
<div class="verse indent22">Then one</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Beside the poet murmured low:</div>
<div class="verse">"I plod behind, sun after sun,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">O master, whither do we go?</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Are we for some palmed port of Fars,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or tombed Kerbela, or Baghdad</div>
<div class="verse">The Town-of-Knowledge-of-the-Stars?</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Is worship wise or are we mad?"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Answered the poet: "Do we ask</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Allah to buy each Friday's throng?</div>
<div class="verse">None to whom worship is a task</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Should join the caravan of song.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"With heart and eyes unquestioning, friend,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We follow love from sea to sea,</div>
<div class="verse">And Love and Prayer have common end:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">'May God be merciful to me!'"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">So fared they, camped from noon to even,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Till dawn, quick-groping through the gloom,</div>
<div class="verse">Pounced on gilt planets low in heaven.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Thus they beheld the domes of Kum.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And onward nightly. Though the dust</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Swirled in dread shapes of desert <i>Jinn</i>,</div>
<div class="verse">Ever the footsore poet's trust</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Soared to the jewelled palanquin,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Parched, but still singing: "God, being great,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Lent me a star from sea to sea,</div>
<div class="verse">The drop in his hand-hollow, Fate.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">He holds it high, and signs to me</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Although She—She may not ..."</div>
<div class="verse indent24">"For thirst</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My songs and dreams like mirage fail.</div>
<div class="verse">Yea, mad "—his fellow pilgrim cursed—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"I was. The Queen lifts not her veil."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Put no conditions to her glance,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">O happy desert, where the guide</div>
<div class="verse">Is Love's own self, Life's only chance ..."</div>
<div class="verse indent2">He saw not where the other died,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But pressed on strongly, loth to halt</div>
<div class="verse indent2">At Persia's pride, Rose-Ispahan,</div>
<div class="verse">Whose hawks are bathed in pure cobalt.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To meet the singing caravan</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Came henna-bearded prince and sage</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With henna-fingered <i>houris</i>, who</div>
<div class="verse">Strove to retard the pilgrimage,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Saying: "Our streets are fair and you</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"A poet. Sing of us instead.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">God may be good, but life is short.</div>
<div class="verse">Yon are the mountains of the dead.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Here are clean robes to wear at court."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He said: "I seek a bliss beyond</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The range of your <i>muezzin</i>-call.</div>
<div class="verse">Do birds cease song till heaven respond?</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The road is naught. The Hope is all."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"You know not this Transcaspian Queen,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or what the journey's end may be.</div>
<div class="verse">Fool among Allah's <i>Muslimeen</i>,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">You chase a myth from sea to sea."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Because I bargain not nor guess</div>
<div class="verse indent2">If Waste or Garden wait for me,</div>
<div class="verse">Love gives me inner loveliness.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I hold to her from sea to sea."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">So he was gone, nor seemed to care</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For beckoning shade, or boasting brook,</div>
<div class="verse">Or human alabaster-ware</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Flaunted before him in the <i>suk</i>,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Nor paused at sunburnt far Shiraz,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The home of sinful yellow wine,</div>
<div class="verse">Where morning mists, like violet gauze,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Deck the bare hills, and blossoms twine</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">In seething coloured foam around</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The lighthouse minarets.</div>
<div class="verse indent22">And sheer—</div>
<div class="verse">A thin cascade bereft of sound—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The track falls down to dank Bushír.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The caravan slipped to the plain.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Its song rose through the rising damp,</div>
<div class="verse">Till, through the grey stockade of rain,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Gulf of Pearls shone like a lamp.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Here waiting rode a giant <i>dhow</i>,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Each hand a captive <i>Roumi</i> lord,</div>
<div class="verse">Who rose despite his chains to bow</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As straight her beauty went aboard,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Sailed. For the Tableland of Rhyme?</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Crystal Archipelago?</div>
<div class="verse">Who knows! This happened on a time</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Among the times of long ago.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He only, Dreamer-of-the-Age,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Was left alone upon the sands,</div>
<div class="verse">The goal of his long pilgrimage,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The soil of all the promised lands,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Watching the <i>dhow</i> cut like a sword</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The leaden waves. Yet, ere she sailed,</div>
<div class="verse">God poured on broken eyes reward</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Out of Heaven's heart.</div>
<div class="verse indent20">The Queen unveiled.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">There for a space fulfilment shone,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">While worship had his soul for priest</div>
<div class="verse">And altar. Then the light was gone,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And on the sea the singing ceased.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<hr class="tb" />
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And is this all my story? Yes,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Save that the <i>Sufi's</i> dream is true.</div>
<div class="verse">Dearest, in its deep lowliness</div>
<div class="verse indent2">This tale is told of me and you.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">O love of mine, while I have breath,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Whatever my last fate shall be,</div>
<div class="verse">I seek you, you alone, till death</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With all my life—from sea to sea.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And God be merciful to me.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I<br />
THE VIEW OF THE WATCHMEN</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The pilgrims from the north</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Beat on the southern gate</div>
<div class="verse">All eager to set forth,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In little mood to wait</div>
<div class="verse">While watchman Abdelal</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Expounded the Koran</div>
<div class="verse">To that wise seneschal,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">His mate, Ghaffír Sultan.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">At length Ghaffír: "Enough!"</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Even watchmen's heads may nod.</div>
<div class="verse">"Asräil is not rough</div>
<div class="verse indent2">If we have faith in God."</div>
<div class="verse">His fellow tapped the book:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The <i>Darawish</i> discuss</div>
<div class="verse">The point you overlook:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Has Allah faith in us?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Know, then, that Allah, fresh</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And splendid as a boy</div>
<div class="verse">Who thinks no ill of flesh,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Had one desire: a toy.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
<div class="verse">And so he took for site</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To build his perfect plan</div>
<div class="verse">The Earth, where His delight</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Was manufactured: Man.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Ah, had we ever seen</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The draft, our Maker's spit,</div>
<div class="verse">I think we must have been</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Drawn to live up to it.</div>
<div class="verse">God was so pure and kind</div>
<div class="verse indent2">He showed Shaitan the lease</div>
<div class="verse">Of earth that He had signed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For us, His masterpiece.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The pilgrims cried: "You flout</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Our calm. Beware. It flags.</div>
<div class="verse">Unbar and let us out,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Sons of a thousand rags."</div>
<div class="verse">And Abdelal said: "Hark!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Methought I heard a din."</div>
<div class="verse">Said Ghaffír: "After dark</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I let no devils in.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Proceed." He sucked his pipe:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">God in His happiest mood</div>
<div class="verse">Laid down our prototype,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And saw that man was good.</div>
<div class="verse">Aglow with generous pride:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"Shaitan the son of Jann,</div>
<div class="verse">This is my crown," He cried.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"Bow down and worship man."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Said Evil with a smirk—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">He was too sly to hiss—</div>
<div class="verse">"I cannot praise your work.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I could have bettered this."</div>
<div class="verse">God said: "I could have sown</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The soil my puppet delves,</div>
<div class="verse">Yet rather gave my own</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Power to perfect themselves."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Still the fiend stiffened. "I</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Bow not." Our prophet saith</div>
<div class="verse">That he would not comply</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Because he had no faith</div>
<div class="verse">In us. He only saw</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The worst of Allah's toy,</div>
<div class="verse">The springs, some surface flaw,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The strengthening alloy.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Said God: "The faults are mine.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I gave him hope and doubt,</div>
<div class="verse">The mind that my design</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Shall have to work Me out.</div>
<div class="verse">What though he fall! Is love</div>
<div class="verse indent2">So faint that I should grieve?</div>
<div class="verse">How else, friend, should I prove</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To him that I believe?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"And how else should he rise?</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Lo, I, that made the night,</div>
<div class="verse">Have given his conscience eyes</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Therein to find the Right.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
<div class="verse">I have stretched out his hand,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Oh, not to grasp but feel,</div>
<div class="verse">Have taught his aims to land,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But tipped the aims with steel;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Have given him iron resolve</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And one great master-key,</div>
<div class="verse">Courage, to bid revolve</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The hinge of destiny,</div>
<div class="verse">And beams from heaven to build</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The road to Otherwise,</div>
<div class="verse">With broken gloom to gild</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The causeway of his sighs</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Whereby I watch him come</div>
<div class="verse indent2">At last to judge of Me,</div>
<div class="verse">Beyond the thunder's drum,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The cymbals of the sea.</div>
<div class="verse">Aye, Shaitan, plumb the Space</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And Time that planets buoy,</div>
<div class="verse">And you shall know the place</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Appointed for my toy.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"I could not give him rest,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And see him satiate</div>
<div class="verse">At once, or make the zest</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of life an opiate.</div>
<div class="verse">I might have been his lord,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I had not been his friend</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
<div class="verse">To sheathe his spirit's sword</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And start him at the end.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"I would not make him old,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That he might see his port</div>
<div class="verse">Fling its nocturne of gold</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And cheerfulness athwart</div>
<div class="verse">The dusk. I planned the wave,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And wealth of wind and star.</div>
<div class="verse">Could one be gay and brave</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Who never saw afar</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"The cause that he outlives</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Only because he fought,</div>
<div class="verse">The peaks to which he strives,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The ranges of his thought,</div>
<div class="verse">Until the dawn to be</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Relieve his watchfires dim,</div>
<div class="verse">Not by his faith in Me</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But by my faith in him!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"I also have my dreams,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And through my darkest cloud</div>
<div class="verse">His climbing phalanx gleams</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To my salute, and, proud</div>
<div class="verse">Of him even in defeat,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My light upon his brow,</div>
<div class="verse">My roughness at his feet,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I triumph. Shaitan, bow!"</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But Shaitan like an ass</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Jibbed and would not give ear.</div>
<div class="verse">Just so it came to pass,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Declares our Book, Ghaffír.</div>
<div class="verse">We know that in the heat</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of disputation—well,</div>
<div class="verse">Allah shot out his feet,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And Shaitan went to hell.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Thus Abdelal. The gate</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Shook to the pilgrims' cry:</div>
<div class="verse">"When will you cease to prate,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Beards of calamity!"</div>
<div class="verse">The poet: "Allah's bliss</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Fall on his watchmen! Thus</div>
<div class="verse">Our journey's password is</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That God has faith in us."</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II<br />
THE JOY OF THE WORDS</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The Sufis trembled: "Open, open wide,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Dismiss us to illuminate the East."</div>
<div class="verse">Old Ghaffír fumbled the reluctant bolts,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Lifting his hands and eyes as for a feast.</div>
<div class="verse">And this was their viaticum. His words</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Were mingled with their eagerness like yeast:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Go forth, poor words!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">If truly you are free,</div>
<div class="verse">Simple, direct, you shall be winged like birds,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Voiced like the sea.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Walk humbly clad!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Be sure those words are lame</div>
<div class="verse">That ride a-clatter, or that deck and pad</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A puny frame.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">As in your dress,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">So in your speech be plain!</div>
<div class="verse">Be not deceived; the Mighty Meaningless</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Are loud in vain.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Be not puffed up,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Nor drunk with your own sound!</div>
<div class="verse">Shall men drink deeply when an empty cup</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Is handed round?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Shout not at heaven!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Say what I bade you say.</div>
<div class="verse">Simplicity is beauty dwelling even</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In yea or nay.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Be this your goal.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Beauty within man's reach</div>
<div class="verse">Is poetry. You cannot touch man's soul</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Save with man's speech.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Therefore go straight.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">You shall not turn aside</div>
<div class="verse">To vain display; for yonder lies the gate</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where gods abide</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Your coming. Go!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The way was never hard.</div>
<div class="verse">What would you more than common flowers or snow?</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For your reward,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Be understood,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And thus shall you be sung.</div>
<div class="verse">Aye, you who think to show us any good,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Speak in our tongue.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III<br />
THE DEPTH OF THE NIGHT</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The watchman finished, as the southern gate</div>
<div class="verse">Clanged, and the breathless city lay behind.</div>
<div class="verse">The Dreamer's shadows shrank against the wall,</div>
<div class="verse">As though the desert called and none replied,</div>
<div class="verse">Till the young pilot, standing out to night,</div>
<div class="verse">Swung clear these lines to sound the depths of her:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"Blue Persian night,</div>
<div class="verse">Soft, voiceless as the summer sea!</div>
<div class="verse">Flooding the bouldered desert sand, submerge</div>
<div class="verse indent6">This cypressed isle</div>
<div class="verse">And Demavend's snow-spire—a sunken rock</div>
<div class="verse">On your hushed floor, where I the diver stand</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Beyond the reach of day.</div>
<div class="verse">And though, up through your overwhelming peace,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">I see your surface, heaven,</div>
<div class="verse">I would not rise there, being drowned in you,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Blue Persian night.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"Blue Persian night,</div>
<div class="verse">O consolation of the East!</div>
<div class="verse">In your clear breathless oceanic sheen</div>
<div class="verse indent6">My heart's an isle,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
<div class="verse">From whose innumerable caves and coigns—</div>
<div class="verse">When dusk awakes the city of my mind—</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Exploring boats set forth,</div>
<div class="verse">Bound for the harbour-lights of God knows where,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Full, full of God knows what;</div>
<div class="verse">It must be love of Him, or Her, or You,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Blue Persian night."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Her signal answered; for a slender wand</div>
<div class="verse">Of moonbeam touched the Dreamer on the mouth.</div>
<div class="verse">The caravan looked upward with a shout</div>
<div class="verse">And set its camels rolling to the south,</div>
<div class="verse">Murmuring: "Blue Persian night, none ever saw</div>
<div class="verse">You through your own sheer purity before us.</div>
<div class="verse">Rise up our songs as bubbles from the sand ..."</div>
<div class="verse">Somewhere among the camels rose this chorus:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent14">Dong! Dong!</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Lurching along</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Out of the dusk</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Into the night.</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Noiseless and lusty,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Dreamy and dusty,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Looms the long caravan-line into sight.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent14">Dong! Dong!</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Never a song,</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Never a footfall</div>
<div class="verse indent10">A breath or a sigh.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent8">Ghostly and stolid,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Stately and squalid,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Creeps the monotonous caravan by.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent14">Dong! Dong!</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Fugitive throng.</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Out of the dark</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Into the night,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Silent and lonely,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Gone!... the bells only</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Tells us a caravan once was in sight.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV<br />
THE INWARDNESS OF THE MERCHANT</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Moussa, the son of the Crypto-Jew,</div>
<div class="verse">Had eaten his fill of yellow stew</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And a bit besides (as a business man</div>
<div class="verse">He was far too quick for the caravan,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Who loved him not, though it feared his guile).</div>
<div class="verse">Moussa then: "I shall walk awhile</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"To ease my soul of its heavy load."</div>
<div class="verse">His pious friends: "May you find a road,"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And winked. "His soul has begun to feel</div>
<div class="verse">There's nothing left but a march to steal."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But one from the village, decoying quail</div>
<div class="verse">For the governor's pot, came back with a tale</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Of a lean arm shaken against the sky</div>
<div class="verse">Like a stunted thorn, and this piteous cry:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"As sound within an ice-bound desert mewed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Drags out existence at the very core</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent2">Of isolation, as breakers slip ashore</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In vainly eternal whispers to the nude</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Reef-coral, where no human feet intrude</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Upon the purity of stillness; or</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As, far from life, unmated eagles soar</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Above the hilltops' breathless solitude,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"So moves my love, like these a thing apart,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Fierce, in the ruined temple of my heart,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Shy as a shooting star that peers new-risen</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Mid strangers. Even so. Pent in the prison</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of space my soul, a lonely planet, wheels ...</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Men call the sum of loneliness 'Ideals.'"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">This is the plaint that the cross-road heard</div>
<div class="verse">Where it strikes from Kashan to Burujird.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The townsmen, met by the sun-dried stream,</div>
<div class="verse">Caught a voice high up like an angel's scream</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Or a teaspoon tapping the bowl of heaven,</div>
<div class="verse">And they cried: "<i>Ajab!</i> May we be forgiven,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"But it sounds a soul of the rarer sort</div>
<div class="verse">Whose wings are set for no earthly port."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And the answer came, as they cried: "Who's that?"</div>
<div class="verse">"One that sells short weight in mutton fat."</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V<br />
THE LESSON OF THE CAMEL</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Light was not. All was still. The caravan</div>
<div class="verse">Had ceased its song and motion by the bed</div>
<div class="verse">Wherein the hill-stream tosses sleeplessly,</div>
<div class="verse">The only sound, save one staccato note</div>
<div class="verse">Interminably piped by tiny owls.</div>
<div class="verse">The camp lay balmed in slumber, as the dead</div>
<div class="verse">Are straitened in white trappings. Then a voice,</div>
<div class="verse">Deeper than any dead black mountain pool</div>
<div class="verse">Or blacker well where devils cool by day,</div>
<div class="verse">Seemed to commune with Dreamer-of-the-Age,</div>
<div class="verse">Who, peering through the cloak about his head,</div>
<div class="verse">Challenged: "Who speaks?" The voice replied: "A friend</div>
<div class="verse">Unknown to you." ... It was old Peacock Tous,</div>
<div class="verse">The great grey camel with the crimson tail</div>
<div class="verse">On whom the queen was wont to ride. He said:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Sheikh, I was born among the Bakhtiari,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The shelter of their hawthorn vales was mine;</div>
<div class="verse">For me, unbroken to the loads men carry,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The breeze that crowns their uplands glowed as wine</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
<div class="verse">To drink. I, Tous, the Peacock, whom men call so</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Because I ever moved as one above</div>
<div class="verse">The common herd, was mad and merry. Also</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I knew not yet the prickled herb of Love.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Spring tricked the desert out with flowered patterns</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For me to tread like flowered carpets wrought</div>
<div class="verse">In patience by my master's painted slatterns—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">He said that only Persian <i>women</i> fought.</div>
<div class="verse">Ah, youth is free and silken-haired and leggy!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">No camel knows why Allah makes it end,</div>
<div class="verse">But He is wiser. Me the tribe's Il-Beggi</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Spied out and sent as tribute to a friend,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"A dweller in black tents, a nomad chieftain</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of Khamseh Arabs or unruled Kashgai,</div>
<div class="verse">Whose cattle-raids and rapines past belief stain</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The furthest page of camel-history.</div>
<div class="verse">And shamefully the ragged sutlers thwacked us,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Until I learned, as to this manner born,</div>
<div class="verse">That pride must find a mother in the cactus</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And hope the milk of kindness in the thorn.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"O Sheikh, I found. A milk-white <i>nakeh</i> followed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The drove of males, and I would lag behind</div>
<div class="verse">With her, no matter how the drivers holloa'ed—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Man never doubts that all but he are blind.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
<div class="verse">At nightfall, when our champing echoed surly</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Beyond the cheerful circle of the fire,</div>
<div class="verse">Something within me whispered, and thus early</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I bore the burden of the world's desire.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"But I was saddled with the will of Allah,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Since one there was more fleet of foot than I,</div>
<div class="verse">The chosen of the chief of the Mehallah,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Whose nostrils quivered as he passed me by.</div>
<div class="verse">To her, beside his paces and his frothing,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My steadfastness was common as the air,</div>
<div class="verse">My passion and my patience were as nothing,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Because fate chose to make my rival fair.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"I suffered and was silent—some said lazy—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Until the seasons drove us to the plain.</div>
