The Kadisah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi
by Richard F. Burton
(#21 in our series by Richard F. Burton)
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi
Author: Richard F. Burton
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6036]
[Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on October 23,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: Latin1

0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE
KASIDAH OF HAJI ABDU EL-YEZDI ***
This eBook was prepared by Robert Sinton from a source supplied by
the Sacred Texts Web site, http://www.sacred-texts.com
, thanks to John
B. Hare.
THE KASÎDAH OF HÂJÎ ABDÛ EL-YEZDÎ
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY HS FRIEND AND
PUPIL, F.B.
TO THE READER
The Translator has ventured to entitle a “Lay of the Higher Law” the
following composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and
he has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as
the “Higher Culture.” The principles which justify the name are as
follows:—
The Author asserts that Happiness and Misery are equally divided and
distributed in the world.
He makes Self-cultivation, with due regard to others, the sole and
sufficient object of human life.
He suggests that the affections, the sympathies, and the “divine gift of
Pity” are man’s highest enjoyments.
He advocates suspension of judgment, with a proper suspicion of
“Facts, the idlest of superstitions.”
Finally, although destructive to appearance, he is essentially
reconstructive.
For other details concerning the Poem and the Poet, the curious reader
is referred to the end of the volume.
F. B.

Vienna, Nov., 1880.
THE KASÎDAH
I
The hour is nigh; the waning Queen
walks forth to rule the later night;
Crown’d with the sparkle of a Star,
and throned on orb of ashen light:
The Wolf-tail* sweeps the paling East
to leave a deeper gloom behind,
And Dawn uprears her shining head,
sighing with semblance of a wind:
0. The false dawn.
The highlands catch yon Orient gleam,
while purpling still the lowlands lie;
And pearly mists, the
morning-pride,
soar incense-like to greet the sky.
The horses neigh, the camels groan,
the torches gleam, the cressets flare;
The town of canvas falls, and
man
with din and dint invadeth air:
The Golden Gates swing right and left;
up springs the Sun with flamy brow;
The dew-cloud melts in gush of
light;
brown Earth is bathed in morning-glow.

Slowly they wind athwart the wild,
and while young Day his anthem swells,
Sad falls upon my yearning
ear
the tinkling of the Camel-bells:
O’er fiery wastes and frozen wold,
o’er horrid hill and gloomy glen,
The home of grisly beast and
Ghoul,*
the haunts of wilder, grislier men;—
0. The Demon of the Desert.
With the brief gladness of the Palms,
that tower and sway o’er seething plain,
Fraught with the thoughts of
rustling shade,
and welling spring, and rushing rain;
With the short solace of the ridge,
by gentle zephyrs played upon,
Whose breezy head and bosky side
front seas of cooly celadon;—
’Tis theirs to pass with joy and hope,
whose souls shall ever thrill and fill
Dreams of the Birthplace and the
Tomb,
visions of Allah’s Holy Hill.*
0. Arafât, near Mecca.
But we? Another shift of scene,

another pang to rack the heart;
Why meet we on the bridge of Time
to ’change one greeting and to part?
We meet to part; yet asks my sprite,
Part we to meet? Ah! is it so?
Man’s fancy-made Omniscience
knows,
who made Omniscience nought can know.
Why must we meet, why must we part,
why must we bear this yoke of MUST,
Without our leave or askt or
given,
by tyrant Fate on victim thrust?
That Eve so gay, so bright, so glad,
this Morn so dim, and sad, and grey;
Strange that life’s Registrar
should write
this day a day, that day a day!
Mine eyes, my brain, my heart, are sad,—
sad is the very core of me;
All wearies, changes, passes, ends;
alas! the Birthday’s injury!
Friends of my youth,