Poetry

only by beguiling Beauty haunted,
I trod the path of demiurgic pride.
Yea, I was proud, when in the dawn’s desire
I could command the fruit of every tree,
The bloom of every garden, and the fire
Of every passion, every ecstacy
Upon my way. O pride of brawn and dare!
I’d shake the lustre from the stars and steal
The sap from the vines of June, and I would share
My booty with the comrade that would seal
His thieving faith with paeons to the deed
That knows nor law, nor moral code, nor creed.

II

I ran and still I run away from Thee,
Past pyramids and labyrinths of reason,
Through gleaming forests, where the upas tree
Feeds both the saint and sinner for a season.
And I danced in its lethal shades; I climbed
Up to the highest fruit-concealing bough
That bends beneath a mocking wing; I rhymed
My joy and pride; and o’er the very brow
Of Death I leaped into the howling void,
Where the acrobats of Mind, with balance-pole
Of Logic in their hands, are ever employed
In scanning the dark canyons of the Soul.
And I was proud when on the tight rope I
Essayed my feet and fixed my giddy brain
Upon the universe; whereat the sky
Was but a mute infinity of vain
Belief; and every mystery divine,
A sea-washed, iridescent hollow shell
Upon the sands of faith: yea, every sign
Upon the road led to an empty well.
And I was proud⁠—O pride of intellect!⁠—
That the nothingness of things I could detect.

III

I ran and still I run away from Thee,
Mistaking Thy compassion for Thine ire;⁠—
A rebel I, fantastically free,
A green-eyed flame of crepitating fire
Whipped by the winds of Circumstance, and yet
By Thee pursued and by Thy love beset.
And why?⁠—I oft pretend to know not why
This fond solicitude. For what am I
But a bubble of vanity, a human thing
Puffed with the vision of a loneliness
In which a pimpled Ego tries to sing
Of Self, alas! and spread its ebon wing.
But I remember still Thy first caress,
Which, in my infant vision I could feel
Even as the flowers, which Thy love reveal,
Even as the ocean in the Moon’s embrace,
Even as the sunrise that reflects Thy face.
And this remembering, I hailed the soul,
Flaunting the sacred symbol of the goal
That shrines Thine image; yea, and I was proud
That, rising over Self Thyself to find,
With Thine own godliness I was endowed,
And yet I am but partially resigned.⁠ ⁠…
O, spiritual pride! which would disguise
The hollow heart of Holier-than-thou
In accents borrowed from the meek and wise,
I, too, have prated with a placid brow,
Though I, still casting shadows in the mire,
Was but a scarecrow in the vineyard of desire.

I saw Thee following me,
I heard Thee calling me,
I even felt Thine arrows in my tears;
I know Thou art shadowing me,
And wilt yet, forestalling me,
Whip out the vanities of all my years.

A Chant of Mystics

I

From the Mist of Arcana we rise,
Through the Universe of Secrets we come,
And we enter the Tavern as Lovers,
Whose features are pale as the false dawn,
Whose statures are lean as the new moon.
Like unto a jar is the body,
And the soul in the jar
Is the silvery voice of the Fountain,
Is the rose-scented breath of the Mountain,

For your sake we have come
In the shape of a jar from the Sea;
For your sake we have come as Disgrace,
But glory incarnate are we.
For the sake of the world we dance
O’er the flame, on the point of the lance.
O, think us not mortal, for we
Are the light on the foam of the sea.

Of a truth, we are kin to the sun,
The infinite source of all splendors;
We are one
With the world’s riddles and wonders.
But not of the world nor the sun is the breath
That lingers awhile in the regions of Death.
The dust on our sandals betrays us, we know⁠—
We have travelled afar our devotion to show
To him who is waiting for us at the gate
Of the Garden of Union our longing to sate.

We shall interpret the Truth,
We shall the Secret unveil;
For naked we come, like the dew,
Like the zephyr, we come, and the gale:
Naked, through thorn-bush and grass,
We speak and we pass.
Our garments were burned in the fire of the Mind,
In the world where the Deaf still dispute with the Blind.

We are the Truth,
And into the world
From the Universe of Secrets we’re hurled.
We are are the Truth,
And into the skies
From the Mists of Arcana we rise.

II

In the light of the day, in the stars of the night we behold
The face of the Master, the feet of the Pilgrim of old;
In the sigh of the wind and the voice of the thunder we hear
The plaint of the bard and the rhapsodic chant of the seer.
Without them, alas, we are dumb,
Though not deaf to the flute and the drum.
But the vision is true,
Allahu, Allahu!
They are garbed in blue,
Allahu, Allahu!
They are drenched with dew,
Allahu, Allahu!

Hail, Sana’i3 the Moon of the Soul,
The Guide and the Road to the goal.
Hail, Attar4 the Vezier of Birds,
Who sing in his musk-scented words.
Hail, Arabi,5 the Tongue of the Truth,
The Eye of the Prophet, in sooth.
Hail, Rabi’a,6 the Heart of the Sphere,
Beloved of the bard and the seer;
The Rosebud that rises to greet
The splendor beneath Allah’s feet.
Hail, Gazzali,7 the Weaver of Light,
The maker of wings for the flight.
Hail, Hallaj,8 the Diver divine,
Whose pearls decorate every shrine,
Whose blood was the pledge that his words,
I am Truth, shall fore’er be a sign.
To Jelal’ud-Din Rumi,9 all hail!
The Master who flung every veil
To the wind, who ne’er sober was seen,
Though ne’er to the tavern had been;
But ever⁠—and often alone⁠—
Was dancing before Allah’s throne.
Hail, Tabrizi,10 who nourished the Bard
With jasmine and myrtle and nard;⁠—
Who loafed and invited his soul
And would not write a word in his Scroll.
Hail, Fared,11 the love-stricken