<div class="verse">The nomads sold me then to a Shirazi.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I never met my happiness again,</div>
<div class="verse">But trod the same old measure back and forward,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And passed a friend as seldom as a tree.</div>
<div class="verse">Oh, heaviness of ever going shoreward,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of bringing all fruition to the sea!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"For I have fared from sea to sea like you, sirs,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And with your like, not once but many times.</div>
<div class="verse">Your path acclaims me eldest of its users,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">It tells my step as I foresee your rhymes.</div>
<div class="verse">I know by heart a heartache's thousandth chapter</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As you have read the preface of delight.</div>
<div class="verse">The silence you shall enter, I have mapped her.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">O singing caravan, I was To-night</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Long ere you dreamed. I dreaming of my lady</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Became the cargo-bearer we call Self.</div>
<div class="verse">Two hundredweight of flesh that spouted Sa'di,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A restless bag of bones intent on pelf,</div>
<div class="verse">Have straddled me in turn.... Hashish and spices,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Wheat, poisons, satins, brass, and graven stone,</div>
<div class="verse">I, Tous, have borne all human needs and vices</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As solemnly as had they been my own.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Moon-faced sultanas blue with kohl a-pillion,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Grey ambergris, pink damask-roses' oil,</div>
<div class="verse">Deep murex purple, beards or lips vermilion</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As Abu Musa's flaming scarlet soil</div>
<div class="verse">I have borne—and dung and lacquer. I have flooded</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Bazaars with poppy-seed and filigree.</div>
<div class="verse">Men little guess the stuff that I have studied,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or what their vaunted traffic seems to me.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"I am hardened to all wonderments and stories—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My ears have borne the hardest of my task—</div>
<div class="verse">I have carried pearls from Lingah up to Tauris,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And Russian Jews from Lenkoran to Jask.</div>
<div class="verse">I have watched fat vessels crammed by sweating coolies</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With all the rubbish that the rich devise,</div>
<div class="verse">And often I have wondered who the fool is</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That takes it all, and whom the fool supplies.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Yet ran my thoughts on her, though cedar rafters</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Were laid on me, or mottled silk and plush,</div>
<div class="verse">Although the tinkling scales of varied laughters</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Rode me from Bandar Abbas to Barfrush,</div>
<div class="verse">Or broken hearts from Astara to Gwetter.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">All ironies have made their moving house</div>
<div class="verse">Of me. I smile to think how many a letter</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Has passed from loved to lover thanks to Tous</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"The loveless. Think you men alone are lonely,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My masters? I have also worshipped one,</div>
<div class="verse">Have built my days of faith and service only,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And while I worshipped all my life was gone.</div>
<div class="verse">I spent the funds of life in growing older,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In heaping fuel on a smothered fire.</div>
<div class="verse">See how my tale is rounded! On my shoulder</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I bear the burden of <i>your</i> world's desire.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Yet keep that inner smile; and never show it</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Though the Account be nothing—shorn of her.</div>
<div class="verse">Be wise, O Sheikh. Pray God to be a poet</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Lest life should make you a philosopher,</div>
<div class="verse">Or lest the dreams of which you had the making</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Should prove to be such stuff as still I trail,</div>
<div class="verse">And bring your heart, my withers, nigh to breaking</div>
<div class="verse indent2">When at the last the Bearer eyes the Bale,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"As you shall penetrate this day or morrow</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The miracle of willing servitude,</div>
<div class="verse">And yet believe therein. It is the sorrow</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And not the love that asks to be subdued;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
<div class="verse">It is the mirage not the truth that trammels</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The travelling feet. Ah, if men only knew</div>
<div class="verse">How their brief frenzies move the mirth of camels,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Our rests were longer and our journeys few.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Old Tous is up. The camp is struck and ready</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For fresh emprise. Dawn sifts the clay-blue sky</div>
<div class="verse">For gold. Now see how dominant and steady</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I prose along that have no mind to fly.</div>
<div class="verse">This is my lesson: over sand or shingle,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Blow hot, blow cold, by mountain, plain and khor,</div>
<div class="verse">Coming and going, I must set a-jingle</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My own deep bell.... And you must ask for more!"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He ceased. White on the mirror of the air</div>
<div class="verse">His breath made patterns. In a ruined farm</div>
<div class="verse">Red cocks blared out and shouted down the owls.</div>
<div class="verse">The drivers rubbed their eyes. Another day</div>
<div class="verse">Among the days was starting on its march....</div>
<div class="verse">Above the pilgrims fallen to their prayers</div>
<div class="verse">Old Tous stood upright, blinking at the sun.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI<br />
THE BOASTING OF YOUTH</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The soldier-lad from Kerman,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The sailor-lad from Jask</div>
<div class="verse">Knew naught that should deter man</div>
<div class="verse indent2">From finishing the cask.</div>
<div class="verse">"Wine sets the Faithful jibbing</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Like mules before an inn,</div>
<div class="verse">But we sit bravely bibbing,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And hold our own with sin."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Said the stout-hearted wonder</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of Jask: "Wine frights not me.</div>
<div class="verse">I fear no foe but thunder</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And winds that sting the sea."</div>
<div class="verse">"And I," said he of Kerman,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"Fear nothing but the night,</div>
<div class="verse">Or some imperious <i>firman</i></div>
<div class="verse indent2">That bids the Faithful fight."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"They say some lads fear ladies</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And truckle to them." "Who</div>
<div class="verse">Could be so weak? The <i>Cadis</i></div>
<div class="verse indent2">Rise up for me and you."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
<div class="verse">"But doctors, nay and princes,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Have troubles of their own,</div>
<div class="verse">Save those whom fire convinces....</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I leave the stuff alone."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"And I...." Then both bethought them</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That, howso strong and wise,</div>
<div class="verse">Their principles had caught them</div>
<div class="verse indent2">On this mad enterprise.</div>
<div class="verse">"'Tis time to act with daring,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And rest," said he of Jask,</div>
<div class="verse">And swore a mighty swearing,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">(And drained another flask).</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"If I go on, attendant</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Upon this woman's way,</div>
<div class="verse">May I become dependant</div>
<div class="verse indent2">On your arrears of pay!"</div>
<div class="verse">"If I," said Captain Kerman,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"Should knuckle to my mate,</div>
<div class="verse">May I become a merman</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And live on maggot-bait!"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Then since we have discovered</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That women need our strength"—</div>
<div class="verse">(The tavern-houris hovered)</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"To hold them at arm's length,</div>
<div class="verse">Sit down in this rest-house, and</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Tell me a tale among</div>
<div class="verse">The tales, one in your thousand!"</div>
<div class="verse indent2">This was the story sung:</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I threw my love about you like fine raiment;</div>
<div class="verse indent4">I let you kill my pride.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">You passed me by, but smiled at me in payment,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And I was satisfied.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I made my mind a plaything for your leisure,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Content to be ignored.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Body and soul I waited on your pleasure,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Waited—without reward.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I have no faint repinings that we met, dear,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Or that I left you cold.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I rub my hands. You will be colder yet, dear,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Some day when you are old."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Forbidden wine is mellow.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The sun has set. Of whom</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Sing you this song, Brave Fellow?</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Night is the ante-room</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Breeze-sprinkled to keep cooler</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The feasting-halls behind."</div>
<div class="verse indent4">"She might have been my ruler</div>
<div class="verse indent6">But for my <i>Strength of Mind</i>."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"That was the tune to whistle!</div>
<div class="verse indent6">How have I longed to learn</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The deeds of men of gristle</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Like mine!..." "Tell me in turn</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Some of your lore of women,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Whose wiles are deep as <i>bhang</i>.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent4">Your strength shall teach to swim men</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Who fall in love...." He sang:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"You came to me, and well you chose your quarry.</div>
<div class="verse">You told your tale, and well you played your rôle.</div>
<div class="verse">You spoke of suffering, and I was sorry</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With all my heart, with all my soul.</div>
<div class="verse">'Out of the deep,' you said. I thought to save you,</div>
<div class="verse">And stunned myself upon the covered shoal.</div>
<div class="verse">Yet, poor deceptive shallows, I forgave you</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With all my heart, with all my soul.</div>
<div class="verse">You sought whatever evil had not sought you.</div>
<div class="verse">In vain I strove to make your nature whole.</div>
<div class="verse">I did not know the market that had bought you</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With all your heart, with all your soul.</div>
<div class="verse">If man had one pure impulse you would smudge it.</div>
<div class="verse">You had one gift, my pity, which you stole.</div>
<div class="verse">Now I will only tell you that I grudge it</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With all my heart, with all my soul."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Of whom this song, Brave Fellow?</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The stars in heaven's black soil</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Fold up their petalled yellow</div>
<div class="verse indent4">That pays the angels' toil."</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The lamp had burned its wick dim,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The pair had drunk their fill....</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"I might have been her victim</div>
<div class="verse indent4">But for my <i>Strength of Will</i>."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">Then one said to the other:</div>
<div class="verse indent4">"Such strength as yours and mine</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent2">Must put its foot down, brother,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And stay here—pass the wine—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Till, for the world's salvation,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Shall radiate from this den</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Great Confederation</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of Independent Men."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<hr class="tb" />
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">The last sour mule was saddled,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">On went the caravan.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">These twain turned on the raddled</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Handmaidens of the <i>han</i>,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Blinked, cast them forth with loathing</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Because the queen was fair,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And lest their lack of clothing</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Should lay man's weakness bare.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">White as a cloud in summer,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Slender as sun-shot rain—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Earth knows what moods become her—</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The queen passed....</div>
<div class="verse indent22">In her train</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Great Confederation</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Trod with such wealth of <i>Will</i></div>
<div class="verse indent2">That, in its trepidation,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">It never paid its bill.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII<br />
THE HEART OF THE SLAVE</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But as they fared slave Obeidullah failed.</div>
<div class="verse">Devouring fever shook him like a rat,</div>
<div class="verse">And ere they reached Kashan his course was run.</div>
<div class="verse">Then freedom came towards him, and he spoke:</div>
<div class="verse">"Here is an eye of water, mulberry-trees,</div>
<div class="verse">A rest-house, and to me a stranger thing,</div>
<div class="verse">Rest. Caravan be strong, fare on with blessings</div>
<div class="verse">Whence you must forge your happiness—but I,</div>
<div class="verse">Possessed of peace, shall never see the end.</div>
<div class="verse">The heart within me has been fire so long</div>
<div class="verse">That now my body is smoke. I watch it drift</div>
<div class="verse">Life leaves me gently as a mistress goes</div>
<div class="verse">Before her time to meet the uncoloured days,</div>
<div class="verse">Saying: 'I have lived. Plead not. 'Twill be in vain.</div>
<div class="verse">You were the end of summer. I have passed</div>
<div class="verse">Out of the garden with fresh scents and dews</div>
<div class="verse">Upon me, out ere sunset with cool hands,</div>
<div class="verse">The supple tread of youth and glorying limbs</div>
<div class="verse">Firm as resolve, unblemished as my pride;</div>
<div class="verse">Passed ere a leaf be fallen, or losing fights</div>
<div class="verse">Begin, that smirch the memory of love....'</div>
<div class="verse">Sweet is the shade, and death's cool lips are welcome</div>
<div class="verse">After the burning kisses of the sun,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
<div class="verse">The strained embraces of my owner, Toil.</div>
<div class="verse">I shall remember her with gratitude</div>
<div class="verse">But no regret, as I lie here. The dawn</div>
<div class="verse">Biting the desert-edge shall not disturb me,</div>
<div class="verse">Nor green oases zigzagged through the heat</div>
<div class="verse">Like stepping-stones. The many-coloured hills,</div>
<div class="verse">Heaven's mutable emotions, these are past.</div>
<div class="verse">Beyond them I shall find security</div>
<div class="verse">Of tenure in the outstretched hands of God."</div>
<div class="verse">Thereat his fellows made lament, and urged:</div>
<div class="verse">"Sleep on and take your rest, but not for ever.</div>
<div class="verse">Time adds to strength, and you shall rise with us</div>
<div class="verse">Who wait. Already we foresee the coast.</div>
<div class="verse">A little while...." Slave Obeidullah raised</div>
<div class="verse">Himself and looked ahead with shining eyes:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"The moon is faint. A dust-cloud swirls.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Therein I see dim marching hosts:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Strange embassies and dancing girls,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Spice-caravans and pilgrims. Ghosts</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Rise thick from this else fruitless plain,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">A waste that every season chars.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Yet teeming centuries lie slain</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And trodden in the road to Fars.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"The still, white, creeping road slips on,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Marked by the bones of man and beast.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">What comeliness and might have gone</div>
<div class="verse indent4">To pad the highway of the East!</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent2">Long dynasties of fallen rose,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The glories of a thousand wars,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A million lovers' hearts compose</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The dust upon the road to Fars.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"No tears have ever served to hold</div>
<div class="verse indent3">This shifting velvet, fathom-deep,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Though vain and ceaseless winds have rolled</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Its pile wherein the ages sleep.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Between your fingers you may sift</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Kings, poets, priests and <i>charvadars</i>.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Heaven knows how many make a drift</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of dust upon the road to Fars.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"The wraiths subside. And, One with All,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Soon, in the brevity of length,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Our lives shall hear the voiceless call</div>
<div class="verse indent4">That builds this earth of love and strength.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Eternal, breathless, we shall wait,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Till, last of all the Avatars,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">God finds us in his first estate:</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The dust upon the road to Fars."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">So still he lay, so still the pilgrims deemed</div>
<div class="verse">He was no longer there. The deepening shade</div>
<div class="verse">Covered him softly. With his latest breath</div>
<div class="verse">Slave Obeidullah looked upon the Queen:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"You whom I loved so steadfastly,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">If all the blest should ask to see</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent4">The cause for which my spirit came</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Among them with so little claim</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To peace, this book should speak for me.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I strove and only asked in fee</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Hope of your immortality</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Not mine—I had no other aim</div>
<div class="verse indent10">You whom I loved.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"The Judge will bend to hear my plea,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And take my songs upon his knee.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Perhaps His hand will make the lame</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Worthy to worship you, the same</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As here they vainly tried to be,</div>
<div class="verse indent10">You whom I loved."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Then, turned towards her, Obeidullah slept.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII<br />
THE TALE OF THE CHEAPJACK</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Among the fruit-trees still he slumbers. All</div>
<div class="verse">Mourned for their brother with one heavy heart.</div>
<div class="verse">Even Tous drooped, swaying weakly in his stride;</div>
<div class="verse">Until Farid Bahadur, cheapjack, spoke,</div>
<div class="verse">One bootlessly afoot whose years had brought</div>
<div class="verse">For profit this, to see existence clear</div>
<div class="verse">And empty as a solid ball of glass.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Erstwhile, he said, my peddling carried me</div>
<div class="verse">Clean through two empires like a paper hoop,</div>
<div class="verse">Setting me down upon the olive slopes</div>
<div class="verse">Where Smyrna nestles back to mother earth,</div>
<div class="verse">And so lures in the ocean. I filled my pack</div>
<div class="verse">With kerchiefs, beads, dross, chaffering with a Greek,</div>
<div class="verse">Although he vowed a much-loved partner's death</div>
<div class="verse">Left him no heart for it. He blew his nose,</div>
<div class="verse">Asking strange prices as a man distraught.</div>
<div class="verse">I had no heart to bargain while he crooned:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Our loves were woven of one splendid thread,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But not our lives, though we had been, we twain,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Linked as in worship at the Spartan fane</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of him who brought his brother from the dead.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent2">Ah, would our God were like his gods that said:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Such love as this shall not have flowered in vain,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And let the younger Castor live again</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The space that Pollux lay with Death instead.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Dear, I had lain so gladly in the grave</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Not for a part of time but for God's whole</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Eternity, had died, yea oft, to save</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Not half your life, but one short hour. Your soul</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Was all too pure; mine had no right to ask</div>
<div class="verse indent2">From heaven such mercy as a saviour's task.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"They say the Olympian grace was not content</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With housing Death, but giving Love the key.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">It set the troths that guided you and me</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Among the jewels of the firmament;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And there they dwell for ever and assent</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To each propitious ploughing of the sea.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The coasting-pilots of Infinity</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Well know The Brothers. So your sails were bent,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Young fathomer of the blue. I linger here</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With following gaze that tugs my heart-strings taut</div>
<div class="verse indent2">All day; but every night an Argonaut</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Slips through the streets and darkness, seaward, far</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Beyond the limitations of his sphere</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Into the vacant place beside a star."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">So crooned he desolate in his dim shop,</div>
<div class="verse">Till I became all ears and had no eyes.</div>
<div class="verse">The fellow cheated me of three <i>dinars</i>.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX<br />
THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DOOR</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Slow into Kum the Glaring trailed</div>
<div class="verse">The caravan. Its courage failed</div>
<div class="verse">A moment. Only dust-clouds veiled</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The sun, that overhead</div>
<div class="verse">From fields The Plough had turned to grain,</div>
<div class="verse">Star-honey laden on The Wain</div>
<div class="verse">And spices from the wind-domain,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Was baking angel-bread.</div>
<div class="verse">(Astronomers in Baghdad say</div>
<div class="verse">That Allah gave the Milky Way</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To feed his guests, the dead.)</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Even as the dead the pilgrims lay</div>
<div class="verse">Until the sun received his pay—</div>
<div class="verse">Man counts in gold, but he in grey—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Then, whining as one daft,</div>
<div class="verse">A voice crept to each sleeper's ear,</div>
<div class="verse">And one by one sat up to hear</div>
<div class="verse">It soughing like a Seistan mere</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where nothing ever laughed.</div>
<div class="verse">A blur at elbow on the floor</div>
<div class="verse">Cried: "Sleep! 'Tis but the tavern door</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Amoaning in the draught."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Ay," said the master of the inn,</div>
<div class="verse">"A black-faced gaper that lets in</div>
<div class="verse">The dark, my creditors, and kin!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Last month it strained my wrist, did</div>
<div class="verse">The lout, so hard it slams. This week</div>
<div class="verse">Claims it for fuel. See the leak</div>
<div class="verse">Of air it springs! Its hinges creak,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Its wood is warped and twisted.</div>
<div class="verse">'Tis heavy-hearted as a man,</div>
<div class="verse">Stark, crazy thing!... It feels uncann...."</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The wheezing voice persisted.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Earth bare me in Mazanderan,</div>
<div class="verse">Where, breaking her dead level plan,</div>
<div class="verse">Steep foliage opens like a fan</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To hide her virgin blush;</div>
<div class="verse">And singing, caravan, like you</div>
<div class="verse">Brooks dance towards the Caspian blue</div>
<div class="verse">Past coolth wherein mauve turtles coo</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To panthers in the rush,</div>
<div class="verse">That turn hill-pools to amethyst.</div>
<div class="verse">Here bucks drink deep and tigers tryst</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Neck-deep in grasses lush.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"And there the stainless peaks are kissed</div>
<div class="verse">By heaven whose crowning mercy, mist,</div>
<div class="verse">With cloud-lands white as Allah's fist</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Anoints their heads with rain.</div>
<div class="verse">We never dreamed, where nature pours,</div>
<div class="verse">That life could run as thin as yours—</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
<div class="verse">A waif thirst-stricken to all fours—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or verdure, but a vein</div>
<div class="verse">In sandscapes wincing from the sun</div>
<div class="verse">That burns your flesh and visions dun,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Crawl throbbing through the plain.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"I grew. My shadow weighed a ton;</div>
<div class="verse">I held a countless garrison;</div>
<div class="verse">My boughs were roads for apes to run</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Around the white owl's niche.</div>
<div class="verse">The hum of bees, the blue jay's scream....</div>
<div class="verse">The forest came to love and teem</div>
<div class="verse">In me beside the vivid stream</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Shot through with speckled fish;</div>
<div class="verse">Till, weary of my sheltered glen,</div>
<div class="verse">I craved a human denizen</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Fate granted me my wish.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Yea, I had longed (if slope and fen</div>
<div class="verse">Can love like this, the love of men</div>
<div class="verse">Must live above our nature's ken)</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To see and shade the room,</div>
<div class="verse">To shield far-leaning the abode,</div>
<div class="verse">Wherein the souls of lovers glowed</div>
<div class="verse">To songs that dimmed the bulbul's ode ...</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And man became my doom.</div>
<div class="verse">He dragged me through the dew-drenched brake,</div>
<div class="verse">And took the heart of me to make</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A tavern-door at Kum."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The pilgrims sat erect, engrossed,</div>
<div class="verse">Or searched the crannies for a ghost.</div>
<div class="verse">"Ah, heed it not," implored the host;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"This hell-burnt father's son</div>
<div class="verse">Moans ever like a soul oppressed,</div>
<div class="verse">And takes the fancy of a guest,</div>
