The Conference of the Birds (Mantiq al-Tayr)

Once on a time from all the Circles seven / Between the stedfast Earth and rolling Heaven / THE BIRDS, of all Note, Plumage, and Degree, / That float in Air, and roost upon the Tree; / And they that from the Waters snatch their Meat, / And they that scour the Desert with long Feet; / Birds of all Natures, known or not to Man, / Flock'd from all Quarters into full Divan, / On no less solemn business than to find / Or choose, a Sultan Khalif of their kind, / For whom, if never theirs, or lost, they pined. / The Snake had his, 'twas said; and so the Beast / His Lion-lord: and Man had his, at least: / And that the Birds, who nearest were the Skies, / And went apparell'd in its Angel Dyes. / Should be without — under no better Law / Than that which lost all other in the Maw — / Disperst without a Bond of Union — nay, / Or meeting to make each the other's Prey — / This was the Grievance — this the solemn Thing

On which the scatter'd Commonwealth of Wing, / From all the four Winds, flying like to Cloud / That met and blacken'd Heav'n, and Thunder-loud / With Sound of whirring Wings and Beaks that clash'd / Down like a Torrent on the Desert dash'd: / Till by Degrees, the Hubbub and Pell-mell / Into some Order and Precedence fell, / And, Proclamation made of Silence, each / In special Accent, but in general Speech / That all should understand, as seem'd him best, / The Congregation of all Wings addrest. / And first, with Heart so full as from his Eyes / Ran weeping, up rose Tajidar the Wise; / The mystic Mark upon whose Bosom show'd / That He alone of all the Birds THE ROAD / Had travell'd: and the Crown upon his Head / Had reach'd the Goal; and He stood forth and said: / 'O Birds, by what Authority divine / I speak you know by His authentic Sign, / And Name, emblazon'd on my Breast and Bill:

Whose Counsel I assist at, and fulfil: / At His Behest I measured as he plann'd / The Spaces of the Air and Sea and Land; / I gauged the secret sources of the Springs / From Cloud to Fish: the Shadow of my Wings / Dream'd over sleeping Deluge: piloted / The Blast that bore Sulayman's Throne: and led / The Cloud of Birds that canopied his Head; / Whose Word I brought to Balkis: and I shared / The Counsel that with Asaf he prepared. / And now you want a Khalif: and I know / Him, and his whereabout, and How to go: / And go alone I could, and plead your cause / Alone for all: but, by the eternal laws, / Yourselves by Toil and Travel of your own / Must for your old Delinquency atone. / Were you indeed not blinded by the Curse / Of Self-exile, that still grows worse and worse, / Yourselves would know that, though you see him not, / He is with you this Moment, on this Spot,

Your Lord through all Forgetfulness and Crime, / Here, There, and Everywhere, and through all Time. / But as a Father, whom some wayward Child / By sinful Self-will has unreconciled, / Waits till the sullen Reprobate at cost / Of long Repentance should regain the Lost; / Therefore, yourselves to see as you are seen, / Yourselves must bridge the Gulf you made between / By such a Search and Travel to be gone / Up to the mighty mountain Kaf, whereon / Hinges the World, and round about whose Knees / Into one Ocean mingle the Sev'n Seas; / In whose impenetrable Forest-folds / Of Light and Dark "Symurgh" his Presence holds; / Not to be reach 'd, if to be reach'd at all / But by a Road the stoutest might apal; / Of Travel not of Days or Months, but Years — / Life-long perhaps: of Dangers, Doubts, and Fears / As yet unheard of: Sweat of Blood and Brain / Interminable — often all in vain —

And, if successful, no Return again: / A Road whose very Preparation scared / The Traveller who yet must be prepared. / Who then this Travel to Result would bring / Needs both a Lion's Heart beneath the Wing, / And even more, a Spirit purified / Of Worldly Passion, Malice, Lust, and Pride: / Yea, ev'n of Worldly Wisdom, which grows dim / And dark, the nearer it approaches Him, / Who to the Spirit's Eye alone reveal'd, / By sacrifice of Wisdom's self unseal'd; / Without which none who reach the Place could bear / To look upon the Glory dwelling there.' / One Night from out the swarming City Gate / Stept holy Bajazyd, to meditate / Alone amid the breathing Fields that lay / In solitary Silence leagues away, / Beneath a Moon and Stars as bright as Day. / And the Saint wondering such a Temple were, / And so lit up, and scarce one worshipper,

