The Diwan of Abul-Ala | Page 9

des nations. On me dit une mère et je
suis une tombe. Mon hiver prend vos morts comme son hécatombe,
Mon printemps n'entend pas vos adorations.
Avant vous j'étais belle et toujours parfumée, J'abandonnais au
vent mes cheveux tout entiers. . . .

Footnotes
[1] Cf. Lyall, Ancient Arabian Poets.
[2] Cf. Whittaker, _The Neo-Platonists_.
[3] Of course I use Professor Margoliouth's superb edition of the letters.
[4] Cf. Thielmann, _Streifzüge im Kaukasus, etc_.
[5] Cf. Ambros, Geschichte der Musik, 1862.
[6] Cf. Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, vii. 174.
[7] Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. i., p. 254.
[8] Meredith, The Shaving of Shagpat.
[9] Anatole France, Le Puits de Sainte Claire.
[10] Quoted by Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 2, p. 845.
[11] Stoufenb., 1126.
[12] Cf. in Scandinavia the death-goddess Hel.

[13] Romain Rolland, Jean Christophe.
[14] Ella d'Arcy, Modern Instances.
[15] Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Schwarzlose, _Die Waffen der alten Araber,
aus ihren Dichtern dargestellt_.
[16] Pope, Iliad, xx. 577.

THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA
I
Abandon worship in the mosque and shrink From idle prayer, from
sacrificial sheep, For Destiny will bring the bowl of sleep Or bowl of
tribulation--you shall drink.
II
The scarlet eyes of Morning are pursued By Night, who growls along
the narrow lane; But as they crash upon our world the twain Devour us
and are strengthened for the feud.
III
Vain are your dreams of marvellous emprise, Vainly you sail among
uncharted spaces, Vainly seek harbour in this world of faces If it has
been determined otherwise.
IV
Behold, my friends, there is reserved for me The splendour of our
traffic with the sky: You pay your court to Saturn, whereas I Am slain
by One far mightier than he.
V
You that must travel with a weary load Along this darkling,
labyrinthine street-- Have men with torches at your head and feet If you
would pass the dangers of the road.
VI
So shall you find all armour incomplete And open to the whips of
circumstance, That so shall you be girdled of mischance Till you be
folded in the winding-sheet.
VII
Have conversation with the wind that goes Bearing a pack of loveliness
and pain: The golden exultation of the grain And the last, sacred
whisper of the rose
VIII
But if in some enchanted garden bloom The rose imperial that will not

fade, Ah! shall I go with desecrating spade And underneath her glories
build a tomb?
IX
Shall I that am as dust upon the plain Think with unloosened hurricanes
to fight? Or shall I that was ravished from the night Fall on the bosom
of the night again?
X
Endure! and if you rashly would unfold That manuscript whereon our
lives are traced, Recall the stream which carols thro' the waste And in
the dark is rich with alien gold.
XI
Myself did linger by the ragged beach, Whereat wave after wave did
rise and curl; And as they fell, they fell--I saw them hurl A message far
more eloquent than speech:
XII
_We that with song our pilgrimage beguile, With purple islands which
a sunset bore, We, sunk upon the sacrilegious shore, May parley with
oblivion awhile_.
XIII
I would not have you keep nor idly flaunt What may be gathered from
the gracious land, But I would have you sow with sleepless hand The
virtues that will balance your account.
XIV
The days are dressing all of us in white, For him who will suspend us in
a row. But for the sun there is no death. I know The centuries are
morsels of the night.
XV
A deed magnanimous, a noble thought Are as the music singing thro'
the years When surly Time the tyrant domineers Against the lute
whereoutof it was wrought.
XVI
Now to the Master of the World resign Whatever touches you, what is
prepared, For many sons of wisdom are ensnared And many fools in
happiness recline.
XVII
Long have I tarried where the waters roll From undeciphered caverns of
the main, And I have searched, and I have searched in vain, Where I

could drown the sorrows of my soul.
XVIII
If I have harboured love within my breast, 'Twas for my comrades of
the dusty day, Who with me watched the loitering stars at play, Who
bore the burden of the same unrest.
XIX
For once the witcheries a maiden flung-- Then afterwards I knew she
was the bride Of Death; and as he came, so tender-eyed, I--I rebuked
him roundly, being young.
XX
Yet if all things that vanish in their noon Are but the part of some
eternal scheme, Of what the nightingale may chance to dream Or what
the lotus murmurs to the moon!
XXI
Have I not heard sagacious ones repeat An irresistibly grim argument:
That we