<div class="verse">And makes my house no house of rest:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I would its voice were gone.</div>
<div class="verse">Yet be indulgent, sirs! 'Tis old.</div>
<div class="verse">Next week it shall be burnt or sold.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A new—" The voice went on:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Here have I stood while life unrolled</div>
<div class="verse">But not the tale my breezes told.</div>
<div class="verse">Moonlight alone conceals the cold</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Drab city's lack of heart.</div>
<div class="verse">Here have I watched an hundred years</div>
<div class="verse">Bespatter me with blood and tears,</div>
<div class="verse">Yet leave man ever in arrears</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of where my monkeys start.</div>
<div class="verse">No more, dog-rose and meadow-sweet!</div>
<div class="verse">The harlot's musk and rotten meat</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Blow at me from the mart.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"No more, clear streams and fairy feet!</div>
<div class="verse">But through my mouth the striving street</div>
<div class="verse">Drains in brown spate the men who eat</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And drink and curse and die;</div>
<div class="verse">And out of me the whole night long</div>
<div class="verse">Reel revellers—O God, their song!...</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
<div class="verse">Are there no mortals clean and strong,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or do they pass me by?</div>
<div class="verse">I little thought that I should leave</div>
<div class="verse">For this the groves where turtles grieve</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Far closer to the sky.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Instead of every song-bird's note</div>
<div class="verse">I know the scales a merchant's throat</div>
<div class="verse">Can compass. I have learned by rote</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The tricks of Copt and Jew;</div>
<div class="verse">Can tell if Lur or Afghan brawls,</div>
<div class="verse">The Armenian way of selling shawls</div>
<div class="verse">Softly, and how an Arab bawls</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To rouse the raider's crew,</div>
<div class="verse">Lest ululating strings of slaves</div>
<div class="verse">Should take the kennel for their graves....</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Raids! I have seen a few,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Or wars, occasion dubs them—waves</div>
<div class="verse">Of Mongol sultans, Kurdish braves.</div>
<div class="verse">They—Find me words! the Simûn <i>raves</i>—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">They worked ... 'tis called their will,</div>
<div class="verse">Battered me in—behold the dint—</div>
<div class="verse">With all their hearts that felt like flint,</div>
<div class="verse">Besmeared the city with the tint</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of sunset on my hill.</div>
<div class="verse">My leopards stalk my bucks at eve—</div>
<div class="verse">I shivered as I heard them heave—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">At least they ate their kill.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"I followed that.... But men who weave</div>
<div class="verse">Such flowing robes of make-believe,</div>
<div class="verse">I think the flood was wept by Eve—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Some sportsman shot the dove—</div>
<div class="verse">These puzzled me, for God is good</div>
<div class="verse">And man His image—not of wood,</div>
<div class="verse">Thank God!—At last I understood</div>
<div class="verse indent2">All ... all except their love.</div>
<div class="verse">I grew so hard that I could trace</div>
<div class="verse">His hand's chief glory in their race.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Perhaps He wore a glove."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Then one without made haste to smite</div>
<div class="verse">The malcontent. It opened. Night</div>
<div class="verse">Stood on the threshold dressed in white,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And myriad-eyed and blind.</div>
<div class="verse">The ostler murmured: "Some <i>Afrit</i></div>
<div class="verse">Or bitter worm has entered it;</div>
<div class="verse">Nor jamb nor lintel seems to fit.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I know its frame of mind."</div>
<div class="verse">"Air stirs the dust upon the floor,"</div>
<div class="verse">The landlord cried. "Fool! Shut that door</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Amoaning in the wind."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"My glade was deep, a lichened well</div>
<div class="verse">Of ether, limpid as a bell</div>
<div class="verse">Buoyed on the manifold ground-swell</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Whose distance changed attires</div>
<div class="verse">As sun-stroked plush, a roundelay</div>
<div class="verse">Of all red-blue and purple grey,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
<div class="verse">And, at each rise and fall of day,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Snows dyed like altar fires</div>
<div class="verse">Licked through those loud green sheaves of copse,</div>
<div class="verse">Bent hyphens 'twixt the mountain-tops,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Mosques of my motley choirs.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"And I, who gave them bed and bower</div>
<div class="verse">For nights enduring but an hour</div>
<div class="verse">Mid blaring miles of trumpet-flower,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Leagues of liana-wreath,</div>
<div class="verse">I saw the rocks through leaves and lings,</div>
<div class="verse">Could blink the fangs and feel the wings,</div>
<div class="verse">Thrill with the elemental things</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of life and love and death.</div>
<div class="verse">The purity of air and brook</div>
<div class="verse">And song helped me to overlook</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The rapine underneath.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"But you—no! one dream more: an elf,</div>
<div class="verse">Askip on ochre mountain-shelf,</div>
<div class="verse">Who once had seen a man himself.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I used his wand to gauge</div>
<div class="verse">The sheen of moths and peacocks' whir,</div>
<div class="verse">To plumb the jungle-aisles, to stir</div>
<div class="verse">The drifts of frankincense and myrrh,</div>
<div class="verse">And amorous lithe shapes that purr....</div>
<div class="verse indent2">'Tis finished. Turn the page</div>
<div class="verse">To where man cased his bones in fat.</div>
<div class="verse">His mate moved like a tiger-cat</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Until he built her cage.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"You, I have watched you all who sat</div>
<div class="verse">Successive round the food-stained mat,</div>
<div class="verse">And reckoned many who lived for that</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Alone; have seen the mark</div>
<div class="verse">Of that last state the Thinking Beast</div>
<div class="verse">Peep through the foliage of the feast,</div>
<div class="verse">And crown its poet's flight with greased</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Fingers that grope the dark;</div>
<div class="verse">Have heard a cleanlier bosom catch</div>
<div class="verse">Her breath, and fumble with my latch</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Irresolute. The lark</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"My inmates never feared to match</div>
<div class="verse">Bespoke the end. I belched the batch,</div>
<div class="verse">Rolling them down the street, a patch</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of dirt against the dawn.</div>
<div class="verse">Then in its stead there came a saint,</div>
<div class="verse">Inventor of a soul-complaint,</div>
<div class="verse">Who gave men's faith a coat of paint</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Like mine, and made me yawn</div>
<div class="verse">With furtive wenching. Here have sighed</div>
<div class="verse">Exultant groom and weeping bride</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Led like a captive fawn.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"This way passed those who marry lean</div>
<div class="verse">Girl-chattels ere their times of teen.</div>
<div class="verse">I knew a like but milder scene:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A hawk, small birds that cower.</div>
<div class="verse">How soon the chosen was brought back dead—</div>
<div class="verse">Poisoned, the <i>hakim</i> always said—</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
<div class="verse">The husband groaned beside the bed,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Arose, and kept the dower,</div>
<div class="verse">But swept his conscience out with prayer.</div>
<div class="verse">Man took the angels unaware</div>
<div class="verse indent2">When he became a power.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"And what of woman? On my stair</div>
<div class="verse">The merchants spread their gaudiest ware,</div>
<div class="verse">For which fools bought a love affair</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That ended in a jerk.</div>
<div class="verse">Enough! To round the <i>tamasha</i></div>
<div class="verse">A bloated thing came by, the Shah;</div>
<div class="verse">It grinned, and viziers fawned 'Ha! ha!'</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Curs, brainless as a Turk.</div>
<div class="verse">And all the women in his train</div>
<div class="verse">Beheld him once and ne'er again,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And called his love their work.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"You see, my friends, I tired of this</div>
<div class="verse">Wild doubling in the chase of bliss.</div>
<div class="verse">Pards miss their spring as men their kiss,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And yet the quarry dies.</div>
<div class="verse">I learned the world's least mortal god,</div>
<div class="verse">Whose epitaph is Ichabod,</div>
<div class="verse">May sport till noon, but if he nod</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Shall never more arise.</div>
<div class="verse">Then, caravan, you passed, and I</div>
<div class="verse">Have solved my riddle with a cry:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The sad are never wise.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Your song was all that I had heard</div>
<div class="verse">In dreams beyond the wildest bird,</div>
<div class="verse">That rose above my yellow-furred</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Basses that bell and roar.</div>
<div class="verse">It took the heart of me in tow</div>
<div class="verse">To heights that I had longed to know,</div>
<div class="verse">To the great deeps where lovers go</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And find—and want—no shore.</div>
<div class="verse">In these alone is man fulfilled;</div>
<div class="verse">And gleaming in the air I build</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My hope of him once more.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"For all the few that see truth whole,</div>
<div class="verse">And take its endlessness for goal,</div>
<div class="verse">And steer by stars as if no shoal</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Could mar their firmament,</div>
<div class="verse">For all the few that sing and sail</div>
<div class="verse">Knowing their quest of small avail,</div>
<div class="verse">Thank God who gave them strength to fail</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In finding what He meant...."</div>
<div class="verse">"Poets!" the landlord groaned, "and poor!</div>
<div class="verse">This house is cursed." He banged the door</div>
<div class="verse">Behind them as they went.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And distance placed soft hands upon their mouths.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X<br />
THE SONG OF THE SELVES</h2>
<h3>DREAMER-OF-THE-AGE</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">'Twas in old Tehran City,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Hard by the old bazaar,</div>
<div class="verse">I heard a restless ditty</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That pushed my door ajar;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A song nor great nor witty,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">It spoke of my own mind.</div>
<div class="verse">I looked on Tehran City,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And knew I had been blind,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Or else the streets were altered</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As by a peri's wand.</div>
<div class="verse">"Who are you, friends?" I faltered.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"The Pilgrims of Beyond,"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">They said. I kissed the tatters</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That wiser heads contemn.</div>
<div class="verse">I saw the Thing-that-matters,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And took the road with them.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I seek. Bestow no pity</div>
<div class="verse indent2">On Failure's courtier. Say:</div>
<div class="verse">"'Twas well to find the city,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But that was yesterday."</div>
</div></div></div>
<h3>THE PILGRIMS</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Athirst as the Hadramut,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Our spirits correspond</div>
<div class="verse">With God by all the gamut</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of harmony, too fond</div>
<div class="verse">Of Him for prayer that rifles</div>
<div class="verse">His treasury for trifles.</div>
<div class="verse">No load of blessing stifles</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Pilgrims of Beyond.</div>
</div></div></div>
<h3>DREAMER-OF-THE-AGE</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And yet the empty-handed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Hold richer merchandise</div>
<div class="verse">Than ever fable landed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">From Dreamland's argosies,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Since we, the symbol-merchants,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Are partners with Bulbul.</div>
<div class="verse">The silversmith of her chants</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Knows how our chests are full.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">In marts, where echoes answer</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And only they, we trade.</div>
<div class="verse">But join our caravan, sir,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And count your fortune made.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Dawn brings us dazzling offers</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With fingers gemmed and pearled,</div>
<div class="verse">And evening fills our coffers</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As we explain the world,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Green fields and seas that curtsey</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To us and mock Despair;</div>
<div class="verse">For blossoms in the dirt see</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Their spirit in the air.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And Ecstasy our servant</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Demands no other wage</div>
<div class="verse">But that we be observant</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To joy in pilgrimage.</div>
</div></div></div>
<h3>THE MERCHANTS</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We do not bid our master</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Declare His word His bond,</div>
<div class="verse">Or make His payments faster—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As though He would abscond!</div>
<div class="verse">We ask Him for too little</div>
<div class="verse">To strain at jot or tittle.</div>
<div class="verse">We know our lives are brittle,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We Pilgrims of Beyond.</div>
</div></div></div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
<h3>DREAMER-OF-THE-AGE</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We come from everlasting</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Towards eternity,</div>
<div class="verse">Ho! not in dirge and fasting</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But lapped in jollity.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Though sackcloth be our clothing</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We bear no ash but fire.</div>
<div class="verse">We have no sickly loathing</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of youth and youth's desire.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We prize no consummation</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of one peculiar creed.</div>
<div class="verse">We travel for a nation,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The one that feels our need.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our tongue conceals no message,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But leaves you free to find,</div>
<div class="verse">And vaunts itself the presage</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of those that come behind.</div>
</div></div></div>
<h3>THE CAMELMEN</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Here is no patch of shade. A</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Fierce wilderness and blonde</div>
<div class="verse">Links Delhi to Hodeidah,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Tashkent to Trebizond.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
<div class="verse">The cargo is our brother's,</div>
<div class="verse">We march and moil for others,</div>
<div class="verse">Until the desert smothers</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Pilgrims of Beyond.</div>
</div></div></div>
<h3>DREAMER-OF-THE-AGE</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Hark how our camels grumble</div>
<div class="verse indent2">At morn! Would you permit</div>
<div class="verse">The stone on which you stumble</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To make you carry it?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And if at last your burden</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Be cheapened in a shop,</div>
<div class="verse">Seraglio or Lur den,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Should lack of humour stop</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The game at its beginning?</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We lug the stuff of dreams.</div>
<div class="verse">Earth does her best by spinning,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">She cannot help the seams;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But you can help to monger</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The broidery. She may</div>
<div class="verse">Have made you richer, stronger,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To give her best away.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I own no musk or camphor,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I have no truck with care,</div>
<div class="verse">Nor change the thing I am for</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The things men only wear.</div>
</div></div></div>
<h3>THE SOLDIERS</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">First cousin of a sieve is</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The uniform we donned.</div>
<div class="verse">We slop along on <i>ghivehs</i>,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In rags caparisonned.</div>
<div class="verse">No Shah has ever paid us.</div>
<div class="verse">All brigands mock and raid us,</div>
<div class="verse">And misery has made us</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Pilgrims of Beyond.</div>
</div></div></div>
<h3>DREAMER-OF-THE-AGE</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">What then! Would you be willing</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To quit the caravan,</div>
<div class="verse">And fall again to drilling,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Pent in the walled <i>meidan</i>,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">When history flings open</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Blank scrolls for you to write</div>
<div class="verse">Such victories as no pen</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Has ever brought to light?</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">You shall not burn as Jengiz,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Nor rage like Timur Lang.</div>
<div class="verse">Your foemen are <i>ferengis</i></div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of whom no epic sang.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The housed that blame the tented,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or comfort those that think,</div>
<div class="verse">The flocks that die contented</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With settling down to blink</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The sun we keep our eyes on,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That bow their heads too far</div>
<div class="verse">To face their own horizon,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">On these be war on war.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Cursed by the bonds you sever,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The bondsmen you release,</div>
<div class="verse">Go, seek the Land of Fever</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And find the Land of Ease.</div>
</div></div></div>
<h3>THE CARAVAN</h3>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Lift up your hearts, ye singers!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We lift them up in song.</div>
<div class="verse">Behold, the sunset lingers.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">No less shall night be long.</div>
<div class="verse">We meet her unaffrighted,</div>
<div class="verse">Though never bourne be sighted.</div>
<div class="verse">We <i>meant</i> to be benighted</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Still moving fleet and strong.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We smooth the stony places</div>
<div class="verse">For those that else despond.</div>
<div class="verse">We pass, and leave no traces</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Save this, a broken frond,</div>
<div class="verse">And this, that hands once craven</div>
<div class="verse">Take hardship for the haven</div>
<div class="verse">Upon whose rocks is graven:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"The Pilgrims of Beyond."</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI<br />
THE STORY OF THE SUTLER</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And so the song was finished. Then they called</div>
<div class="verse">To Kizzil Bash, the Sutler of Dilman,</div>
<div class="verse">"Take up the tale, for you have wandered far</div>
<div class="verse">Behind strange masters...." Once, he said, I served</div>
<div class="verse">One of the Roumi lordlings, silver-faced,</div>
<div class="verse">Who to forget some sorrow or lost love—</div>
<div class="verse">Such is their way—came with an embassage</div>
<div class="verse">To cringe before the Caliph in Stamboul</div>
<div class="verse">For something sordid, trade.... He mouthed our verse</div>
<div class="verse">To please his guests, and I corrected him.</div>
<div class="verse">The man was cypress-sad and lone, but he</div>
<div class="verse">Could not be silent as the great should be,</div>
<div class="verse">Because he neither knew his place nor me.</div>
<div class="verse">The boatman marvelled at his lack of dignity.</div>
<div class="verse">They knew the currents. He was bent on steering,</div>
<div class="verse">And spoke of God in terms wellnigh endearing.</div>
<div class="verse">I see him still, sharp beard, black velvet mantle, ear-ring.</div>
<div class="verse">He dug with slaves for Greekling manuscript,</div>
<div class="verse">Danced like a slave-girl when he found, and shipped</div>
<div class="verse">Westward cracked heads and friezes we had chipped.</div>
<div class="verse">I saw him kiss a statue, murmuring eager-lipped:</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Fear was born when the woods were young.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Chance had gathered an heap of sods,</div>
<div class="verse">Where the slip of a tree-man's tongue</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Throned the dam of the elder gods.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Twilight, a rustled leaf,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Started the first belief</div>
<div class="verse indent4">In some unearthly Chief</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Latent behind</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Cover of aspen shade.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Skirting the haunted glade</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Some one found speech, and prayed.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Was it the wind</div>
<div class="verse">Sniffing his cavern or the demon's laughter?</div>
<div class="verse">Here from the night he conjured up Hereafter,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Quarried the river-mists to house the unseen.</div>
<div class="verse">Only the woodpecker had found life hollow,</div>
<div class="verse">And gods went whither none was fain to follow,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Because the earth was green</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And Afterwards was black.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Man, the child of a tale of rape,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Drew the seas with his hunting ships,</div>
<div class="verse">Cut their prows to a giant's shape,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Fitted names to their snarling lips:</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Gods in his image born,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Singing, fierce-eyed, unshorn,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Lords of a drinking-horn</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Five fathoms deep;</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Holding the one reward</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Carved by a dripping sword,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent4">Feasts, and above them stored</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Ceiling-high sleep.</div>
<div class="verse">Save to the conqueror Life was put-off Dying,</div>
<div class="verse">And Death brought nothing but the irk of lying—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">How long—with over-restful hosts abed.</div>
<div class="verse">The rough immortals, whom he met unshrinking,</div>
<div class="verse">Spared him from nothing but the pain of thinking.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And so the earth was red</div>
<div class="verse indent2">While Afterwards was grey.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Jungles thinned, and the clearings merged</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where the wandering clans drew breath.</div>
<div class="verse">Druids rose and the people surged.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Then the blessing of Nazareth</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Fell on them mad and mild,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Boasting itself a child.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Smite it! And yet it smiled.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">There, as it kneeled,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Lowliness rose to might,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Deeming our days a night,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Bodily joy a plight</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Soon to be healed;</div>
<div class="verse">Gave to one god all credit for creation,</div>
<div class="verse">But, lest the Path should seem the Destination,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Strove to attune man's heartstrings to a rack,</div>
<div class="verse">Until the soul was fortified to change hells,</div>
<div class="verse">While saints and poets chanted songs of angels,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Confessing earth was black</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But Afterwards was gold.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Faith was raised to the power of millions,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Went as wine to a single head,</div>
<div class="verse">Took its chiefs for the sun's postillions,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Claimed to speak in its founder's stead;</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Till in the western skies</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Reason's epiphanies</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Beckoned the other-wise</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Men to rebirth.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Doubt, that makes spirits lithe,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Woke and began to writhe,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Burst through the osier withe,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Freed the old earth.</div>
<div class="verse">Nature cried out again for recognition,</div>
<div class="verse">Claiming that flesh is more than mere transition,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That mouths were made for sweeter things than prayer.</div>
<div class="verse">Yea, she, that first revealed the superhuman,</div>
<div class="verse">Out of the depths in us shall bring the new man</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Who knows that earth is fair,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And Afterwards—who knows!"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We knew his childish searching meant no harm,</div>
<div class="verse">But his own people somehow took alarm;</div>
<div class="verse">For when his heart was healed, and he returned</div>
<div class="verse">With songs, 'tis said that he and they were burned.</div>
<div class="verse">Only this one survived. I put it by</div>
<div class="verse">Lest one who lived so much should wholly die.</div>
<div class="verse">He tried to spend far more than every day,</div>
<div class="verse">And never asked what he would have to pay.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
<div class="verse">To him a pint of music was a potion</div>
<div class="verse">That set him dabbling in some small emotion.</div>
<div class="verse">Wherever he could drown he marked an ocean</div>
<div class="verse">He got no pleasure but the pains he took</div>
<div class="verse">To bring himself to death by one small book</div>
<div class="verse">Filled with what he had heard, the babble of a brook.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII<br />
THE LEGEND OF THE PEASANT</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">They passed a field of purple <i>badinjan</i>.</div>
<div class="verse">A peasant raised his head to hear the tune,</div>
<div class="verse">And, seeking some excuse for holiday,</div>
<div class="verse">He followed humming ballads, this the first:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"It happened say a century ago,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Somewhere between Mazanderan and Fars,</div>
<div class="verse">A Frank was in the picture—that I know—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Mud-walls and roses, cypresses and stars,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">White dust and shadows black.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"It happened She was loved by more than One,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Though no one now recalls the name and rank</div>
<div class="verse">Of even One, whose heart was like the stone</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That framed the water of the garden tank</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Long gone to utter wrack.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"It happened that one night She had a mind</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To roam her garden. Youth was hidden there,</div>
<div class="verse">It happened One was watching from behind</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A Judas-tree, though neither of the pair</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Heard the twigs sigh and crack.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"It happened that next night She wandered out</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Once more, and Youth was hiding there again.</div>
