The Kadisah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi | Page 6

good-ills, a loss, a gain,
When realms arise and falls a roof;
a world is won, a man is slain?
And thus the race of Being runs,
till haply in the time to be
Earth shifts her pole and Mushtari*-men
another falling star shall see:
0. The Planet Jupiter.
Shall see it fall and fade from sight,
whence come, where gone no Thought can tell,—
Drink of yon
mirage-stream and chase
the tinkling of the camel-bell!

VI
All Faith is false, all Faith is true:
Truth is the shattered mirror strown
In myriad bits; while each
believes
his little bit the whole to own.
What is the Truth? was askt of yore.
Reply all object Truth is one
As twain of halves aye makes a whole;
the moral Truth for all is none.
Ye scantly-learned Zâhids learn
from Aflatûn and Aristû,*
While Truth is real like your good:
th’ Untrue, like ill, is real too;
0. Plato and Aristotle.
As palace mirror’d in the stream,
as vapour mingled with the skies,
So weaves the brain of mortal man
the tangled web of Truth and Lies.
What see we here? Forms, nothing more!
Forms fill the brightest, strongest eye,
We know not substance; ’mid
the shades
shadows ourselves we live and die.
“Faith mountains move” I hear: I see
the practice of the world unheed
The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast

that serves our vanity to feed.
“Faith stands unmoved”; and why? Because
man’s silly fancies still remain,
And will remain till wiser man
the day-dreams of his youth disdain.
“’Tis blessèd to believe”; you say:
The saying may be true enow
And it can add to Life a light:—
only remains to show us how.
E’en if I could I nould believe
your tales and fables stale and trite,
Irksome as twice-sung tune that
tires
the dullèd ear of drowsy wight.
With God’s foreknowledge man’s free will!
what monster-growth of human brain,
What powers of light shall ever
pierce
this puzzle dense with words inane?
Vainly the heart on Providence calls,
such aid to seek were hardly wise
For man must own the pitiless Law
that sways the globe and sevenfold skies.
“Be ye Good Boys, go seek for Heav’en,
come pay the priest that holds the key;”
So spake, and speaks, and
aye shall speak

the last to enter Heaven,—he.
Are these the words for men to hear?
yet such the Church’s general tongue,
The horseleech-cry so strong
so high
her heav’enward Psalms and Hymns among.
What? Faith a merit and a claim,
when with the brain ’tis born and bred?
Go, fool, thy foolish way and
dip
in holy water burièd dead!
Yet follow not th’ unwisdom-path,
cleave not to this and that disclaim;
Believe in all that man believes;
here all and naught are both the same.
But is it so? How may we know?
Haply this Fate, this Law may be
A word, a sound, a breath; at most
the Zâhid’s moonstruck theory.
Yes Truth may be, but ’tis not Here;
mankind must seek and find it There,
But Where nor I nor you can
tell,
nor aught earth-mother ever bare.
Enough to think that Truth can be:
come sit we where the roses glow,
Indeed he knows not how to know

who knows not also how to ’unknow.
VII
Man 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!
0. Egypt;