The Kadisah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi | Page 6

hath no Soul, a state of things,
a no-thing still, a sound, a word?Which so begets substantial thing
that eye shall see what ear hath heard.
Where was his Soul the savage beast
which in primeval forests strayed,?What shape had it, what dwelling-place,
what part in nature��s plan it played?
This Soul to ree a riddle made;
who wants the vain duality??Is not myself enough for me?
what need of ��I�� within an ��I��?
Words, words that gender things! The soul
is a new-comer on the scene;?Sufficeth not the breath of Life
to work the matter-born machine?
We know the Gen��esis of the Soul;
we trace the Soul to hour of birth;?We mark its growth as grew mankind
to boast himself sole Lord of Earth:
The race of Be��ing from dawn of Life
in an unbroken course was run;?What men are pleased to call their Souls
was in the hog and dog begun:
Life is a ladder infinite-stepped,
that hides its rungs from human eyes;?Planted its foot in chaos-gloom,
its head soars high above the skies:
No break the chain of Being bears;
all things began in unity;?And lie the links in regular line
though haply none the sequence see.
The Ghost, embodied natural Dread
of dreary death and foul decay,?Begat the Spirit, Soul and Shade
with Hades�� pale and wan array.
The Soul required a greater Soul,
a Soul of Souls, to rule the host;?Hence spirit-powers and hierarchies,
all gendered by the savage Ghost.
Not yours, ye Peoples of the Book,
these fairy visions fair and fond,?Got by the gods of Khemi-land*
and faring far the seas beyond!
? Egypt; Kam, Kem, Khem (hierogl.), in the Demotic Khemi.
��Th�� immortal mind of mortal man!��
we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry;?Whose mind but means his sum of thought,
an essence of atomic ��I.��
Thought is the work of brain and nerve,
in small-skulled idiot poor and mean;?In sickness sick, in sleep asleep,
and dead when Death lets drop the scene.
��Tush!�� quoth the Zahid, ��well we ken
the teaching of the school abhorr��d?��That maketh man automaton,
mind a secretion, soul a word.��
��Of molecules and protoplasm
you matter-mongers prompt to prate;?��Of jelly-speck development
and apes that grew to man��s estate.��
Vain cavil! all that is hath come
either by Mir��acle or by Law;��?Why waste on this your hate and fear,
why waste on that your love and awe?
Why heap such hatred on a word,
why ��Prototype�� to type assign,?Why upon matter spirit mass?
wants an appendix your design?
Is not the highest honour his
who from the worst hath drawn the best;?May not your Maker make the world
from matter, an it suit His hest?
Nay more, the sordider the stuff
the cunninger the workman��s hand:?Cease, then, your own Almighty Power
to bind, to bound, to understand.
��Reason and Instinct!�� How we love
to play with words that please our pride;?Our noble race��s mean descent
by false forged titles seek to hide!
For ��gift divine�� I bid you read
the better work of higher brain,?From Instinct diff��ering in degree
as golden mine from leaden vein.
Reason is Life��s sole arbiter,
the magic Laby��rinth��s single clue:?Worlds lie above, beyond its ken;
what crosses it can ne��er be true.
��Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!��
Angels and Fools have equal claim?To do what Nature bids them do,
sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame!
VIII
There is no Heav��en, there is no Hell;
these be the dreams of baby minds;?Tools of the wily Fetisheer,
to ��fright the fools his cunning blinds.
Learn from the mighty Spi��rits of old
to set thy foot on Heav��en and Hell;?In Life to find thy hell and heav��en
as thou abuse or use it well.
So deemed the doughty Jew who dared
by studied silence low to lay?Orcus and Hades, lands of shades,
the gloomy night of human day.
Hard to the heart is final death:
fain would an Ens not end in Nil;?Love made the senti��ment kindly good:
the Priest perverted all to ill.
While Reason sternly bids us die,
Love longs for life beyond the grave:?Our hearts, affections, hopes and fears
for Life-to-be shall ever crave.
Hence came the despot��s darling dream,
a Church to rule and sway the State;?Hence sprang the train of countless griefs
in priestly sway and rule innate.
For future Life who dares reply?
No witness at the bar have we;?Save what the brother Potsherd tells,��
old tales and novel jugglery.
Who e��er return��d to teach the Truth,
the things of Heaven and Hell to limn??And all we hear is only fit
for grandam-talk and nursery-hymn.
��Have mercy, man!�� the Zahid cries,
��of our best visions rob us not!?��Mankind a future life must have
to balance life��s unequal lot.��
��Nay,�� quoth the Magian, ����tis not so;
I draw my wine for one and all,?��A cup for this, a score for that,
e��en as his measure��s great or small:
��Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight;
to poorest passion he was born;?��Who drains the score must e��er expect
to rue the headache of the morn.��
Safely he jogs along the way
which ��Golden Mean�� the sages call;?Who scales the brow of frowning Alp
must face full many a slip and fall.
Here ��xtremes meet, anointed Kings
whose crown��d heads uneasy lie,?Whose cup of joy contains no more
than tramps that on the dunghill die.
To fate-doomed Sinner born and bred
for dangling from the gallows-tree;?To Saint who spends his holy days
in