<div class="verse">And One sprang forth upon them with a shout,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And fanatics and <i>seyids</i> in his train</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Streamed in a wolfish pack.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"It happened that the sun found something red</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Among the Judas-blossoms where Youth lay</div>
<div class="verse">Upon his face; a crow was on his head,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And desert dogs began to sniff and bay</div>
<div class="verse indent4">At something in his back.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"It happened that none ever knew Her fate—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Except that She was never heard of more—</div>
<div class="verse">Save One, and two that through a secret gate—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Perhaps they knew—a struggling burden bore.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">I think it was a sack."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Some one applauded; then the humming drone</div>
<div class="verse">Was stung to louder efforts, and went on:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"They staggered down the stiff black avenue,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Hiding the sack's convulsions from the moon,</div>
<div class="verse">To drown its cries they feigned the shrill <i>iouiou</i></div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of owls, then dropped it in the swift Karûn,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Paused, and admired the view.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"The ripples took her, trying not to leap,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But, copying the uneventful sky,</div>
<div class="verse">Serenely burnished where the stream grows deep</div>
<div class="verse indent2">They smoothened their staccato lullaby.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And so she fell asleep</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Where no sharp rock disturbs the river bed,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A moving peace, whose eddies turn half-fain</div>
<div class="verse">Towards their youth's tumultuous watershed,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And slow blank scutcheons widen like a stain</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Portending Sound is dead.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"No herd or village fouls the shining tide,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Till ocean lays a suzerain's armistice</div>
<div class="verse">On brawling tributaries. Like a bride</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Greeting her lord it laved her with a kiss,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And left her purified.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"But the sea-<i>Jinn</i>, who dwell and dress in mauve,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And hunt blind monsters down the corridors</div>
<div class="verse">Between sunk vessels—fishers know the drove,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Their horns and conches and the quarry's roars</div>
<div class="verse indent4">In autumn—hold that love</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Should meet with more than pardon. So the pack</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Spliced up a wand of all the spillikin spars</div>
<div class="verse">Flagged with the purple fantasies of wrack,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Composed a spell not one of them could parse,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And tried it on the sack.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"'Twas filled with pearls! Each <i>Jinni</i> dipped his hand,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And scattered trails through labyrinths of ooze,</div>
<div class="verse">Or sowed gems thick upon the golden sand,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Festooned a bed from Bahrein to Ormuz,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Muscat to Ras Naband....</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"<i>Hajji</i>, a deeper meaning than appears</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Beneath the surface of my song may lurk</div>
<div class="verse">Like <i>Jinn</i>. How oft the crown of gathered years,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The dazzling things for which men thank their work,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Are made by Woman's tears."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Tous shook his head and grunted, ceaselessly</div>
<div class="verse">The caravan limped onward to the Gulf.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII<br />
THE PROMOTION OF THE SOLDIER</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Serdar-i-Jang, the Wazir of the west,</div>
<div class="verse">Of all mankind had served his country best</div>
<div class="verse">By weeding it. The terror of his name</div>
<div class="verse">Lapped up the barren Pusht-i-kuh like flame,</div>
<div class="verse">Till the Shah smiled: "My other lords of war lose</div>
<div class="verse">Battles, but he wrings love from my Baharlus."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He smote them hip and thigh. The man was brave.</div>
<div class="verse">Having four wives, he needs must take for slave</div>
<div class="verse">Whatever captive baggage crossed his path,</div>
<div class="verse">And never feared love for its aftermath.</div>
<div class="verse">Thus fared the Wazir while his locks were blue.</div>
<div class="verse">The silver in them found him captive too.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The singing caravan in chorus flowed</div>
<div class="verse">Past the clay porticoes of his abode.</div>
<div class="verse">She came, he saw, was conquered—like a puppet</div>
<div class="verse">Drawn to the window, to the street and up it,</div>
<div class="verse">Forth to the desert, leaving in the lurch</div>
<div class="verse">His pleasant wars and policies to search</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For what? He knew not. Haply for the truth</div>
<div class="verse">Whose home is open eyes, not dreams or youth.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
<div class="verse">But this he dimly knew, that something strange,</div>
<div class="verse">Beauty, had come within his vision's range;</div>
<div class="verse">And a new splendour, running through the world,</div>
<div class="verse">Drummed at the postern of his senses, hurled</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Him forth, this warrior proud and taciturn,</div>
<div class="verse">Footsore upon a pilgrimage to learn</div>
<div class="verse">Humility.... These beggars, in whose wake</div>
<div class="verse">He toiled, ne'er paused for him to overtake</div>
<div class="verse">Their echoes. When at dusk he joined their ring</div>
<div class="verse">None rose or bowed. All watched him. Could he sing?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And he could not, for never had he thrown</div>
<div class="verse">His days away on verse! He sat alone,</div>
<div class="verse">So that his silence stamped him with the badge</div>
<div class="verse">Of hanger-on or menial of this <i>haj</i>.</div>
<div class="verse">Thrust as he would with much unseemly din,</div>
<div class="verse">He found no place beside the palanquin,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Till Seyid Rida, scholar of Nejaf,</div>
<div class="verse">Took pity on him, saying: "You shall laugh</div>
<div class="verse">At these black days when, having served your time,</div>
<div class="verse">You share the sovereignty of Persian rhyme.</div>
<div class="verse">Be patient, pray to Allah, O my son,</div>
<div class="verse">For power of worship. It shall come anon...."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Seyid Rida spoke in vain. The Wazir's place</div>
<div class="verse">So far behind the Queen, her perfect face</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
<div class="verse">But half-divined, as Sight denied to Faith,</div>
<div class="verse">A doubt lest love itself should be a wraith</div>
<div class="verse">Dazzling but mocking him, these stirred his passion</div>
<div class="verse">To sworn defiance, to his last Circassian</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And thoughts of many a woman taken by force,</div>
<div class="verse">Restive and then submissive as a horse.</div>
<div class="verse">And now.... He followed in the wake of vision</div>
<div class="verse">Lofty and pure as Elburz snows. Derision</div>
<div class="verse">Would follow him in turn!... He shook his fist</div>
<div class="verse">Toward the feet his soul would fain have kissed:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Oh, I was born for women, women, women.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Through my still boyhood rang the first alarm;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And since that terror ever fresh invaders</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Have occupied and sacked me to their harm.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I am the cockpit where endemic fever</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Holds the low country in a broken lease</div>
<div class="verse indent2">From waves that ruined dykes appear to welcome.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Only one great emotion spares me—Peace!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I have grown up for women, women, women;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And suffering has had her fill of me.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My ears still echo with receding laughter,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As shells retain the voices of the sea.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I am the gateway only, not the garden,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That opens from a crowded thoroughfare.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I stand ajar to every passing fancy,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And all have knocked, but none have rested there.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"And I shall die for women, women, women,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But not for love of them. Adventure calls</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or waits with old romance to disappoint me</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Behind the promise of surrendered walls.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I am the vessel of some mad explorer,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That sails to seek for treasure in strange lands</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Without a steersman in a crew of gallants,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And, finding fortune, ends with empty hands."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A deathly silence fell. Green-turbaned men</div>
<div class="verse">Fell noiselessly to sharpening their knives</div>
<div class="verse">On their bare hardened feet. Seyid Rida sighed:</div>
<div class="verse">"Alas, your heart is set upon reward</div>
<div class="verse">For gifts of self. You cannot understand</div>
<div class="verse">Love loves for nothing, brother. Those who serve</div>
<div class="verse">God the most purely cannot count that He</div>
<div class="verse">Will love them in return...."</div>
<div class="verse indent24">The Wazir scowled.</div>
<div class="verse">But Dreamer-of-the-Age took him aside,</div>
<div class="verse">"I would unfold a story like a carpet.</div>
<div class="verse">The camel Tous told it to me last night:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"King Suleiman's wives were as jewels, his jewels as stones of the desert</div>
<div class="verse">In number. His concubines herded as desert-gazelles in their grace,</div>
<div class="verse">That answered his bidding as meekly as all his wild animal kingdom,</div>
<div class="verse">The beasts and the birds and the fishes. Yet the world was as pitch on his face.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Now it chanced that the ruler of Saba had news by a merchant of peacocks</div>
<div class="verse">From this king like a hawk-god of Egypt, whose beak was set deep in the gloom</div>
<div class="verse">Of his grape-purple beard, and she said: 'We shall see how his vanities stead him</div>
<div class="verse">When from under the arch of his eyebrows he sees my feet enter his room.'</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"For her feet were far whiter than manna. Her body was white as the cry</div>
<div class="verse">Of a child when the chords of hosanna draw the beauty of holiness nigh.</div>
<div class="verse">The droop of her eyelids would fan a revolt from Baghdad to Lake Tsana,</div>
<div class="verse">Her fingers were veined alabaster. The sprites of her escort would sigh,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"As they bathed her with sun set in amber and cooled in the snow of a cloudlet,</div>
<div class="verse">And taught her chief eunuch to clamber up moonbeams as fleet as a ghost:</div>
<div class="verse">These, lavish of reed-pipe and tamburine, slaves of the Son of Daoud, let</div>
<div class="verse">Her palanquin down into Zeila—gambouge and magenta, the coast!"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And the Wazir cried, "Ha!" to the rhymes.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Round the harbour a hoopoe was strutting, for Suleiman's Seal had appointed</div>
<div class="verse">Him messenger-bird, and he thought: 'If I bring the good news of this beauty,</div>
<div class="verse">This Sovereign of Silkiness, I shall harvest great thanks and promotion.'</div>
<div class="verse">So he flew to the Presence and twittered a text on the pleasure of Duty.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"'Fulfiller of faint Superstition, whose hand rolls the eyeballs of Thunder,</div>
<div class="verse">And lightens forked tongues on a mission of menace to bat or to eagle!</div>
<div class="verse">There comes to your portal a vision whose light shall make Israel wonder.</div>
<div class="verse">Immortal her beauty and mortal her glance that is soft as a seagull.'"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And the Wazir cried, "Hey!" to the rhymes.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"But Suleiman, sated with women and governance, lifted his beak</div>
<div class="verse">From his beard. Naught escaped the magician, not a thought, not a tone. Ah, he knew</div>
<div class="verse">All! He said: 'I have measured your mind as my pity has measured my people.</div>
<div class="verse">We shall speak of reward when she comes; I may live to regret it—and you!</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"'Lo, I am the servant of God, whom I serve as you serve me, not asking</div>
<div class="verse">For pay by each day or each act, but just for the general sum.</div>
<div class="verse">The work of the world must be done without wage to be done to our credit.</div>
<div class="verse">We shall profit in claiming our guerdon not by what we are but become.'</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"So the Queen came to Kuddus. Mashallah! Shall a picture be limned of her coming!</div>
<div class="verse">Flushed dancers and lutists athrumming light-limbed as Daoud round the Ark!</div>
<div class="verse">Crushed roadway and crowd-applause rumbled, loud music, hushed barbarous mumming!</div>
<div class="verse">To the cry, 'On to Sion' above her, this lover rode straight at her mark!"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And the Wazir cried, "Ho!" to the rhymes.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"She had but to flatter the wizard to win him. He said to the hoopoe:</div>
<div class="verse">'I will haggle no more. You shall learn to your cost what the bargainer buys,</div>
<div class="verse">Whose faith levies toll upon duty, whose trust will not serve me on trust,</div>
<div class="verse">Or love for Love. On your head be it.' The hoopoe said: '<i>Cheshm</i>—on my eyes!'</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"All other birds fainted with envy, as Suleiman lifted a digit.</div>
<div class="verse">Thereon was the Ring-of-most-Magic. Then he spat on the dust from his bed,</div>
<div class="verse">And the miracle came! for the hoopoe went swaggering out of the presence</div>
<div class="verse">(So he struts in his walking to-day) with a crown of pure gold on his head.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"But the Jews thus learnt avarice. Some one spread news of the bird-coronation</div>
<div class="verse">To the ends of the kingdom. The tribes ran out as one man armed with lime,</div>
<div class="verse">Bows, nets, slings—and slew the hoopoes for the sake of their crowns. There was profit</div>
<div class="verse">In sport then; none other has liked them so well since King Suleiman's time.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"They divided the spoil till in Israel only our messenger-bird</div>
<div class="verse">Survived with two fellows.... He fled to Suleiman's closet for <i>bast</i>,</div>
<div class="verse">Sobbing, 'Spare us, O king! Make a sign with the ring that men sing of! We fare as</div>
<div class="verse">Amalekites. If I have sinned, I am punished. We three are the last</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"'Of our race. In your grace turn your face to our case. We place hope in your favour!</div>
<div class="verse">My brood is a Yahudi's food. Israel—who disputes it—insane</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
<div class="verse">For gain. We are slain all day long by the strong sons of Cain. Let us waive our</div>
<div class="verse">Gold bane for plain down, lest we drown in our own blood! Discrown us again!'"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And the Wazir cried, "Hi!" to the rhymes.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"The King made reply. He was sadder than rain in the willows of Jordan.</div>
<div class="verse">'We are God's passing thoughts. They alone that await their fulfilment are wise.</div>
<div class="verse">You shall be for a warning, O hoopoe. I had given you more than gold-wages</div>
<div class="verse">If you had believed we not only had ears, I and Allah, but eyes!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"'Yet giving is fraught with forgiveness. Now therefore the crown you did covet</div>
<div class="verse">Is gone. You are healed of your pride; you shall live till the Angel of Death errs</div>
<div class="verse">From Allah's command. By my Ring-of-most-Magic the gold is transmuted.</div>
<div class="verse">Go forth! He has set for a sign on your brow a tiara of feathers.'</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"So the hoopoe went forth in the glory of plumes that he won in this wise</div>
<div class="verse">And wears. Then the hunters, assembled from the uttermost quarters of Sham, should</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
<div class="verse">Have shot, but did not, for they said: 'What a head! We will not waste an arrow</div>
<div class="verse">On sport of this sort. We are sold! We were told it was gold and....'"</div>
<div class="verse indent56">Tamam Shud</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And the Wazir shrieked "Halt!" at the rhymes.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But as he slept that night the Dreamer prayed</div>
<div class="verse">That understanding might bedew his head.</div>
<div class="verse">And so it was. The fountain of the Dawn</div>
<div class="verse">Rose in the whiteness of the month <i>Rajab</i>,</div>
<div class="verse">Washing the desert stones, and made each body</div>
<div class="verse">Shine as the sun-swift chariot of a soul.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">While the last swimmer in the sea of slumber,</div>
<div class="verse">Out of the deep, its jungled bottom, its ghosts,</div>
<div class="verse">Its weight and wonders, rises to the surface</div>
<div class="verse">In final breaths of sleep, the Wazir stirred</div>
<div class="verse">And flung out joyful arms. Not otherwise</div>
<div class="verse">The groping diver in the Gulf of Pearls,</div>
<div class="verse">Having achieved adventure, comes to light</div>
<div class="verse">And grasps the painted gunwale—with his prize.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8">"For every hour and day</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Of youth that spelled delay</div>
<div class="verse indent8">In finding you, I pray</div>
<div class="verse indent10">To life for pardon,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent8">I that long since have faced</div>
<div class="verse indent8">My task in patient haste:</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Out of my former waste</div>
<div class="verse indent10">To make your garden.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8">"With these soiled hands I made</div>
<div class="verse indent8">My Self (man's hardest trade).</div>
<div class="verse indent8">The sun was <i>you</i>: the shade</div>
<div class="verse indent10">My toil, my seed did.</div>
<div class="verse indent8">I drove my strong soul through</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Years in the thought of you,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">For whom my garden grew,</div>
<div class="verse indent10">And grew unheeded;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8">"For you, an episode</div>
<div class="verse indent8">That lay beside your road,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">For me, my long abode,</div>
<div class="verse indent10">My will's whole centre.</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Lo now my task fulfilled,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Yet not the hope that thrilled</div>
<div class="verse indent8">The stubborn realm I tilled</div>
<div class="verse indent10">For you to enter.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8">"Ah, must all sacrifice</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Be weighed with balance nice!</div>
<div class="verse indent8">To ask the gods our price</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Makes all creeds shoddy.</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Then should I bargain now—</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Troubling my worship—how</div>
<div class="verse indent8">You will reward my vow</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Of soul and body?</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8">"I have not striven in vain,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Though all my poor domain</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Cries daily for your reign.</div>
<div class="verse indent10">I hold its treasure,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">A source of splendour, known</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Haply to me alone,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">A boundless love—my own.</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Had you but leisure</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8">"To pause beside this spring</div>
<div class="verse indent8">A moment, harkening</div>
<div class="verse indent8">How through my silence sing</div>
<div class="verse indent8">The dreams that here rest,</div>
<div class="verse indent10">I yet might make you see</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Some of the You in Me.</div>
<div class="verse indent8">This song not I but we</div>
<div class="verse indent10">Have written, dearest."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Long ropes of stillness joined the caravan</div>
<div class="verse">Closer together; no man spoke a word,</div>
<div class="verse">Till Dreamer-of-the-Age: "Friend, go up higher</div>
<div class="verse">At the Queen's right hand." Seyid Rida smiled:</div>
<div class="verse">"I knew you would outrun us." The Wazir</div>
<div class="verse">Heard neither fame nor blame, and so was blest</div>
<div class="verse">Because he sought praise only of the Queen.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV<br />
THE MORAL OF THE SCHOLAR</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">At Ispahan the notables were met</div>
<div class="verse">In conclave. Seyid Rida, scholar scamp—</div>
<div class="verse">As Dawlatshah records—perched in the porch:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Round the table sit the sages—</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Different views and different ages—</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Secretaries scribble pages,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Taking down each 'er' and 'hem,'</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Taking down each word they utter</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Like the solemn measured sputter</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of fat raindrops from a gutter.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">I speak last of them.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent3">"Outside in the summer weather</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Birds are talking all together,</div>
<div class="verse indent3">While a tiny pecked-out feather</div>
<div class="verse indent5">Flutters past the pane.</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Dare you own: The work before us</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Seems at moments like their chorus,</div>
<div class="verse indent3">Just a little more sonorous,</div>
<div class="verse indent5">Similar in strain?</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Have a care! The bird that chatters</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Is the only bird that matters,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Heedless of the hand that scatters</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Grains of sense or chaff</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Mid your Barmecides and Cleons.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">I have listened here for æons</div>
<div class="verse indent4">To these rooster-flights and pæans.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">No one heard me laugh.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Parrot, jackdaw, jay, and pigeon,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Prose would be the whole religion</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of the Nephelococcygian</div>
<div class="verse indent6">State to which you steer.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">If the earth remains a youngster</div>
<div class="verse indent4">With some waywardness amongst her</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Virtues, I should thank the songster</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Whom you cannot hear.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Tits that swing upon a thistle,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Wrens and chats that pipe and whistle,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Join their notes to our epistle,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Where the bee-fraught lime</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Orchestrates the lark's espousal</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Not of causes but carousal:</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Owl, we hear you charge the ouzel</div>
<div class="verse indent6">With a waste of time!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Princeling, a fantastic prophet</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Tweaks your robe and bids you doff it,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent4">Offers you escape from Tophet</div>
<div class="verse indent6">On the wings of words.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Spread them bravely, fly the town, sell</div>
<div class="verse indent4">All you have for this one counsel:</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Sing and never mind the groundsel!</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Come, we too are birds."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Thereat the conclave fluttered and flew out,</div>
<div class="verse">And I have heard them on the Persian roads,</div>
<div class="verse">In half-dead cities. History repeats</div>
<div class="verse">Nothing except the rose. But Persians say</div>
<div class="verse">This was the last they heard of government.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV<br />
THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE SHEIKH</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Alas! 'Twas time to go—"Conceal the wine,</div>
<div class="verse">The purple and the yellow infidel!"—</div>
<div class="verse">Rice cooked in saffron, honey-cakes, and <i>mast</i></div>
<div class="verse">With many-coloured <i>shirini</i> were all</div>
<div class="verse">Packed up in paunches capon-lined....</div>
<div class="verse indent32">The Queen</div>
<div class="verse">Sailed through the city, mounted high on Tous,</div>
<div class="verse">Full in the moonlight, purer than the moon,</div>
<div class="verse">Whose beauty, being weighed with hers, the scale</div>
<div class="verse">Sent up to heaven and left the Queen on earth....</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Followed quick tumbles to the lambent street,</div>
<div class="verse">Graspings of shoes, and search for garments lost,</div>
<div class="verse">With tunes that mounted all awry as flame</div>
<div class="verse">Draught-blown, short breaths and straggling feet.</div>
<div class="verse indent32">The Dreamer</div>
<div class="verse">Reddened and drooped his head; for at the Gate</div>
<div class="verse">Sat a portentous Sheikh, thrice great in girth,</div>
<div class="verse">Ali-el-Kerbelaï, Known-of-Men,</div>
<div class="verse">To whom—he slept all day—his nightly school</div>
<div class="verse">Resorted in the porch. He saw, and shrugged</div>
<div class="verse">His shoulders, rounded in glory like the hills</div>
<div class="verse">That drift and clash about the Gulf of Pearls—</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
<div class="verse">Bahreinis tell the tale lest rival <i>dhows</i></div>
<div class="verse">Should venture into trade—and thus held forth:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Gossips, I have watched fools wander through this gate</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In generations. Never have I seen</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Men so bewitched by one closed palanquin,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">So little fain to chatter with the great,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">So blind, or single-eyed, they did not see</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Ali-el-Kerbelaï, even me.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Poor souls! Dusk swamps our wriggling thoroughfares</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Like trenches; and I rub my hands to think</div>
<div class="verse indent2">How I to-night in coolth shall sleep and drink,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">While sunrise takes these vagrants unawares.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Madmen set out each day to beard the sun,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And seventy years ago Your Slave was one.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"When all the world was young, that is when <i>I</i></div>
<div class="verse indent2">Was young, I promised Allah to be wise,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And started on the road of enterprise</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That leads towards the snow-capped hills of Why,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Passing my hand across my shaven brow</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Heavy with all the lower lore of How."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Ali-el-Kerbelaï sighed his soul</div>
<div class="verse">Out of his nostrils pious and serene,</div>
<div class="verse">For the swift curtain of the night had slid</div>
<div class="verse">Along the rings of stillness, as he peered</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
<div class="verse">Into the plain. The singing caravan</div>
<div class="verse">Had dwindled slowly to a speck of white.</div>
<div class="verse">Then said the sage: "Behold they go to nothing,</div>
<div class="verse">These lovers, these far-eyed. To think they passed</div>
<div class="verse">Within a foot of wisdom and my robe!</div>
<div class="verse">Alas, they passed and knew not. 'Tis the risk</div>
<div class="verse">Of all such noisy dreamers. Ah, my head</div>