A voice from Heav'n amid the stillness said: / 'The Royal Road is not for all to tread, / Nor is the Royal Palace for the Rout, / Who, even if they reach it, are shut out. / The Blaze that from my Harim window breaks / With fright the Rabble of the Roadside takes; / And ev'n of those that at my Portal din, / Thousands may knock for one that enters in.' / Thus spoke the Tajidar: and the wing'd Crowd, / That underneath his Word in Silence bow'd, 1 / Clapp'd Acclamation: and their Hearts and Eyes / Were kindled by the Firebrand of the Wise. / They felt their Degradation: they believed / The word that told them how to be retrieved, / And in that glorious Consummation won / Forgot the Cost at which it must be done. / 'They only long'd to follow: they would go / Whither he led, through Flood, or Fire, or Snow' — / So cried the Multitude. But some there were / Who listen'd with a cold disdainful air,

Content with what they were, or grudging Cost / Of Time or Travel that might all be lost; / These, one by one, came forward, and preferr'd / Unwise Objection: which the wiser Word / Shot with direct Reproof, or subtly round / With Argument and Allegory wound. / The Pheasant first would know by what pretence / The Tajidar to that pre-eminence / Was raised — a Bird, but for his lofty Crest / (And such the Pheasant had) like all the Rest — / Who answer'd — 'By no Virtue of my own / Sulayman chose me, but by His alone: / Not by the Gold and Silver of my Sighs / Made mine, but the free Largess of his Eyes. / Behold the Grace of Allah comes and goes / As to Itself is good: and no one knows / Which way it turns: in that mysterious Court / Not he most finds who furthest travels for't. / For one may crawl upon his knees Life-long, / And yet may never reach, or all go wrong:

Another just arriving at the Place / He toil'd for, and — the Door shut in his Face: / Whereas Another, scarcely gone a Stride, / And suddenly — Behold he is Inside ! — / But though the Runner win not, he that stands, / No Thorn will turn to Roses in his Hands: / Each one must do his best and all endure, / And all endeavour, hoping but not sure. / Heav'n its own Umpire is; its Bidding do, / And Thou perchance shalt be Sulayman's too.' / One day Shah Mahmud, riding with the Wind / A-hunting, left his Retinue behind, / And coming to a River, whose swift Course / Doubled back Game and Dog, and Man and Horse, / Beheld upon the Shore a little Lad / A-fishing, very poor, and Tatter-clad / He was, and weeping as his Heart would break. / So the Great Sultan, for good humour's sake / Pull'd in his Horse a moment, and drew nigh, / And after making his Salam, ask'd why

He wept — weeping, the Sultan said, so sore / As he had never seen one weep before. / The Boy look'd up, and 'O Amir,' he said, / 'Sev'n of us are at home, and Father dead, / And Mother left with scarce a Bit of Bread: / And now since Sunrise have I fish'd — and see! / Caught nothing for our Supper — Woe is Me!' / The Sultan lighted from his horse. 'Behold,' / Said he, 'Good Fortune will not be controll'd: / And, since Today yours seems to turn from you, / Suppose we try for once what mine will do, / And we will share alike in all I win.' / So the Shah took, and flung his Fortune in, / The Net; which, cast by the Great Mahmud's Hand, / A hundred glittering Fishes brought to Land. / The Lad look'd up in Wonder — Mahmud smiled / And vaulted into Saddle. But the Child / Ran after — 'Nay, Amir, but half the Haul / Is yours by Bargain' — 'Nay, Today take all,' / The Sultan cried, and shook his Bridle free —

