The Kadisah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi | Page 8

breathing every breath,
“With every step, with every
gest,
something of life thou do’est to death.”
Replies the Hindu: “Wend thy way
for foul and foolish Mlenchhas fit;
“Your Pariah-par’adise woo and
win;
at such dog-Heav’en I laugh and spit.”
“Cannibals of the Holy Cow!
who make your rav’ening maws the grave
“Of Things with self-same
right to live;—
what Fiend the filthy license gave?”
What to the Moslem cries the Frank?
“A polygamic Theist thou!
“From an imposter-Prophet turn;
Thy stubborn head to Jesus bow.”
Rejoins the Moslem: “Allah’s one
tho’ with four Moslemahs I wive,
“One-wife-men ye and (damnèd
race!)

you split your God to Three and Five.”
The Buddhist to Confucians thus:
“Like dogs ye live, like dogs ye die;
“Content ye rest with wretched
earth;
God, Judgment, Hell ye fain defy.”
Retorts the Tartar: “Shall I lend
mine only ready-money ‘now,’
“For vain usurious ‘Then’ like thine,
avaunt, a triple idiot Thou!”
“With this poor life, with this mean world
I fain complete what in me lies;
“I strive to perfect this my me;
my sole ambition’s to be wise.”
When doctors differ who decides
amid the milliard-headed throng?
Who save the madman dares to cry:
“’Tis I am right, you all are wrong?”
“You all are right, you all are wrong,”
we hear the careless Soofi say,
“For each believes his glimm’ering
lamp
to be the gorgeous light of day.”
“Thy faith why false, my faith why true?
’tis all the work of Thine and Mine,
“The fond and foolish love of
self

that makes the Mine excel the Thine.”
Cease then to mumble rotten bones;
and strive to clothe with flesh and blood
The skel’eton; and to shape a
Form
that all shall hail as fair and good.
“For gen’erous youth,” an Arab saith,
“Jahim’s* the only genial state;
“Give us the fire but not the shame
with the sad, sorry blest to mate.”
0. Jehannum, Gehenna, Hell.
And if your Heav’en and Hell be true,
and Fate that forced me to be born
Force me to Heav’en or Hell—I
go,
and hold Fate’s insolence in scorn.
I want not this, I want not that,
already sick of Me and Thee;
And if we’re both transform’d and
changed,
what then becomes of Thee and Me?
Enough to think such things may be:
to say they are not or they are
Were folly: leave them all to Fate,
nor wage on shadows useless war.
Do what thy manhood bids thee do,
from none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies

who makes and keeps his self-made laws.
All other Life is living Death,
a world where none but Phantoms dwell,
A breath, a wind, a sound, a
voice,
a tinkling of the camel-bell.
IX
How then shall man so order life
that when his tale of years is told,
Like sated guest he wend his way;
how shall his even tenour hold?
Despite the Writ that stores the skull;
despite the Table and the Pen;*
Maugre the Fate that plays us down,
her board the world, her pieces men?
0. Emblems of Kismet, or Destiny.
How when the light and glow of life
wax dim in thickly gath’ering gloom,
Shall mortal scoff at sting of
Death,
shall scorn the victory of the Tomb?
One way, two paths, one end the grave.
This runs athwart the flow’ery plain,
That breasts the bush, the steep,
the crag,
in sun and wind and snow and rain:
Who treads the first must look adown,

must deem his life an all in all;
Must see no heights where man may
rise,
must sight no depths where man may fall.
Allah in Adam form must view;
adore the Maker in the made.
Content to bask in Mâyâ’s smile,*
in joys of pain, in lights of shade.
0. Illusion.
He breaks the Law, he burns the Book,
he sends the Moolah back to school;
Laughs at the beards of Saintly
men;
and dubs the Prophet dolt and fool,
Embraces Cypress’ taper-waist;
cools feet on wavy breast of rill;
Smiles in the Nargis’ love-lorn eyes,
and ’joys the dance of Daffodil;
Melts in the saffron light of Dawn
to hear the moaning of the Dove;
Delights in Sundown’s purpling
hues
when Bulbul woos the Rose’s love.
Finds mirth and joy in Jamshid-bowl;
toys with the Daughter of the vine;
And bids the beauteous cup-boy
say,
“Master I bring thee ruby wine!”*

0. That all the senses, even the ear, may enjoy.
Sips from the maiden’s lips the dew;
brushes the bloom from virgin brow:—
Such is his fleshly bliss that
strives
the Maker through the Made to know.
I’ve tried them all, I find them all
so same and tame, so drear, so dry;
My gorge ariseth at the thought;
I commune with myself and cry:—
Better the myriad toils and pains
that make the man to manhood true,
This be the rule that guideth life;
these be the laws for me and you:
With Ignor’ance