<div class="verse">Pities.... Well, God is great. And God made me.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Thus first I reached Mohammerah, whose sheikh</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In speechless gratitude besought a boon—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To make me eunuch in his <i>anderûn</i>—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For I had talked away his stomach-ache.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And of this epoch I need only say</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I had fresh dates for dinner every day.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"But I was young. I spurned the unmanly job,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For I loved conquest, and the world lay flat</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Before me like a purple praying-mat,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And all young women made my heart <i>kebob</i>,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Until the sheikh conceived himself disgraced.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Then I took ship from Basra—in some haste.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"We put to sea, fair sirs, a foul-faced sea</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Puckered with viciousness and green with hate</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of all the sons of Adam; and black fate</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Conspired with her to take account of me,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For all the <i>Jinn</i> who lurk among the gales</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Came down to fecundate our bellied sails.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"They blew. They thrust my skull against the sky,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The jade-backed <i>Jinn</i> disguised as ocean-swell,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But I saw through them.... Down we went to hell,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where Iblis tried to teach me blasphemy</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In vain. No devil's wile could make me speak.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Thus I learned self-control. (I was so weak.)</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"We drifted past bare cliff and jungle sedge,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Past spouting loose volcanoes known as whales,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And sirens that blew kisses with their tails,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Till we fell over the horizon's edge,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Fell sheer three thousand parasangs. And there</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I first discovered that the world is square.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"We were in China, sir. The Home of Yellows,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Soil, porcelain, manuscripts, men.... Here I spent</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Six weeks in stuffing to my heart's content</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The thought-scraps given to these whoreson fellows</div>
<div class="verse indent2">By heaven. My zeal picked all tradition's locks,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And knowledge opened like a lacquered box</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Wrought with strange figures.... Now I learned by heart</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Eleven score ways of dodging every sin.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">So, having sucked the marrow from Pekin,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I planned with Allah that I should depart,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And having thus obtained a ruly wind</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I shone like lightning through the schools of Hind.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I shall say little of Hind. Its mouth is wide</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With sacred texts and precepts packed in lyrics</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For carriage, verse unversed in our empirics.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I grasped all Indian knowledge like a bride</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Without a dower, enjoyed and let her go,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Giving God thanks that only Persians <i>know</i>."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The singing caravan shrank in a clear</div>
<div class="verse">Green sideless tunnel of the firmament.</div>
<div class="verse">Ali-el-Kerbelaï paused and watched</div>
<div class="verse">Intent, even as by torchlight men spear fish,</div>
<div class="verse">While searching flame-reflections brushed and lit</div>
<div class="verse">The deep brown-watered caverns of his eyes,</div>
<div class="verse">Where dim shapes moved profoundly in the pool.</div>
<div class="verse">His listeners watched the sage in ecstasy</div>
<div class="verse">Poise, concentrate his massive thought on Nothing,</div>
<div class="verse">Heard his <i>narghilé</i> bubble like a brain....</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"From Hind to Misr. At Cairo's El-Azhar,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The flower of Moslem scholarship, I sat</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Among the Sunni bastards. As a cat</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Watches the sun through eyelids scarce ajar,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">From dawn till evening prayer I laboured hard,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Lolling in ambush round the great courtyard</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"To pounce on wingèd words. Athwart the arcade</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Midday in golden bars came clanging down</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Upon the anvil of each turbaned crown,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And many minds took refuge in my shade.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I was divinely hard to understand,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Talking until my throat was dry as sand.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"So to the mosque well—into it they pushed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A dog who disagreed with me—and drew</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Relief what time the pigeons ceased to coo</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or rustle round its rainbow-juice. We hushed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Our flights of eloquence when my <i>roghan</i></div>
<div class="verse indent2">Sizzled complacent in the frying-pan.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Mashallah, what a life! Yet in this scene</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I found a fleck of rust upon my tongue.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Propelled by Fate and my own force of lung,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I flitted with two reverend <i>Maghrebín</i></div>
<div class="verse indent2">Whom I had favoured, having learned the trick</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of speaking their foul breed of Arabic.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Immortal spirits led us, yea the chief</div>
<div class="verse indent2"><i>Afrit</i>, the crown of all the <i>Afarit</i>.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We crossed the great Sahara like a street.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My fame allows me licence to be brief.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Enough. Whatever any sceptic says,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I still maintain I spent a year at Fez.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Here was a sect that said one God was three.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I plied Moriscos who had tasted two</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Beliefs perforce, I even asked a Jew</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To make this strange <i>Tariqah</i> clear; but he—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">By this judge Christians—he could not explain,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Although his father had been burnt in Spain.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Ah, how I studied in that narrow city,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Whose walls are changeless as a Persian law,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent2">And full of loopholes. To the seers I saw</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Is due the gamut of my human pity.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We stirred the puddles of the human mind</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Till none could see the bottom but the blind.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Now Shaitan tempted me. I fell for once,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A venial sin.... I journeyed to Stamboul</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To plumb the errors of the <i>Greegi</i> school.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">'Twas there I read the Stagyrite, a dunce,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Frankish ruler of theology,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And father of a dunce, Alfarabi.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I laid him low and hurried home to indite</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A book, the fruit of all my Thought and Travel,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Entitled 'Contemplation of the Navel,'</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A mystic book. (But first I learned to write.)</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Such of our doctors as can read have read it.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But I was bent on even higher credit.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I sought a cave whence madmen hunt wild sheep,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And there for thirteen years I held my head,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Until the dupes decided I was dead.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Indeed I spent the better part in sleep,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Lest I should be beguiled from abstract chatter</div>
<div class="verse indent2">By lust for this world's striped and dazzling matter.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Night brought me counsel, and a pock-marked Kurd</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Or angels brought me food. Day spared my dreams</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent2">That tilled the solitude like slow white teams</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of oxen, till it blossomed, and I heard</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Roc's huge pinions scour the starry cobbles;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And so I rose above all human squabbles.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"For me the burning haze made sandhills dance,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Till blushing shadows covered their nude breasts.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The eternal heirs of leisure were my guests,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And feasted on my glory in advance.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Then on an eve among the eves.... The End!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My soul sat by me talking as a friend.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"I bleached my beard, and came to Ispahan.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">You know the rest. To Allah's will I bowed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In suffering the plaudits of the crowd,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For all must listen; those must preach who can.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I stirred the town with fingers raised to bless....</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And gauged the people by my emptiness."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The caravan was gone. Its song survived</div>
<div class="verse">A little, faint, an echo, not at all.</div>
<div class="verse">Then like a magic carpet warmth was drawn</div>
<div class="verse">Back into heaven, and left behind a void</div>
<div class="verse">Where thin-faced breezes, huddling from the hills,</div>
<div class="verse">Sat down to breathe hard tales upon their hands.</div>
<div class="verse">And suddenly earth looked her age. Like her</div>
<div class="verse">The shapes round Ali-el-Kerbelaï shivered,</div>
<div class="verse">Pulling their coloured <i>abbas</i> to their ears</div>
<div class="verse">And drawing in their feet. At last one spoke:</div>
<div class="verse">"O master, you to whom the world is known,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
<div class="verse">What is your thought's conclusion, what the sum</div>
<div class="verse">Of added knowledge in the tome of <span class="smcap">You</span>?"</div>
<div class="verse">And Ali answered weighing out his words:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent3">"Sir, I have seen the East and West, great peace,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Great wars, indifferent fates that blessed or cursed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Their builders. I have touched the best and worst</div>
<div class="verse indent2">In flesh and thought, have watched flames rise and cease,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Consoled high hopes, deep passions, men that die</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For things beneath the earth, behind the sky,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"For god or woman. I have counted change</div>
<div class="verse indent2">For the Sarraf of Changelessness, have marked</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Kings, Wazirs, coursed by sons of dogs that barked</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And bit, the uninhabitable range</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Of power, where all that climb in others' shoes</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Are honoured and unperched like cockatoos.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Now having known mankind in hell and bliss</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Through thrice a generation, I have formed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">From all the problems I besieged or stormed</div>
<div class="verse indent2">One firm conviction, only one! 'Tis this:</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The Faith, the Pomp, the Loves, the Lives of men</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Outshine the firefly and outcrest the wren."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He added as he rose: "But God is great."</div>
<div class="verse">And bent, repassing through the city gate,</div>
<div class="verse">Lest he should bump his venerable pate.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI<br />
THE ARGUMENT OF THE SCEPTIC</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Beside the Sufis ran a whited wall.</div>
<div class="verse">Two cypress-trees peeped over from the waist,</div>
<div class="verse">Stiff, motionless as toys. Among their spires</div>
<div class="verse">A lithe voice mounted and leaned down again:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Come, for to-night the hills are all white marble</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Under a sapphire dome,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Where bats scrawl riddles which the bulbuls garble</div>
<div class="verse indent4">For owls to answer. Come.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"The air is sick of moon-discoloured roses,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The plain stagnates like some</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Weird archipelago of garden-closes</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And dead, bleached waters. Come.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"O night of miracles! Come, let us wander</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Over this ghostly sea</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To that dark cypress-circled island yonder,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">In whose clear centre we</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Will lie and float in phosphorescent ether.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Thank heaven that night is cool</div>
<div class="verse indent2">As day was scorching. Let us watch together</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The lovers in the pool.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Look in! Lie still! A jewelled ripple spangles</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The hand upon her hair;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">While, lying listless on her back, she dangles</div>
<div class="verse indent4">A finger in the air.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"How still he is. Your motionless perfection</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Absorbs him utterly.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Doubtless you seem to him his love's reflection</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Face downwards in the sky,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"Whence I am hanging, seeing only her face,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">As he sees only yours.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Lean down! And they shall meet us at the surface.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">O silent paramours</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"We bring to you, by stealth, while men are sleeping,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">A gift. Let your domain</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Have it for ever in its steadfast keeping;</div>
<div class="verse indent4">We shall not come again.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"We bring our shadows: just the fleeting semblance</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of human love. O might</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Your waters hold them for us in remembrance</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of one short summer night!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"A wondrous night, when two reflections hovered,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Dreaming of love aloud</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Here by the pool, until the moon was covered</div>
<div class="verse indent4">By an impending cloud;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"And then they lost each other. Where but lately</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The magic mirror shone,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">A wider shadow, cruelly, sedately,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Passes ... and we are gone."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The Dreamer stayed: "Who speaks of passing here?</div>
<div class="verse">The river passes, passes to the sea,</div>
<div class="verse">Drawing in rills the voices of the earth</div>
<div class="verse">To make its voice that merges in the swell.</div>
<div class="verse">The river passes and the boatman's chant</div>
<div class="verse">Is swallowed up in distance and the night.</div>
<div class="verse">Or is it, friend, the boats alone that pass?</div>
<div class="verse">The river, as I sometimes think, remains.</div>
<div class="verse">Even so it is with lovers and with love.</div>
<div class="verse">Then sing us something wise where laughter lurks,</div>
<div class="verse">As underneath the desert, from the hills</div>
<div class="verse">Whence cometh help, the hidden water-course</div>
<div class="verse">Chuckles. Upon this thread your garden hangs.</div>
<div class="verse">Nay, never shake that cypress head! We need</div>
<div class="verse">Not only sun but cloud and tears to build</div>
<div class="verse">Laughter, the rainbow of the inner man."</div>
<div class="verse">But the voice answered, or the cypress sighed:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"I am the brain of Hitherto.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">In darkness I revolve and flash.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Books are the fortune I ran through.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My painted pen-case, yellow hue</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And yellow sash</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Were famed from Yezd to Yezdikhast.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">I taught what space and learned what mud is.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">My metaphysics were my past.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Alas, I left my lust till last</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of all my studies.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"I kept my mind so clear and keen</div>
<div class="verse indent4">By grinding guesswork into saws,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">You scarce could fit a meal between</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The triumphs of my thought-machine,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Its puissant jaws.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"The process of my intellect,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Mazed by the clapping hands that fed it,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Rolled on. They, founding a new sect</div>
<div class="verse indent2">On premises that I had wrecked,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Gave me the credit.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"And so I used my fame to part</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Man from his planks to sink or swim;</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I plumbed his shallows, drew the chart....</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Illusions broke the blacksmith's heart.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">I envied him</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Suddenly, and set out to moon</div>
<div class="verse indent4">About this garden scholarwise.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">One silver laugh, two silken shoon,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To fill my empty <i>anderûn</i></div>
<div class="verse indent4">With splendid lies</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"I ask of shadows, battering</div>
<div class="verse indent4">My bars, and wonder why I ache.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">O You who made both cage and wing,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Let me redeem my toilsome spring</div>
<div class="verse indent4">By one mistake."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">In the parched road the Dreamer took his lute</div>
<div class="verse">And tossed these chords across the battlement:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"The myrtles of Damascus,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">The willows of Gilan,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Have sent the breeze to ask us</div>
<div class="verse indent8">If aught but sceptics can</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Deny the spirit calling</div>
<div class="verse indent8">To flesh—we are the call—</div>
<div class="verse indent6">And save themselves from falling</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Behind a whited wall.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"Most pure was Abu Bakr,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">And Allah speeds the plough</div>
<div class="verse indent6">That furrows young wiseacre</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Across an open brow.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Most fair is self-possession—</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Give me the open road—</div>
<div class="verse indent6">But Solomon in session</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Went mad and wrote an ode.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"All fields of thought are arid,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">No earthly soil is rich,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">By thirst of knowledge harried</div>
<div class="verse indent8">And those ambitions which</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent6">The heart like Pharaoh's harden</div>
<div class="verse indent8">To let no impulse go.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">But every yard's a garden</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Through which we mystics flow.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"I conjure hawthorn blossom</div>
<div class="verse indent8">From Bakhtiari vales—</div>
<div class="verse indent6">As when one looks across some</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Choked channel where the sails</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Of anchored vessels jostle—</div>
<div class="verse indent8">I tune their rhythmic sway</div>
<div class="verse indent6">In hollows where the throstle</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Is only dumb by day.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"Red routs of rhododendron,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">That slope to Trebizond,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Rapt round the garden's end run</div>
<div class="verse indent8">To mask the waste beyond.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">There facts are free to wonder</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Down pathways like the streak</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Of silver pavement under</div>
<div class="verse indent8">The palms of Basra creek.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"In charity of jasmin</div>
<div class="verse indent8">My poor designs are clad,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">As nature cloaked the chasm in</div>
<div class="verse indent8">The ramparts of Baghdad,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Where passed the fabled Caliph</div>
<div class="verse indent8">With Giafar by night</div>
<div class="verse indent6">To mystify the bailiff</div>
<div class="verse indent8">At Garden-of-Delight.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"The orchard-grave of Omar,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Neglected Nishapur,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Where sprays of petaled foam are,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Sighs through my garden-door</div>
<div class="verse indent6">With boughs round whose gnarled stem men</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Had never thought to twine</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Green tendrils from rich Yemen,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">The sunburnt Smyrniot vine.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"Wild lilies, whose rich red owes</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Its undertone to brown,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">From Kurd-betented meadows</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Break out in every town.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Blind alleys' bursts of lilac,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Where russet warblers woo,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Are set to cover my lack</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Of vocal retinue.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"The myrtles of Damascus,</div>
<div class="verse indent8">The poppies of Shiraz,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Have sent the breeze to ask us</div>
<div class="verse indent8">If they are dumb, because</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Wisdom and one that had her</div>
<div class="verse indent8">To wife still hug the fence,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Where we have left a ladder</div>
<div class="verse indent8">To rescue men from sense."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The cypress swayed. Hard by another voice</div>
<div class="verse">Climbed the twin tree, and thus its theme began:</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"Young man, Shirín is out of date.</div>
<div class="verse indent8">We have to thank the West</div>
<div class="verse indent6">That Attar's latest is too late</div>
<div class="verse indent8">To waken Interest,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">And one of Love's great names, Majnûn,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Is now generic for a loon.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"Our crust is cooling, and the bent</div>
<div class="verse indent8">For culture bears its fruit,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">As we that weed out sentiment</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Likewise outgrow the brute;</div>
<div class="verse indent6">While Providence matures a blend</div>
<div class="verse indent6">That pure philosophers commend</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6">"In logic. Constancy declined</div>
<div class="verse indent8">Because we pruned our morals.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Love practises the change of mind</div>
<div class="verse indent8">That ethics preach in quarrels...."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">There cried the Dreamer: "Who are you that mock</div>
<div class="verse">Exiles in search of that from which they came,</div>
<div class="verse">Intent to know themselves and so the Lord</div>
<div class="verse">Whose ways are as the number of men's souls?</div>
<div class="verse">By these we compass our escape from Self,</div>
<div class="verse">The mirage in the waste through which we pass</div>
<div class="verse">Across the bridge Phantasmal to the Real;</div>
<div class="verse">Until, forgetting Self, we see in All</div>
<div class="verse">The Loved that leads us to the eternal beauty</div>
<div class="verse">Shown in a thousand mirrors yet but one.</div>
<div class="verse">These are the Sufi tenets. What of you?"</div>
<div class="verse">From the first tree the quavering voice replied:</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"It is my double, Peder Sag,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The summit of the civilized</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Above such heats as woman or flag.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">It is my double, Peder Sag,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Who bows the poet to the wag,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The hero to the undersized.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">It is my double, Peder Sag,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The summit of the civilized.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"His mission is to educate</div>
<div class="verse indent4">By atrophy, the cure for spasm,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And so to serve the future state.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">His mission is to educate</div>
<div class="verse indent4">A world of fellowships that hate</div>
<div class="verse indent4">One living thing—enthusiasm.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">His mission is to educate</div>
<div class="verse indent4">By atrophy, the cure for spasm.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"He dresses us in faultless drab.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">His colour-scheme for you is tan,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And, level as a marble slab,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">He dresses us in faultless drab.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Him urchins call Abu Kilab:</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The Father-of-the-Modern-Man.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">He dresses us in faultless drab.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">His colour-scheme for you is tan.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"My double did a deal for truth.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">He teaches balance to the Young,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And knows a better thing than youth.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">My double did a deal for truth,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent4">His emblem is the wisdom tooth,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">A flowery and fruitless tongue.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">My double did a deal for truth.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">He teaches balance to the Young."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Serdar-i-Jang impatient pulled his beard</div>
<div class="verse">And growling Tous his bridle: "Let him be</div>