'But mind — Tomorrow All belongs to Me — ' / And so rode off. Next morning at Divan / The Sultan's Mind upon his Bargain ran, / And being somewhat in a mind for sport / Sent for the Lad: who, carried up to Court, / And marching into Royalty's full Blaze / With such a Catch of Fish as yesterday's, / The Sultan call'd and set him by his side, / And asking him, 'What Luck?' The Boy replied, / 'This is the Luck that follows every Cast, / Since o'er my Net the Sultan's Shadow pass'd.' / Then came The Nightingale, from such a Draught / Of Ecstasy that from the Rose he quaff d / Reeling as drunk, and ever did distil / In exquisite divisions from his Bill / To inflame the Hearts of Men — and thus sang He — / 'To me alone, alone, is giv'n the Key / Of Love; of whose whole Mystery possesst, / When I reveal a little to the Rest, / Forthwith Creation listening forsakes

The Reins of Reason, and my Frenzy takes: / Yea, whosoever once has quaint this wine / He leaves unlisten'd David's Song for mine. / In vain do Men for my Divisions strive, / And die themselves making dead Lutes alive: / I hang the Stars with Meshes for Men's Souls: / The Garden underneath my Music rolls. / The long, long Morns that mourn the Rose away / I sit in silence, and on Anguish prey: / But the first Air which the New Year shall breathe / Up to my Boughs of Message from beneath / That in her green Harim my Bride unveils, / My Throat bursts silence and her Advent hails, / Who in her crimson Volume registers / The Notes of Him whose Life is lost in hers. / The Rose I love and worship now is here; / If dying, yet reviving, Year by Year; / But that you tell of, all my Life why waste / In vainly searching; or, if found, not taste?' / So with Division infinite and Trill

On would the Nightingale have warbled still, / And all the World have listen'd; but a Note / Of sterner Import check'd the lovesick Throat. / 'O watering with thy melodious Tears / Love's Garden, and who dost indeed the Ears / Of men with thy melodious Fingers mould / As David's Finger Iron did of old: / Why not, like David, dedicate thy Dower / Of Song to something better than a Flower? / Empress indeed of Beauty, so they say, / But one whose Empire hardly lasts a Day, / By Insurrection of the Morning's Breath / That made her hurried to Decay and Death: / And while she lasts contented to be seen, / And worshipt, for the Garden's only Queen, / Leaving thee singing on thy Bough forlorn, / Or if she smile on Thee, perhaps in Scorn.' / Like that fond Dervish waiting in the throng / When some World-famous Beauty went along, / Who smiling on the Antic as she pass'd —

Forthwith Staff, Bead and Scrip away he cast, / And grovelling in the Kennel, took to whine / Before her Door among the Dogs and Swine. / Which when she often went unheeding by, / But one day quite as heedless ask'd him — Why?' — / He told of that one Smile, which, all the Rest / Passing, had kindled Hope within his Breast — / Again she smiled and said, 'O self -beguiled / Poor Wretch, at whom and not on whom I smiled.' / Then came the subtle Parrot in a coat / Greener than Greensward, and about his Throat / A Collar ran of sub-sulphureous Gold; / And in his Beak a Sugar-plum he troll'd, / That all his Words with luscious Lisping ran, / And to this Tune — 'O cruel Cage, and Man / More iron still who did confine me there, / Who else with him whose Livery I wear / Ere this to his Eternal Fount had been, / And drunk what should have kept me ever-green. / But now I know the Place, and I am free

To go, and all the Wise will follow Me. / Some' — and upon the Nightingale one Eye / He leer'd — 'for nothing but the Blossom sigh: / But I am for the luscious Pulp that grows / Where, and for which the Blossom only blows: / And which so long as the Green Tree provides / What better grows along Kaf's dreary Sides? / And what more needful Prophet there than He / Who gives me Life to nip it from the Tree?' / To whom the Tajidar — 'O thou whose Best / In the green leaf of Paradise is drest, / But whose Neck kindles with a lower Fire — / O slip the collar off of base Desire, / And stand apparell'd in Heav'n's Woof entire! / This Life that hangs so sweet about your Lips / But, spite of all your Khizar, slips and slips, / What is it but itself the coarser Rind / Of the True Life withinside and behind, / Which he shall never never reach unto / Till the gross Shell of Carcase he break through?'