<div class="verse">The fool I was, and so mine enemy</div>
<div class="verse">From whom I part in peace." Farid Bahadur</div>
<div class="verse">Shrugged that: "Our wares are not for such as these."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Once more the Brain: "I might have come with you,</div>
<div class="verse">Leaving my gloomy castle in the air,</div>
<div class="verse">For, overgrown with tangles, in its flank</div>
<div class="verse">Lies hid the thrice-veiled door of happiness;</div>
<div class="verse">Only—my double has mislaid the key."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Seyid Rida laughed and answered: "We have found it."</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The Lover knocked: "'Tis I!"</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The Loved One made reply:</div>
<div class="verse indent6">"There is no room for two</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Beyond the Gateway."</div>
<div class="verse indent6">In solitude he learned</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The Secret; so returned</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Saying: "O Love, 'tis you."</div>
<div class="verse indent6">And entered straightway.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A wicket opened gently of itself,</div>
<div class="verse">And so a sceptic joined the caravan.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII<br />
THE PRIDE OF THE TAILOR</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Oh, sliding down the desert from Shiraz</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The tailor-man from Meshed tore his hose:</div>
<div class="verse">A crowning test, a broken man! "Ah, was</div>
<div class="verse indent2">I born that fate might practise fancy-blows?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"The road is rougher than a magnate's mirth</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Toward the humble, long as a bad debt.</div>
<div class="verse">I cannot dream of any woman worth</div>
<div class="verse indent2">This cloth. To me 'twas dearer than a pet."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Then Dreamer-of-the-Age cried: "Bring me thread</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Strong as the bridge as they call Pul-i-Katûn!</div>
<div class="verse">For Meshed's champion tailor-man is dead</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Unless his wounded pride be succoured soon."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Launched on the seaward slope the pilgrims went</div>
<div class="verse indent2">On to the gulf, and heard, athwart the dim</div>
<div class="verse">Night echoing, a sufferer's lament</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And Dreamer-of-the-Age consoling him:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"The night fits down on the desert, brother;</div>
<div class="verse indent4">We are drawn there-through like a piece of thread.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The steepened sky and the vastness smother</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Uneasy sleep in her league-wide bed.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent2">Rocked to and fro with a camel's burden</div>
<div class="verse indent4">On broken tracks, that are thin as scars,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We near the Gulf. Have we seen our guerdon?"</div>
<div class="verse indent4">"Yea, every night we have seen the stars."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"The dust is thick, and our own feet raise it.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Our eyes were clear did our feet but rest.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We give our heart and no sign repays it.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">What need we ever a further test!</div>
<div class="verse indent2">We drift along with the old dumb neighbour</div>
<div class="verse indent4">In the old blind alley we call our goal,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Hope: all that comes of a soul's life-labour."</div>
<div class="verse indent4">"It was the labour that made the soul."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"We stride ahead, but in every village</div>
<div class="verse indent4">A brother faints and a weakness falls.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The tribes that till and the tribes that pillage</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Are reconciled with the life that palls.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Oh, townsmen tread to a fixed thanksgiving,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">But what of us, if these pitying throngs</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Should ask the end of our harder living?"</div>
<div class="verse indent4">"God knows the answer. They know our songs,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"The coloured patch on the background, Silence,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The gleaming thought that is Love's to wear</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Undimmed through space to a myriad-while hence.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Could the hands be worthy that knew not care</div>
<div class="verse indent2">To weave Love's garb? Though we needs must suffer,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Shall we sing the worse that we sing in vain?</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent2">Our songs shall rise as the road grows rougher.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">In the breathless hills, in the fevered plain,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2">"They mount as sparks from the night's oases,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And fall far short of the idol's feet.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">They are stored by God in his secret places,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The least-lit stars of his darkest street.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Yet ten worlds hence they shall dance, my brother,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">To travelling winds.... If our songs were worth</div>
<div class="verse indent2">One gleam of light to the Way of Another,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">We bless the sorrow that gave them birth."</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII<br />
THE HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURER</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">So to the journey's end. The Gulf was there</div>
<div class="verse">Steaming and soundless, and the weary feet</div>
<div class="verse">Were stayed at last from following the Queen.</div>
<div class="verse">The great <i>dhow</i> nosed the creek; slow water lapped</div>
<div class="verse">About her burnished; burnished in her sat</div>
<div class="verse">Unmoving bronze, her oarsmen. Then they rose:</div>
<div class="verse">"Hail, Bringers of the Queen!" "Hail, ship! you bear</div>
<div class="verse">What cargo hence?" "We carry on your charge."</div>
<div class="verse">"But leave us nothing—nothing in exchange?"</div>
<div class="verse">"Only the ancient story of a slave.</div>
<div class="verse">There lies a secret buried none too deep."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Thus the chief rower. This the far-off tale.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I dwelled beside the impulsive Rhone, a child that loved to be alone.</div>
<div class="verse">The forest was my nursery. My happiness was all my own.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I knew by name each cloud that lowers the sunshine through in liquid showers.</div>
<div class="verse">Deep in the tangled undergrowth I caught the singing of the flowers.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our minstrels sang of rape and arson, all the joys of private wars.</div>
<div class="verse">The forest wall was calm and tall. My tutor laughed, and drank to Mars.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Bald, vulture-like upon its perch, our crag-born castle seemed to search</div>
<div class="verse">The gorge for prey, its shade to still the bells a-twitter in the church</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Where, cheek by jowl with fearsome fowl and gargoyle, ghostly men, in foul</div>
<div class="verse">Incense that tried to stifle me, recited magic formulæ.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">At home clanked metal psalm and spur; but, oh the woods ...! I tried to tame</div>
<div class="verse">A wolf-cub that the gardener called Life. He knew. The preacher came.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I see him yet, his visage wet with hot emotion, tears, and sweat.</div>
<div class="verse">Contorted in the market-place he shrieked that all must pay a debt</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To one Jehovah and His Son, by bursting eastward as the Hun</div>
<div class="verse">Had scourged the West. In unison we all replied 'twere nobly done,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For he explained that heaven was gained more featly—wrenching Saint Jerome—</div>
<div class="verse">From Palestine than Christendom. That night no peasant durst go home.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">His words were like a wind that fanned a grass-fire: God would lend His hand</div>
<div class="verse">To purge away the infidel whose breath profaned the Holy Land.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He showered indulgences, and kissed the brows of those who would enlist</div>
<div class="verse">To take a chance of martyrdom or give the devil's tail a twist.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He promised we should see the light, that cursèd Arabs could not fight,</div>
<div class="verse">Counted them dead since we were "led by General Jesus," said the pope.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Moreover we must win and use Christ, His true Cross, the Widow's cruse,</div>
<div class="verse">All talismans that found no scope for miracles among the Jews.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Upon the walls the veriest dolt and clown, arow like birds that moult,</div>
<div class="verse">Chattered with one accord—or some small priestly prompting:—"Diex el volt."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">No wonder that our heartstrings glowed within us like a smelted lode</div>
<div class="verse">Whence Kobolds welded Durandal; and like one man we ran or rode</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Forth. Were we not enchanted? This was first among God's certainties.</div>
<div class="verse">Even our steeds were like Shabdíz, the pride of King Khusraw Parvíz.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We saw our path made plain, the hills removed by faith, whose foaming course</div>
<div class="verse">Flooded the continents like flats. We saw the world made one—by force.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">In ecstasy our spirits soared. With beatific face toward</div>
<div class="verse">My cloudland all the crowd shed tears, and vowed to serve and save the Lord.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But cloudland, seeming to disdain such warmth, replied with slapping rain.</div>
<div class="verse">Conjuring such black augury the monks recited formulæ.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Besides, lest women, priests and traders should tempt the appetite of raiders,</div>
<div class="verse">The Church proclaimed the Truce of God. Not all our barons were crusaders.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Those who were frightened not to go sold all they had to make a show,</div>
<div class="verse">Land, tool and ware to pay a fare. The panic made sly kings its heir.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">So much was sold by young and old, by fond, ambitious, hot and cold,</div>
<div class="verse">That steel took sudden silver wings, then flew beyond the reach of gold.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">In such a gust my tender age availed not with the preaching sage,</div>
<div class="verse">For I was born of fighting men; and one of them took me for page,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Though I was loth to go, and prayed for mercy and a little maid</div>
<div class="verse">Whose hair was shining sunflower brown. I thought of all the games we played</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">All day with hay and idle mowers. She dubbed me knight in pixy bowers,</div>
<div class="verse">Where in the hindering undergrowth I caught the singing of the flowers,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Ah me, how distant!... I was blest in my young lord who shared the test,</div>
<div class="verse">Being sent upon this pilgrimage, his snow-white love still unpossessed.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He, too, was paler than a ghost, as though already all were lost.</div>
<div class="verse">She dreamed of empery for him. He taught me this to show the cost:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8 italic">My heart was mine.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Ambition kept it whole.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">I gained the world,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">And so I lost my soul.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Then you were mine,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">But only mine in part.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">You loved the world,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">And so I lost my heart.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Only my tutor lay abed, calling us savages, and read</div>
<div class="verse">His pagan books. The fever would abate, he sneered, when we were bled.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He chilled me. His head was like a block of ice, so clear. He tried to shock</div>
<div class="verse">Me with his whispered flings that saints and monarchs came of laughing-stock,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Or boasted some loud organ, Reason, which doctors had confused with treason,</div>
<div class="verse">Looked round lest walls should hear, then wept that he was one born out of season.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our preaching-man pronounced a ban upon him, cried good riddance: he</div>
<div class="verse">Was like to lead young men astray because he knew geography,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">(And sciences, as medicine, reduce the value of a shrine).</div>
<div class="verse">My tutor passed for riding gnomes through space upon a pack of tomes.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But at the water-parting I waved to the castle green and dun,</div>
<div class="verse">A tapestry where liquid sun—or tears—had made the colours run.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I looked my last on every stone and tree to whom my face was known.</div>
<div class="verse">The warriors smiled and called me child. They had not understood the Rhone,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Nor that I <i>loved</i> the birchwood's skin, the pansy's face, the sheep-dog's grin,</div>
<div class="verse">That sleep with Nature in a field was sweet to me as mortal sin.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For love so fierce I stole: I gave my summer holidays to save</div>
<div class="verse">Lambs from the butcher, built for them sanctuary at my wolf-cub's grave.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I stroked the landscape like a lute. No scentless words, no colours mute,</div>
<div class="verse">Could paint its music. Henceforth I had only heaven for substitute.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Sling, crossbow, bludgeon, axe and spud, cilice and vials of sacred blood,</div>
<div class="verse">On such equipment we relied. Our foes were misery and mud.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Each Norman keep, each Frankish hold, each corner of the Christian fold</div>
<div class="verse">Sent forth its sheep to sound of bells. Our prophets might have had them tolled.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Prince, abbot, squire, felt the desire of bliss that swept stews, taverns, farms.</div>
<div class="verse">Soft damosels ploughed through the mire with babe at breast and men-at-arms;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And, since this journey was the price of entrance into Paradise,</div>
<div class="verse">The gaols belched out their criminals and beggars all alive with lice.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We took no food, for God is good; besides we heard that convents strewed</div>
<div class="verse">Converted Hungary for us. We never dared mistrust His mood.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Heading the mass far up the pass, that led us straight to Calvary,</div>
<div class="verse">The preaching-man upon an ass recited magic formulæ.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Soon we were joined by northern lords; no few among their folk had swords.</div>
<div class="verse">(Walter the Pennyless his rout had gone before and died in hordes,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">While Gotschalk's dupes, with geese and goats upon their flags, had found the boats</div>
<div class="verse">To pass beyond the Bosphorus, where Kilidj Arslan cut their throats.)</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our force could not await the Turk, but in its ardour got to work</div>
<div class="verse">That was not mentioned in the breves. It murdered all the Jews in Treves.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I was sad a Christian lad should march with myrmidons so mad.</div>
<div class="verse">They made our Holy War appear too near a Musulman Jehad.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We plodded on for many weeks through mazes where the Austrian ekes</div>
<div class="verse">A bare existence on the slips of alp below the granite peaks,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And all those weeks did naught betide us palmers save that many died.</div>
<div class="verse">Our gaol-birds eyed the preaching-man, and scholars spoke of vaticide;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But I was happy when our stout commander sent me on to scout.</div>
<div class="verse">I cried for little Sunflower-tress, and made strange faces at the trout.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Because I was a fighting-man I trained myself to nettle-stings,</div>
<div class="verse">And copied oaths and made up things my tutor would have tried to scan:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Briar and bramble,</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Don't be so dense.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">You scratch and you scramble</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Like things without sense.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Why grudge me a ramble?</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">You can't want my hose,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">White-coated bramble,</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Pink briar-rose.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Bramble and briar,</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Leave me alone.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Cling to the friar,</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Make him your own.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Kiss him, the liar</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Who brought us all here,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Gentle sweet-briar,</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Bramble my dear.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Thus through the months of slapping rain we plunged into the Hungarian plain,</div>
<div class="verse">And paid its mounted bowmen dear for wretched stocks of fruit and grain,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Or shelter in a reed-built town. They asked for hostages. We gave</div>
<div class="verse">Our leaders to these dirty-brown mongrels, who brought us to the Save</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">With loss. My tutor's Damocles perhaps had lived in times like these;</div>
<div class="verse">For whoso straggled from the main body was never seen again.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Ere this my rhyme had spread, and swelled into a marching-song. I blushed</div>
<div class="verse">To witness how the spearmen held their sides with laughter, as they yelled</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Bramble and briar." 'Twas the first faint mutiny. These men of Gaul</div>
<div class="verse">Bantered the sterner pilgrims so I wondered why they came at all.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Yea, often now that I am old and hear how zealous scribes have told</div>
<div class="verse">The zeal that made the first crusade, well—history is eaten cold.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My lord could think of nothing but the lady who had bidden him cut</div>
<div class="verse">His way to her by such detours. Aye, this was true romance—the slut.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We called her secretly The Burr—whereof was plenty in our beds—</div>
<div class="verse">For night by night he crooned of her, nor even named the Sepulchre:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4 italic">I waited, and the hours were loth to close.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">They scarcely stirred till evening leapt to sight</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Between the shadows that all substance throws</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">As bridges for its passage to the night.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4 italic">You never came. Life dozes at the touch</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Of those not wholly resolute to live,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Who let themselves mistrust her overmuch</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">To take the only thing she has to give.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Amid the rags there caracoled fop-penitents whose panders lolled</div>
<div class="verse">With human baggage in the rear, and hound and hawk. So chaos rolled</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Adown the Danube rolling east. Beyond Semlin the pinewoods filled</div>
<div class="verse">With Celt and Saxon, man and beast inspired to leave the west untilled.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The locust-swarms were better drilled than we, the owls were not so blind.</div>
<div class="verse">At every stage we left behind poor simpletons that moaned and shrilled,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Thinking each swamp Gethsemane. It seemed that at their agony</div>
<div class="verse">The doctors scoffed with cross aloft, reciting magic formulæ.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Alone the princes lightly pranced, as if the pilgrimage enhanced</div>
<div class="verse">Their right to weigh upon the world thereafter. So the doom advanced</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To dervish cries and jester's japes. Hermit and boor and jackanapes,</div>
<div class="verse">I and my ghost-pale master threw a trail of shadows, motley shapes,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Where Rhodopé's wine-purples mix snow with the moonlight. Oh, 'twas gall</div>
<div class="verse">Amid the horror of it all that Bulgars thought us lunatics,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Or worse; for ever at our flank a stream, that in my nostrils stank,</div>
<div class="verse">Seethed; and amid the best of her the scum of Europe wenched and drank.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">At last we halted where Constantinople's grandeur puts to scorn</div>
<div class="verse">The villaged west, and challenges the Orient on her Golden Horn.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Ah, brazen, were your heart as strong as looked your square-chinned ramparts.... Long</div>
<div class="verse">We waited at the gates in dust knee-deep. The Emperor did not trust</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The help that he had craved. He swore he had not asked so many ... more</div>
<div class="verse">Would ruin him.... He let the heat suck out our strength at every pore.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But we were told great noblemen, Godfrey of Bouillon in Ardennes,</div>
<div class="verse">Robert of Flanders, "Sword and Lance of Christians," all the flower of France</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Were on our side, Hugh Vermandois, Stephen of Chartres and Troyes and Blois,</div>
<div class="verse">Baldwin and Raymond of Toulouse. The preacher said we could not lose.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Moreover he had spoken with angel-reserves behind us, sith</div>
<div class="verse">They sent assurance (Saracens we mocked, but had our own <i>Hadith</i>)</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">That we should root the heathen out, and blight as with a ten years' drought</div>
<div class="verse">Their fields. Jehovah willed that we should leave no seed of theirs to sprout.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our mates streamed in from lands beyond the Adriatic, Bohemond</div>
<div class="verse">With Tancred; strait Dalmatian bays, Epirus, Scodra, devious ways</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Bore them with boastful tales of sport and plunder, and a vague report</div>
<div class="verse">That this was nothing to the spoil that beckoned from the Moslem court.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Henceforth impatient ups and downs possessed us. Asiatic towns</div>
<div class="verse">Flamed to the general vision. We heard less perhaps of heavenly crowns</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Than flowers and peacocks made of gems, the Caliph's crusted diadems</div>
<div class="verse">That crushed the head like Guthlac's bell, and trees with solid emerald stems.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I confess Christ counted less to us than tales of leash and gess,</div>
<div class="verse">Or Hárún-el-Rashíd's largesse that sent the clock to Charlemagne.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We practised sums, and tried to train our cavalry in loss and gain.</div>
<div class="verse">Upon the misty wizard-world rose like a star the money-brain.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Even monks planned theft of saintly scalps; stray hairs and chips of nail and chine,</div>
<div class="verse">Divinely shielded through the Alps, would make the fortune of the Rhine.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I often tried to hide myself from this besetting spook of pelf.</div>
<div class="verse">In olive-groves I called in vain to simple faun and acorn-elf.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I pictured kine that kissed their own reflections on the impulsive Rhone,</div>
<div class="verse">A little maid with sunflower hair, a nest we found ... the birds had flown.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I think Alexius was wise to keep us out. Our hungry eyes</div>
<div class="verse">Fixed on his capital. Why go farther when here were rich supplies?</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The Pope that cursed our tastes had laid the hand of blessing on this raid.</div>
<div class="verse">Blest chance indeed—as though a man should drink his fill and then be paid!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Each set to whet his falchion-pet that only friends had tasted yet.</div>
<div class="verse">We dressed our hopes in purple silk, wallowed in dreamland's wine and milk.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Yet more than any Sultan's spoil fair women should repay our toil.</div>
<div class="verse">Already some were filled with thoughts that our red cross was meant to foil.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The notion twinged us. We compared our prospects with the way we fared</div>
<div class="verse">On these lean suburbs and the flats about Barbyses. We were snared!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The very Greeks, whose prayers had lured us into this adventure, lodged</div>
<div class="verse">Their saviours in a baited trap. Lord, how these foxes turned and dodged.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">There lay our army like a log; our camp, our tenets, turned to bog.</div>
<div class="verse">We sank. Disorder brought disease that stalked us spectral through the fog.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The Greeks we came to bolster up against their weakness filled our cup</div>
<div class="verse">With turpitude; the Byzantine put Circe's poison in our wine.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our aspirations all became mean as our hosts; the inner flame</div>
<div class="verse">Went out. From many a starting-point we found a common ground in shame;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For here no soul can keep its health, but cat-like honour creeps by stealth</div>
<div class="verse">Down side streets where the children breathe an atmosphere of rotting wealth.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Between our fellow-churches rose the hate that heaven had meant for foes....</div>
<div class="verse">The infidel might well have laughed. Perhaps he did. We came to blows.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I was sad that Christians had nothing in common, saving bad</div>
<div class="verse">Blood, that our highest dizziest heads could all divide but none could add.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But when spring lit the Judas-trees our chieftains kissed the Emperor's knees.</div>
<div class="verse">We crossed to Asia sick at heart. Alexius kept us well apart,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Shuffling us o'er the Bosphorus. The number and the rank of us</div>
<div class="verse">Exceeded those who went to Troy for Helen the Adulterous.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">On the Bithynian plain our force drew up: an hundred thousand horse</div>
<div class="verse">With foot and monks and womankind in crowds that none can call to mind.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Fear stuffed the empty space ahead with devils and the shapes of dread</div>
<div class="verse">That decked our church. A ghastly rush of loneliness made every head</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Feel like a pinpoint. Discontent ran through the score of nations blent</div>
<div class="verse">In cries. Their ribald spokesman forced a drunkard's way to Godfrey's tent:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4 italic">You that have led us through the many tests</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Of Hungary, King Caloman, and Thrace,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Who think of kingdoms as of palimpsests</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">And human nature as a carapace,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Go up and prosper in your lofty chase!</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">We cannot live on barren mountain-crests.</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Our wildest dreams are prisoners that pace</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The little space between a woman's breasts.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Here lies the stronghold that our zeal invests,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">This infidel alone we long to face.</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">This hollow, where our constant fancy nests,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Is more to us than pedestal and dais.</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Nay, we will go no farther in the race</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">For gain, respond no more to mean behests.</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">We know our cause, and reverently embrace</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The little space between a woman's breasts.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4 italic">It is our holy land, and we, the guests</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Of passion, brand all other hosts as base.</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">The bees have led us to their treasure-chests,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">A foxglove-sceptre and an hyacinth-mace,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">The meadow's fleeting broidery and lace.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Their heaven like ours is nigh to vulgar jests.</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">A blossom's goal and glory is to grace</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The little space between a woman's breasts.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Prince, be content and choose your resting-place,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Ere we be all forgotten with our quests,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">And this thin earth go crumbling into space,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The little space between a woman's breasts.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Thereat was scandal, and a priest exclaimed that man was half a beast.</div>
<div class="verse">I could have told him that before. Man was the half I like the least.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To obviate a sinful fate the monks laid on us many weeks</div>
<div class="verse">Of penance, wasting us the more with these inventions of the Greeks.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Some paid in cash, some chose the lash—their backs were pitiful to see—</div>
<div class="verse">While Bishop Adhémar of Puy recited magic formulæ</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">That lurched us forward to our doom. We cleft the sultanate of Roum,</div>
<div class="verse">Calling for bread. The peasants fled. We swept the country like a broom.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our armed migration choked the road. It ran ahead, a stream that flowed</div>
<div class="verse">Uphill to glory, so it seemed; and so imagination strode—</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">O Jack o' lantern!—into the unknown. The Virgin on a silver throne,</div>
<div class="verse">Our leaders swore, went on before us. I saw nothing but the Rhone,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The impulsive Rhone that tumbles down, and breaks clean through the grey-walled town.</div>
<div class="verse">I heard it rustle in its bed where others heard the Virgin's gown.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I blamed the foeman for my thirst, for sandstorm, flies, heat, scurvy—cursed</div>
<div class="verse">Them. Piles of grievance fumed until the red fire kindled. Madness burst</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">All bounds, and capered in the glare that wrapped us round like Nessus' shirt.</div>
<div class="verse">Each day 'twas there with yards to spare, and would not tear. How blue can hurt!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">In my delirium I smelt a mirage, heard the swallows skim</div>
<div class="verse">Above the reeds where angels knelt with envious eyes to watch me swim.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The preacher said Jehovah's cloud and pillar would go with us. Yea,</div>
<div class="verse">The sky was on our heads alway. The sun rose up and cried aloud,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And stood immobilized at noon. We wondered if at Ajalon</div>
<div class="verse">The Jews thanked Joshua for the boon of this divine phenomenon.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We came to Nice and formed a siege with tortoise, belfry, catapult,</div>
<div class="verse">And curse that brought even less result. Each lordling quarrelled with his liege,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Layman with priest, until the place surrendered, and again we lurched</div>
<div class="verse">Forward. I heard our name was made. I only saw how it was smirched.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My master clasped a small, soiled glove, and promised deeds for love's sweet sake</div>
<div class="verse">That took my breath, as though his death would please The Burr. I lay awake</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">All night afraid to cry for fright. I tried my best to be full-grown,</div>
<div class="verse">A child now loth to be alone. My misery was all my own.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I well recall our knights' first charge. It was as though a loaded barge</div>
<div class="verse">Should seek to crush a dancing skiff. The foe was small, the plain was large.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our men returned with horses spent. It seemed the Turkish cowards meant</div>
<div class="verse">To harry, not oppose. Sometimes we caught them full, and down they went.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Strange that within so short a space I felt the strong effects of grace!</div>
<div class="verse">The preaching man upon his ass called it a miracle. It was.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I, polishing my master's helmet, also longed to overwhelm</div>
<div class="verse">The miscreants, to hew in bits the devil and his earthly realm.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A boy's high spirits, weariness, a heart impulsive as the Rhone,</div>
<div class="verse">The wish to get this business done, the thought of little Sunflower-tress—</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A flower beside The Burr, and "Why, if knights sing rubbish, should not I?"—</div>
<div class="verse">The preaching man's persistence, these stirred me to action by degrees.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We had our fill at Dorylæum. Our rogues were Paladins. We won,</div>
<div class="verse">And weighed our booty by the ton. That night we chanted a Te Deum,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A myriad voices in the dark; they rose like one colossal lark</div>
<div class="verse">Ere dawn. My soul flew up with them to see the new Jerusalem</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And spite my tutor. I was mad to be a fighting-man, would pad</div>
<div class="verse">My arms like muscles. So my lord took me to foray. I was glad.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I had one thought: my hands were wet. That angered me: my mouth was dry.</div>
<div class="verse">I had one fear: I might forget my master's silly battle-cry.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Belike 'twas well no foe would stand—our cavaliers were out of hand—</div>
<div class="verse">So I was baulked. With scarce a blow we filed across the wasted land</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For leagues, till Baldwin turned aside, and out of Peradventure carved</div>
<div class="verse">His slice, Edessa. We were plied to march on Antioch half-starved.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For seven months sheer courage toiled to take the town. Its ramparts foiled</div>
<div class="verse">Our engines. Sulkiness sat down within us, and temptation coiled</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Tight round our bodies; every vice was lurking like a cockatrice.</div>
<div class="verse">Ah, flesh can never quite repel the sinuous things which thoughts entice.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">You honey-coloured Syrian girls, whose voices turned our knights to thirls,</div>
<div class="verse">I looked away and stopped my ears by thinking of the glossier merles</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">At home. The arm upheld by Hur had not sufficed him to deter</div>
<div class="verse">The dissipation of our force, alas. My lord deceived The Burr.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">'Twas worse when treachery let us in. Blood, lechery, pillage, fire and din</div>
<div class="verse">Burned an impression on my mind: the sexual ugliness of sin.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Cool Bohemond called Antioch his. Ere we had killed our mutineers,</div>
<div class="verse">We the besiegers were besieged by Kurbugha and his Amírs.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Alternate famine and carouse brought plague; but doubtless God allows</div>
<div class="verse">Expensive trials of faith that we might learn the magic formulæ.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We melted, melted; kites were fed upon us, dogs ran dripping red</div>
<div class="verse">From piles of nameless carrion, the race that Europe might have bred.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Throughout our ranks desertion raged by daily sermons unassuaged.</div>
<div class="verse">The preaching man was first in this "rope-dancing." Disillusion aged</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My youth by years. My master stayed. If he had erred he promptly paid.</div>
<div class="verse">The pestilence ran after him. Despite the fervour I displayed</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He died of sores, this prince of tilt, though guarded by ten hallowed charms,</div>
<div class="verse">This subject of all <i>trouvère</i>-lilt, lord in an hundred ladies' arms.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Oh, how I struggled to be brave when the Pope's legate, grey and grim,</div>
<div class="verse">Said simply this beside the grave: "Christ died for you. You died for Him."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Only his jester seemed to care, and ceased awhile to swear and daff.</div>
<div class="verse">"Who," he repeated in despair, "will pay me for his epitaph?"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Poor friend, this alien hungry land</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Has closed her lips upon her prey.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The tree is spoiled into her hand;</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">She sucks the brook's thin veins away.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">A sterner voice than bade you come</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">To reap the tears that exiles sow</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Has called you to her longer home,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">That neither bids nor lets you go.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Seven times you baulked her lawless laws,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">And foiled the customs of the year;</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">But Death defends the tyrant's cause,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">And makes the silent court his lair.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The lease of life, that none can own,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Is written on her agent's roll;</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">And from the desert and the sown</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">He takes a harsh and equal toll,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">High-handed, scorning code or text.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">No hope the debtor's gaol unlocks.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">A friend appeals? He is the next</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">To occupy the narrow box.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The witness cowers, pale with fear,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">When Death the stalker passes by;</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">And only prays he may not hear</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">That ugly sound—a victim's cry.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">One weeps; his eyes are wet as long</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">As on Death's hand the blood is wet.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">He says: "The King can do no wrong!"</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">And craves permission to forget.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">How briefly to an echo clings</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">The memory of these solemn days,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The thought of those tremendous things</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">That Death implies but never says.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">An hour ago we laid you down.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">The tender, tardy autumn rain</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Is dried within the dusty town,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">And we are at our rounds again.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">With every round our spirits sank in bodies lean and members lank.</div>
<div class="verse">I saw the soul of man, a cave, a wick that smouldered and smelled rank.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Men's fluid facts may wash the grime from pictures of a distant time,</div>
<div class="verse">But I can paint the truth in one small touch: our poets ceased to rhyme.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Such was the army's hopelessness. I understood, who once had seen</div>
<div class="verse">Our fading gardener rouse himself to kick and curse the wolf-cub, Life.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I would not let my feet desert, but oh the woods—the woods of home</div>
<div class="verse">That bent and beckoned in the damp zephyr in vain! I could not stoop</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To play false in an enterprise however mad, if once begun.</div>
<div class="verse">Besides another miracle was wrought in me. I was in love.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I was enamoured of dear Christ; His utter beauty struck me dumb,</div>
<div class="verse">His face alone could compensate for scenes that almost made me long</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For blindness. Yea, to Him I turned from all this heartache, nightly kissed</div>
<div class="verse">His hand with passion. I at least would not betray the children's Friend.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Haply His strength has always lain in contrast. I found strength to press</div>
<div class="verse">Toward the mark. Not so the host: we could not kick it to its feet.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Then heaven inspired us to devise a pious fraud—The Holy Lance.</div>
<div class="verse">We hid it in Saint Peter's crypt, and dug it up. The people wept</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">With rapture at this talisman, and sang the Psalm "Let God arise."</div>
<div class="verse">Also our chiefs—they knew my zeal—bade me complete the heartening sign.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">White-plumed, white-horsed, with golden shield and halo, I contrived to appear</div>
<div class="verse">On the horizon, waved my sword while Adhémar proclaimed Saint George.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our men responded with a shout. Through the five gates they tumbled out,</div>
<div class="verse">An headlong torrent. In a trice the infidel was put to rout,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I joined in to hack and prod. Pure Tancred praised me with a nod.</div>
<div class="verse">Ascetic Godfrey even spoke to me: "Lad, you belong to God."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I won my spurs. They <i>made</i> me proud. Before my sword the wizards bowed,</div>
<div class="verse">Though me they washed. In vigil and fast I joined the perfect order, vowed</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To hold my manhood chaste, to gird on might with right and courtesy,</div>
<div class="verse">To speak the truth, and so to be at variance with the common herd.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Such loftiness a man can feel once in a flash: strong arms, clean hands</div>
<div class="verse">That forged us into iron bands to unify the world with steel.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But as I left the altar daft with the ambition I had quaffed—</div>
<div class="verse">A word can kill a century—one of my perfect brothers laughed:</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">I took the vow of virtue</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">As others take to vice.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">I could not break my heart of you.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Men call that sacrifice.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The priests applauded nature.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Poor devil, she was loth</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Enough. The love of God and you</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Has made me hate you both.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I was sad that Christians, clad in robes so dazzling, were not glad</div>
<div class="verse">To keep them spotless from the world, and give the Virgin all they had.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Yet I was racked by continence of all we rightly rank as sense.</div>
<div class="verse">I hungered for the Sunflower-tress that now my lips would never press.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I wrenched and wrestled to believe that God had sent us here to grieve</div>
<div class="verse">Our bodies with this fruitlessness, that only fakirs could achieve</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">His purpose. Then in blind revolt my soul like an unbroken colt</div>
<div class="verse">Ran round and round an empty field. The hedge was thick. I could not bolt,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Though one poor knight on stiffened knee revealed beneath his breath to me</div>
<div class="verse">His thoughts on women while the monks recited magic formulæ.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I sought for solace in renown. Men watched me swagger through the town</div>
<div class="verse">The youngest knight in Christendom. When women passed I tried to frown.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A year I suffered in this way before the wreck of our array</div>
<div class="verse">Would undertake the final march. My soul was saved by movement. May</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Was with us, when my tutor closed his wintry Juvenal and posed</div>
<div class="verse">Mid nightingales to quote and kiss the <i>Pervigilium Veneris</i>.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I drove his authors from my head, and read Augustin hard instead;</div>
<div class="verse">But sap was mounting in my veins and western groves where finches wed.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To these no sound of sapphire seas, no stunted firs of Lebanon,</div>
<div class="verse">Not Tyrian dyes nor Tripoli's loud yellows deafened. We ran on</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Through landmarks famed in Holy Writ, Emmaus, Bethlehem ... at last</div>
<div class="verse">We saw the walls of Zion lit blood-red by sunset and the past.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The conquest of another world unfurled beneath our feet, the land</div>
<div class="verse">Of miracle and mystery lay as a bauble in our hand.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Men flung their caps up, feigned a swoon. With prostrate lines of us the moon</div>
<div class="verse">Drew silver circles round the site. A cock crowed—many hours too soon.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We thought to prise the gates ajar. My tutor wrote their private Lar</div>
<div class="verse">Or else—with Tacitus—their folk designed them for eternal war.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The moat was wide; we feebly tried to stop its gape with pebbles, cried</div>
<div class="verse">"Fall, Jericho!" The blessèd wall stood firm; but Christ was on our side.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The Church had saved Him from His wan repute and thrust Him in our van,</div>
<div class="verse">Bronzed, scarred. Alas, the first crusade had made Him out a fighting man!</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He taught the Turks to mock Giaours!... sent timely Genoese to build</div>
<div class="verse">Wheeled wooden turrets. These we filled brimful. Jerusalem was ours.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We entered reverent, barefoot; slew three livelong nights and mornings through,</div>
<div class="verse">Then paused to sing a thanksgiving. We massacred the morrow too.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I was glad a Christian lad could boast of some small suffering <i>ad</i></div>
<div class="verse"><i>Majorem Dei gloriam</i>. I only longed to burn Baghdad.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Nay, I can say I never hid to chamber as my fellows did.</div>
<div class="verse">I felt my conscience clear as frost, and touched no woman—God forbid.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I set my contrite soul apart with mass, procession, penance, rites</div>
<div class="verse">That took me out to see the sights, brushing ecstatic lanes athwart</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The quiddering mob with tears of joy—my tutor's phrase was οἱ πολλοὶ [Greek: hoi polloi]—</div>
<div class="verse">Though few were left. Some Greeks of ours confused Jerusalem with Troy.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But most the bestial German louts made even their hardest allies sick;</div>
<div class="verse">They ran to mutilate the quick and sniff the dead with joyous snouts.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Shriven, forgiven, we embraced each stone that Christ had touched, and placed</div>
<div class="verse">Such relics under treble guard. One note in our rejoicings jarred.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">It seemed some types of Jewish dog escaped the flaming synagogue,</div>
<div class="verse">And their ingratitude was base. They joined to form a wailing-place.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I heard them as I roamed among blind alleys dark and overhung</div>
<div class="verse">By one-eyed dens. With whining nose against the wall the pack gave tongue:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Behold Thy people, Lord, a race of mourners.</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Through this Thy sacred dwelling-place they creep</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Like strangers. Hearken, Lord, in holes and corners</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">We sit alone and weep.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">For Thy decree, most terrible and holy,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">That as the fathers sow the sons shall reap,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">For all Thy just affliction of the lowly,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">We sit alone and weep.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">For all the glory that is now departed,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">For all the stones that Thou hast made an heap,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Yea, for the city of the broken-hearted,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">We sit alone and weep.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">For all the wealth wherewith Thou hadst endowed her,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">For all our shepherds gone astray like sheep,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">For all Thy temple's jewels ground to powder,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">We sit alone and weep.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Because our soul is chastened as with lashes,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Because Thine anger like a stormy deep</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Goes over us, in sackcloth and in ashes</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">We sit alone and weep.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Nobody gave them heed; indeed each man was thinking how to speed</div>
<div class="verse">His interests, and if the prey would satisfy ambition or need.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To honest minds with zeal imbued the Pope's indulgence, their own merit</div>
<div class="verse">Bestowed some licence to be lewd, and take—their preachers said "inherit."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Even I who was in love with Christ, I with the conscience clean and cold</div>
<div class="verse">That hankered not for lands or gold, was wondering how to clinch my hold</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">On reputation, while our chiefs, before we could consolidate,</div>
<div class="verse">Rode a great wallop round the State and split it into petty fiefs.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Their overlords revolted me. Alas, for our brief unity!</div>
<div class="verse">Edessa snarled at Antioch, Jerusalem at Tripoli.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Poor Godfrey, who would not accept a crown where his Redeemer wore</div>
<div class="verse">Thorns, nor be strong where Jesus wept! From the beginning weakness crept</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Into our councils. Worse, we watched the bulk of our brave lads disperse</div>
<div class="verse">Well-pleased. At most we raised the ghost of needful power to hold their post.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Franks and Provincials, German brutes that bullied babes and prostitutes,</div>
<div class="verse">Lombards and Flemings, made for home with clapping and the sound of flutes.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">It flowed away, the unstable stuff, to whom a cause was but a noun.</div>
<div class="verse">They stood to sea. Thank heaven 'twas rough! My place was here with my renown.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">They vanished ... home ... to Sunflower-tress ... home, where a man may die obscure!</div>
<div class="verse">Far off a carle of Albemarle trolled chanties like a Siren's lure.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">East, are you calling still,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Who tried your strength of will</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">For naught on brown Ulysses long ago?</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">We have an island too,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">And haul away from you</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">To cleaner kin that bend a stronger bow.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Your caravans string out</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">On many a golden route</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">The turbaned Magi's offerings; but we</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Steer forth on loner trails</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Through rough wind-scented vales</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">To England, the oasis of the sea.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Child Jesus chose you, East,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Not that He loved us least,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">But just because His Father had foreseen</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">The dear and only Son</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Might dwell too long upon</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Our swinging greys and many-coloured green.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">So we were left alone. The spring broke out in buds of bickering.</div>
<div class="verse">Each summer brought contentious fruit. Strife waxed with every waning king.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I waxed also, better known, resolved to reap what I had sown.</div>
<div class="verse">My childless manhood fixed my heart. The Holy Land was all my own.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I grew in grace with man—I hoped with God; from Beersheba to Dan</div>
<div class="verse">I went about my Father's work. Faith could not shirk what Faith began.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Sometimes qualms came. I looked askance on Bishop Daimbert's schemes to enhance</div>
<div class="verse">His seat. The native Christians sighed they missed the Caliph's tolerance.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Not that had hurt me, but the void which love will make if unemployed.</div>
<div class="verse">I spent my strength to keep him quiet, and free the thoughts that he decoyed,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Till woods and Rhone were out of range. I often wondered at the change</div>
<div class="verse">In nature's child, in me. The formulæ were there. "God's ways are strange."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Yet in my struggle with the powers of darkness I recalled the showers</div>
<div class="verse">Of light that fought the undergrowth to catch the singing of the flowers.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Time passed, and no one seemed to reck of Zenghi, the first Atabek,</div>
<div class="verse">Though every year we failed to act the Saracens grew more compact.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">In vain I urged that we might fall, so slender was our human wall,</div>
<div class="verse">So numberless the foe beside the Templars and the Hospital.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The answer was that dyke and fosse were useless when we had the Cross,</div>
<div class="verse">With other relics by the score, to guard against defeat or loss.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My prophecies of coming ills fell on deaf ears and weakly wills.</div>
<div class="verse">I did my best. You know I did, who saw me peer beyond the hills</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Where Karak like a lighthouse loomed at waves of sand that never spumed,</div>
<div class="verse">The tideless main, an ocean-plain bare, petrified. Its silence boomed.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I saw in all that vastitude, the one, the drab, the many-hued,</div>
<div class="verse">No sign of life, no moving speck; and yet I knew that trouble brewed.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I tortured every hour to find material things to prop behind—</div>
<div class="verse">Forgive me, God!—Your earthly realm. The need was great, for it was blind.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The mathematics of Abul Hassan, three hundred years at school</div>
<div class="verse">In Arabic philosophy, showed that the West was still a fool.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Nay, gently, call her still a babe. How should she know that I, the Great,</div>
<div class="verse">Had learned from savages to prate of compass and of astrolabe.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our miracles were not so sure to heal as Rhazes' simplest cure.</div>
<div class="verse">His friends the moon and stars obeyed the rules that Abul Wafa made.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My stolen lore raised me above my fellows. Everything but love</div>
<div class="verse">Was mine, respect, authority. The jealous Churchmen dared not move.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our infant realm could not dispense with me, its shield and main defence.</div>
<div class="verse">I knew the Damascene recipe for making steel, and made it cheap.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My mind was fertile in resorts. I spent the pilgrims' fees on forts,</div>
<div class="verse">And settled, for their skill in trade, Venetian slavers at our ports.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Howbeit I trembled lest our main enthusiasm should be for gain.</div>
<div class="verse">I stripped myself to work against the working of the money-brain.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I was glad I passed for mad and single-eyed as Galahad.</div>
<div class="verse">I sacrificed in saving Christ the profit that I might have had.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Nothing that I could do availed. My tongue grew bitter, girded, railed.</div>
<div class="verse">My labour only builded Me, but not the kingdom. So I failed.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our Viscounts could but show their gums, while from Aleppo, Hama, Homs,</div>
<div class="verse">The foe crept onward like the months, culling our conquests like ripe plums.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For all response in Chastel Blanc and towering Markab-of-the-Sea</div>
<div class="verse">Some clerkly knight in red-crossed white recited magic formulæ;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Then darkly hinted science, hell and I were leagued, because their spell</div>
<div class="verse">Would not or could not stave the blow that I foresaw. Edessa fell.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Curse our degenerate Poullains! The breed had need of spurs not reins.</div>
<div class="verse">To stand an empty sack upright was easier than to warm their veins</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Save with amours. One night I knelt to pray; but on the battlement</div>
<div class="verse">Hard by a lordling twanged a harp. I smelt the bastard's eastern scent.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He thought his leman lay behind my casement, where the jasmin twined</div>
<div class="verse">And almost jingled.... Oh the woods at home and whitethroats calling blind!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Suppose you left that window and came down</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">To meet me. Do not turn away.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Also you need not frown.</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">I only say:</div>
<div class="verse indent12 italic">"Suppose."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Suppose—you are a woman of resource—</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">The fastenings of your door undone.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">No! They are not.... Of course!</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">But, just for fun,</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Suppose.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Suppose that—safe among the trees below</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">The terraces—you chanced to find ...</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Impossible!... I know,</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">But never mind.</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Suppose.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Suppose that—being there—an eager arm</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Drew you towards the little dell....</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Why redden? Where's the harm?</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">You might as well</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Suppose....</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Suppose that, bending over you, a man</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Breathed words of which you knew the gist.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Suppose it!... Yes, you can....</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">No, I insist....</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Suppose!</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Suppose you shut the window? Now? Pray do,</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">And take a lonely night to learn</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">This tune shut in with you.</div>
<div class="verse indent8 italic">Till I return,</div>
<div class="verse indent10 italic">Suppose....</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Then I peeped out. Some breath divine had made his face, compared with mine,</div>
<div class="verse">An angel's. Love with all its faults had set there our Creator's sign.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">That shook me. One of us was wrong. Which? He or I? His soul was vexed</div>
<div class="verse">Neither by this world nor the next, but floated in a bubble of song.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">It haunted me, as he had said; it chimed and rhymed about my bed.</div>
<div class="verse">It filled my head with Sunflower-tress; but she—I writhed—was old or dead.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Was all my suffering a waste? Had superstition wed me chaste</div>
<div class="verse">To Its effect? Was this my Cause? My tutor in the dark grimaced.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I saw him snug at home, and how he would have chuckled at my vow!</div>
<div class="verse">Well, who laughs last.... I pictured him a dotard or in hell by now.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I prayed for help all night; and, warned by lost Edessa, Baldwin made</div>
<div class="verse">Great efforts to placate our God. The answer was a fresh crusade.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">This was an answer none could doubt. We heard a preacher more devout</div>
<div class="verse">Than ours was quartering the west, and pulling true believers out.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He hight Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the home of light and miracles.</div>
<div class="verse">The wives and mothers trembled so before his spirit's tentacles,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">They hid their males—in vain. He swept the Emperor Conrad with him, kept</div>
<div class="verse">The collar of his pale adept, emasculated Louis Sept.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He cured King's Evils, raised the dead, he cast out devils by the gross.</div>
<div class="verse">'Twas said he promised us twelve legions of angels.... From the darkest regions</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Men flocked to Metz and Ratisbon. News came of more than half a million,</div>
<div class="verse">Not counting those that rode apillion. Our battle was as good as won.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Such glorious news might well inflame our hopes. We waited. Nothing came,</div>
<div class="verse">Not even light Turcopuli nor Conrad's Golden-footed Dame.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our Poullains first began to whine; the fainthearts said the fault was mine.</div>
<div class="verse">Saint Bernard was the oracle of Europe, I of Palestine.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And nothing came ... no troops.... The Greek misled, starved, poisoned, murdered them,</div>
<div class="verse">Betrayed them to the Turk, whose bleak deserts went over them. Week by week</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">We waited. Nothing. Cadmus saw them cut to bits, Attalia's maw</div>
<div class="verse">Could not be sated with their ruck. King Louis' mind had just one flaw:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He would not hear of strategy, staked all on supernatural help.</div>
<div class="verse">And nothing came, and nothing came. Our half-bred curs began to yelp</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"Good God, if truly God is good!" They kissed the Cross. Gems hid the wood.</div>
<div class="verse">Had He forgotten? Was He deaf? Could such things be? Who understood?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Not I, though I had kept my word to save the Lamb by fire and sword.</div>
<div class="verse">And after twelve long lustra spent in service this was my reward.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Louis and Conrad struggled through one day with some small retinue.</div>
<div class="verse">I watched. Almost I could foretell what they and Providence would do.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I remember, as we fared, a Sufi—so the sect is named—</div>
<div class="verse">Sat by the road as though he cared no jot for us, while he declaimed:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Her home is in the heart of spaciousness,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">In the mid-city of ideals. The site</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Is harmony, the walls are made of light.</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">There with the mother-thoughts she stands to bless</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">The godlike sons sent forth with her caress</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">To make new worlds. I see them all unite</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Into the whole that our most starry flight</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Of worship knew far off, and strove to express.</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">What can we do for her? We run to ask</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">As restless children for a grown-up task,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">While wisdom in the porch, their kind old host,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">Smiles at nurse nature, and replies: The most,</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">The least that we can do for Beauty is</div>
<div class="verse indent2 italic">To love for love's sake and serve God for His.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But Conrad drove his lance in jest right through the ragamuffin's chest,</div>
<div class="verse">Because his creed was not as ours; and on we rode. I lost my zest.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To take Damascus was our plan, relying on a talisman.</div>
<div class="verse">I knew that this would not suffice, for I was still a fighting man.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">It ended in repulse and shame. Saint Bernard proved we were to blame</div>
<div class="verse">For want of faith. Ah, some of us had had too much. We said the same</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Of him. At our return thick mobs of women filled the church with bobs</div>
<div class="verse">And bows, poor puppets, trying hard to sing between their stifled sobs:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4 italic">God, whose Son has fathomed sorrow,</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">Give a mother strength to say:</div>
<div class="verse indent4 italic">Mine has faced and found To-morrow.</div>
<div class="verse indent6 italic">I will try to face To-day.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">They turned to me. They thought me wise because I had been led by lies</div>
<div class="verse">To blind myself to them; and now I saw things through a woman's eyes,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I went out. Not yet the end. Since innocence alone could save,</div>
<div class="verse">Saints hit on infant infantry, and fifty thousand found the grave.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My gorge rose, yet I stopped my ears. I had no hope, but I was tarred</div>
<div class="verse">With fame too much to show my fears. My duty lay in dying hard.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Oh irony! That fame increased the more its robes were patched and pieced.</div>
<div class="verse">My whole ambition was fulfilled when power and confidence had ceased.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The women kissed my feet, my horse; they clung to me like my remorse.</div>
<div class="verse">I that set out to make the world had made myself believe by force.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Nay, I that knew we were reprieved at best, had I in truth believed?</div>
<div class="verse">My youth came back. I seemed to meet my tutor's sneer in every street.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Fate cursed us with three minor kings, a leper then. Against these Things</div>
<div class="verse">Salah-ad-Din combined the entire orient. I wished our fate had wings</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Instead of feet to end our dumb, keen, futile questionings, to numb</div>
<div class="verse">The brain that binds us with the chain of kingdom go and kingdom come.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">One of our knights for plunder's sake undid us, roused the foe who brake</div>
<div class="verse">In through the pass of Banias, cutting our lands in two like cake.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The hour was here, but not the man. That murderer Guy de Lusignan</div>
<div class="verse">Was sent to head our fight for life. The craven took for talisman</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Me</span> and my hundred years, alas, a relic of the man I was.</div>
<div class="verse">I toiled to still our private feuds. We marched upon Tiberias,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For none would listen when I urged our leaders to await attack.</div>
<div class="verse">We marched across the waterless inferno. Summer burnt us black.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The Moslems scorched us with Greek fire. As rain upon a funeral pyre</div>
<div class="verse">Their arrows hissed in sheets upon the smoking scrub. "Go on!" "Retire!"</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Our rabble cried, starting aside like broken bows; they tried to hide,</div>
<div class="verse">Split, fled for refuge to a hill, did nothing while the Templars died.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">When all was lost I cut my way out through the thicket of the fray,</div>
<div class="verse">And galloped for Jerusalem to adjure Guy's Queen to stand at bay.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">In this last desperate passage each proud noble still opposed his friend.</div>
<div class="verse">A little while and we were penned, and yet a little while a breach</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Was made. Jehovah's chosen seat was tottering, but no Paraclete</div>
<div class="verse">Came down to comfort us. I made some sallies. Then the Queen would treat.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Perhaps in our appeal for ruth my wording stumbled on the truth,</div>
<div class="verse">"One God that went by many names," or else I knew Him in my youth,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Or else that Sufi haunted me with something that I could not see,</div>
<div class="verse">Something that only had not been because we would not let it be.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And when the foe marched in, I own that I was thinking of the Rhone</div>
<div class="verse">Long, long ago, and wondering—a child once more—if it had grown.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Yet there remained the sharpest cup to drain: the moan of us went up,</div>
<div class="verse">When from the topmost dome was hurled the Sign that should have ruled the world.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Down, down it rumbled with our grand designs. All we had built or planned,</div>
<div class="verse">Toiled, bled for, crumbled at a touch, was ruined like a house of sand.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">So soon we pass. The wind knows why. The efforts of a century,</div>
<div class="verse">Three generations' handiwork failed in the twinkling of an eye.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And I was sad to think that shadows occupy us all. I had</div>
<div class="verse">No hope of earth. What boots a toy that thinks its maker raving mad?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My soul had passed through every phase and, counting forty thousand days,</div>
<div class="verse">Was farther off than at the start from comprehending heaven's ways</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Or bowing to them. I came nearest when I pressed my childish ear</div>
<div class="verse">Earthward through briar and bramble bowers to catch the singing of the flowers.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The last remains of faith were shaken when I, the oracle, was taken.</div>
<div class="verse">My pride was made to sleep in chains. I prayed that I might never waken,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">But woke. They gave me to a <i>rais</i> who wanted cattle, not advice.</div>
<div class="verse">He flogged me down to Damietta. I was old and fetched no price.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Nathless my battling heart was brave enough to work me till I dropped.</div>
<div class="verse">I passed for twopence to a Copt who sold me as a galley-slave</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">To Muscat. In the rhythmic stroke, old, undefeated, gnarled as oak</div>
<div class="verse">I creaked and strained against my fate, until that Sufi-something broke.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">'Twas not my heart. An inner morn put the dark age in me to scorn,</div>
<div class="verse">And in the light I found myself, a child at play with worlds unborn,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For all that I had thought and read, and fought and watched the world be led</div>
<div class="verse">By any who contrived to cut a knot with that blunt tool, the head.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I laughed to think how sparrows might look down upon our highest flight,</div>
<div class="verse">While each succeeding age would have its oracle or stagyrite,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Would trace the good we never did, the evil that we never saw,</div>
<div class="verse">And out of our blind pyramid extract a stepping-stone to Law.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Here, where ambition had to cease in servitude, I tasted peace,</div>
<div class="verse">Free of illusion stretched and yawned. A fool would clamour for release.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I make the rowers' bench a throne to think, and thought implies Alone,</div>
<div class="verse">Of changing woods and endless streams. My happiness is all my own.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And often, when my mates deplore a brother who shall row no more,</div>
<div class="verse">I talk about my wolf-cub, Life. They think I speak in metaphor.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">They gather round me all agog, they think a chronicle and log</div>
<div class="verse">Of Progress lies in withered hands. Their cry is for an epilogue.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Has aught been drafted yet? A blot, an echo void and polyglot.</div>
<div class="verse">Each century is written off as preface. Yes, most true.... Of what?</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">My gathered weight had held me bound to find for every fog a ground,</div>
<div class="verse">For every riddle a reply, an end to Being that goes round.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Now I can say, I do not know if there will be a book at all,</div>
<div class="verse">Or if the deepest chapters go beyond some writing on the wall,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Though wiser worlds will yet embark, sworn to eclipse our sorry trades,</div>
<div class="verse">Succeed, and leave their little mark: a dynasty of thought that fades,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Fresh undergrowths of formulæ. Through these no <i>human</i> eye can see</div>
<div class="verse">The open glade—the <i>last</i> crusade, in which Jerusalem might be</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The symbol of all peopled space, and Time an emblem of the day</div>
<div class="verse">On which the nations march as one to liberate and not to slay.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">A story has no finish when it leads to nowhere out of ken?</div>
<div class="verse">O friend, the lack of knowledge brings wisdom within the reach of men;</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">For whether hope can ever fit the future matters not a whit.</div>
<div class="verse">My duty is to tug my oar—so long as I am chained to it.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX<br />
FUSION</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">It was fulfilled. The giant <i>dhow</i> bestirred</div>
<div class="verse">Herself, burst from her slender moorings, ran</div>
<div class="verse">Exulting on her course beyond the green</div>
<div class="verse">Thin shallows to the deeper violet</div>
<div class="verse">Of that great gem wherein the continents</div>
<div class="verse">Are flaws. With creaking oars and fluttering sails</div>
<div class="verse">The wingèd ghost swept outward. On the prow</div>
<div class="verse">Unveiled the Queen stood whiter than the sails,</div>
<div class="verse">And save the revelation made no sign;</div>
<div class="verse">And all the sound of singing was brought low.</div>
<div class="verse">Then, as the vision vanished in the hushed</div>
<div class="verse">Twilight that painted out the caravan,</div>
<div class="verse">Leaving the pilgrims but a <i>burnûs</i>-blur</div>
<div class="verse">On the drab canvas of the shore, a wail</div>
<div class="verse">Rose, and to them the Dreamer's last reply:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"The aimless spindrift mingles with the scats</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Where suddenly the desert is the beach.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">A low wind whimpers up and down the flats</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Seeking some obstacle to lend it speech.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"The sky bleeds pale as from a mortal wound,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Darkening the waters. To a treble E</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Gulls stiffly wheel their nomad escort round</div>
<div class="verse indent6">A white sail dwindling in the impassive sea.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"A last beam smites it with a benison.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The lantern twinkles fainter at its mast.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">It bears the purpose in me that is gone,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The only thing that cannot be, the past.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Let there be night. Shall evensong complain?</div>
<div class="verse indent6">My love was utter. Now I seek no sign.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Mine eyes have seen, and shall not see again.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Out of the deep shall call no voice of mine.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Yet I, whose happiness is hidden from view,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Have climbed the hill and touched eternity,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And Pisgah is a memory—of you,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">A white sail sinking in the summer sea."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">The ship drove spaceward to the skyline's crater,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The last of day flared vibrant as a cry,</div>
<div class="verse">And in the Dreamer Emptiness loomed greater</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Than the unrifted pumice of the sky.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">He turned to see the friends whose hope had ended</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Like his beside the gulf. He was alone.</div>
<div class="verse">The singers and the glory that had blended</div>
<div class="verse indent2">With meaner notes and lowly, all were gone</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Into thin air. But, patient of his tether,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Enduring as the dream he would not break,</div>
<div class="verse">Only old Tous remained. As back together</div>
<div class="verse indent2">They fared, once more it seemed the camel spake:</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Lo, these the fleeting and the true,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The keen to sacrifice and slow,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The plumed, the crawling, all were You</div>
<div class="verse indent6">That started hither long ago.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">For man is many when begun,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">But Love can weave his ends to one.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"The new, the ancient, song and prose,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The lower road, the higher aim,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The clean, the draggled, dust and snows</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Were you the striving, you the same.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Pride and endeavour, love and loss,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The pattern is the threads that cross.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Tilth, waste and water, sand and sap,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Tare, thorn and thistle, wine and oil,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Run through <i>your</i> Nature like a map,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Are <span class="smcap">You</span>. The ores that vein the soil</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of time and substance manifold</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Await the hour that makes them gold,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"That found the force of you dispersed</div>
<div class="verse indent6">On all adventure save a quest,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And part perhaps was on the worst.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">It sent you all upon the best,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Wherein the journey is the goal.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Now leaving you they leave you whole.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"The rabble melts, but more remains:</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The golden opportunity</div>
<div class="verse indent4">By which the choir in us attains</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Not unison but unity.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">We feel the sunbeam, not the motes.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The Voice is made of many notes.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Slave, merchant, scholar, fighting-man,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The gambling, stumbling, praying kith</div>
<div class="verse indent4">We called the Singing Caravan,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Have made their song at least no myth</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Not dawn to which yon skylark soared</div>
<div class="verse indent4">But earth is his and your reward.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"The story ends, but not the book.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Sufi, the Queen that you ensued</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Led and shall lead you still to look</div>
<div class="verse indent6">On peace—it is not solitude.</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Through her your warring kingdoms met,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And here is room for no regret."</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">So Dreamer-of-the-Age returned</div>
<div class="verse indent6">With comfort, all his being fused</div>
<div class="verse indent6">At last, and thus at night he mused</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Beside the fire that in him burned:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Heirs of the beauty yet to be,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Hail, from however far ahead</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Or out of sight I hear you tread</div>
<div class="verse indent4">The dust that made this tale and me.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Each day shall raise me to rejoice</div>
<div class="verse indent6">That lovers such as we must bear</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The unbroken chain of life and share</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Its thanksgiving. Perhaps my voice</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Shall be the servant of your mind,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Your linkman waiting in the arch</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Of phantom city-gates to march</div>
<div class="verse indent4">With you by secret ways. The wind</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Shall tell me of you, he and I</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Be keenly with you, when you go</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Forth in my footsteps and the glow</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Of movement, steadfast to deny</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Only the frailer self. My grief</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Shall answer your unspoken word</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Through blithe interpreters, a bird</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Waking, the sounds of rill and leaf.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"By many a caravanserai</div>
<div class="verse indent6">I shall not fail to watch you come,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">You of some far millennium,</div>
<div class="verse indent4">Who, listening to the bird, will say:</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"'I seem to know that tune of his;</div>
<div class="verse indent6">He sings what all can understand.'</div>
<div class="verse indent6">In the clear water dip your hand:</div>
<div class="verse indent4">'His deepest note was only this.'</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"You shall be glad of me, the shade,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Sighing 'O friend.' And I shall keep</div>
<div class="verse indent6">The benediction of your sleep;</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And, when the woods of darkness fade,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"Shall waken with you, I that had</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Love to the full, and praised my lot,</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Trusting in truth to be forgot</div>
<div class="verse indent4">For worthier verse. Ah, make me glad,</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse indent4">"You that come after me, and call</div>
<div class="verse indent6">From summits that outstrip my hopes.</div>
<div class="verse indent6">Yet I shall linger on the slopes</div>
<div class="verse indent4">And dwell with those who gave their all."</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX<br />
LONG LEAVE</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I bow my head, O brother, brother, brother,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">But may not grudge you that were All to me.</div>
<div class="verse">Should any <i>one</i> lament when this our Mother</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Mourns for so many sons on land and sea.</div>
<div class="verse">God of the love that makes two lives as one</div>
<div class="verse">Give also strength to see that England's will be done.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Let it be done, yea, down to the last tittle,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Up to the fullness of all sacrifice.</div>
<div class="verse">Our dead feared this alone—to give too little.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Then shall the living murmur at the price?</div>
<div class="verse">The hands withdrawn from ours to grasp the plough</div>
<div class="verse">Would suffer only if the furrow faltered now.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">Know, fellow-mourners—be our cross too grievous—</div>
<div class="verse indent2">That One who sealed our symbol with His blood</div>
<div class="verse">Vouchsafed the vision that shall never leave us,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Those humble crosses in the Flanders mud;</div>
<div class="verse">And think there rests all-hallowed in each grave</div>
<div class="verse">A life given freely for the world He died to save.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">And, ages hence, dim tramping generations</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Who never knew and cannot guess our pain—</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
<div class="verse">Though history count nothing less than nations,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">And fame forget where grass has grown again—</div>
<div class="verse">Shall yet remember that the world is free.</div>
<div class="verse">It is enough. For this is immortality.</div>
</div><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">I raise my head, O brother, brother, brother.</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The organ sobs for triumph to my heart.</div>
<div class="verse">What! Who will think that ransomed earth can smother</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Her own great soul, of which you are a part!</div>
<div class="verse">The requiem music dies as if it <i>knew</i></div>
<div class="verse">The inviolate peace where 'tis already well with you.</div>
</div></div></div>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a></span></p>
<h2><a name="EPILOGUE" id="EPILOGUE"></a>EPILOGUE</h2>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">"It's not as easy as you think,"</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The nettled poet sighed.</div>
<div class="verse">"It's not as good as I could wish,"</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The publisher replied.</div>
<div class="verse">"It might," the kindly critic wrote,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">"Have easily been <i>worse</i>."</div>
<div class="verse">"We will not read it anyhow,"</div>
<div class="verse indent2">The public said, "it's verse."</div>
</div></div></div>
<p class="p4 center">PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS<br />
WEST NORWOOD, LONDON</p>
<hr class="chap" />
</div><div class="chap">
<div class="transnote">
<h2>Transcriber's Note</h2>
<p>All unusual, archaic and inconsistent spellings and usage have been
maintained as in the original text. Here are some notes:</p>
<p>The Greek word in the <span class="italic">In Memoriam</span>—πολύμητις—would be transliterated "polymêtis", and the Greek phrase
which appears in <span class="italic">The History of the Adventurer</span>—οἱ πολλοὶ— would be transliterated "hoi polloi."</p>
<p>I added the entries for "In Memoriam" and "Acknowledgements" to the
Table of Contents.</p>
<p class="covernote">The cover was created by Linda Hamilton at pgdp.net, and is in the public domain.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
</div></div>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49385 ***</div>
</body>
</html>
|