For what said He, that dying Hermit, whom / Your Prophet came to, trailing through the Gloom / His Emerald Vest, and tempted — 'Come with Me, / And Live.' The Hermit answered — 'Not with Thee. / Two Worlds there are, and This was thy Design, / And thou hast got it; but The Next is mine; / Whose Fount is this life's Death, and to whose Side / Ev'n now I find my Way without a Guide.' / Then like a Sultan glittering in all Rays / Of Jewelry, and deckt with his own Blaze, / The glorious Peacock swept into the Ring: / And, turning slowly that the glorious Thing / Might fill all Eyes with wonder, thus said He. / 'Behold, the Secret Artist, making me, / With no one Colour of the skies bedeckt, / But from its Angel's Feathers did select / To make up mine withal, the Gabriel / Of all the Birds: though from my Place I fell / In Eden, when Acquaintance I did make / In those blest days with that Sev'n-headed Snake,

And thence with him, my perfect Beauty marr'd / With these ill Feet, was thrust out and debarr'd. / Little I care for Worldly Fruit or Flower, / Would you restore me to lost Eden's Bower, / But first my Beauty making all complete / With reparation of these ugly Feet.' / 'Were it,' 'twas answer'd, 'only to return / To that lost Eden, better far to burn / In Self-abasement up thy plumed Pride, / And ev'n with lamer feet to creep inside — / But all mistaken you and all like you / That long for that lost Eden as the true; / Fair as it was, still nothing but the shade / And Out-court of the Majesty that made. / That which I point you tow'rd, and which the King / I tell you of broods over with his Wing, / With no deciduous leaf, but with the Rose / Of Spiritual Beauty, smells and glows: / No plot of Earthly Pleasance, but the whole / True Garden of the Universal Soul.'

For so Creation's Master- Jewel fell / From that same Eden: loving which too well, / The Work before the Artist did prefer, / And in the Garden lost the Gardener. / Wherefore one Day about the Garden went / A voice that found him in his false Content, / And like a bitter Sarsar of the North / Shrivell'd the Garden up, and drove him forth / Into the Wilderness: and so the Eye / Of Eden closed on him till by and by. / Then from a Ruin where conceal'd he lay / Watching his buried Gold, and hating Day, / Hooted The Owl. — T tell you, my Delight / Is in the Ruin and the Dead of Night / Where I was born, and where I love to wone / All my Life long, sitting on some cold stone / Away from all your roystering Companies, / In some dark Corner where a Treasure lies; / That, buried by some Miser in the Dark, / Speaks up to me at Midnight like a Spark;

And o'er it like a Talisman I brood, / Companion of the Serpent and the Toad. / What need of other Sovereign, having found, / And keeping as in Prison underground, / One before whom all other Kings bow down, / And with his glittering Heel their Foreheads crown?' / 'He that a Miser lives and Miser dies, / At the Last Day what Figure shall he rise?' / A Fellow all his life lived hoarding Gold, / And, dying, hoarded left it. And behold, / One Night his Son saw peering through the House / A Man, with yet the semblance of a Mouse, / Watching a crevice in the Wall — and cried / 'My Father?' — 'Yes,' the Musulman replied, / 'Thy Father!' — 'But why watching thus?' — For fear / Lest any smell my Treasure buried here.' / 'But wherefore, Sir, so metamousified?' / 'Because, my Son, such is the true outside / Of the inner Soul by which I lived and died.' / Aye,' said The Partridge, with his Foot and Bill

Crimson with raking Rubies from the Hill, / And clattering his Spurs — Wherewith the Ground / I stab,' said he, 'for Rubies, that, when found / I swallow; which, as soon as swallow'd, turn / To Sparks which though my beak and eyes do burn. / Gold, as you say, is but dull Metal dead, / And hanging on the Hoarder's Soul like Lead: / But Rubies that have Blood within, and grown / And nourisht in the Mountain Heart of Stone, / Burn with an inward Light, which they inspire, / And make their Owners Lords of their Desire.' / To whom the Tajidar — As idly sold / To the quick Pebble as the drowsy Gold, / As dead when sleeping in their mountain mine / As dangerous to Him who makes them shine: / Slavish indeed to do their Lord's Commands, / And slave-like aptest to escape his Hands, / And serve a second Master like the first, / And working all their wonders for the worst.' / Never was Jewel after or before

Like that Sulayman for a Signet wore: / Whereby one Ruby, weighing scarce a grain / Did Sea and Land and all therein constrain, / Yea, ev'n the Winds of Heav'n — made the fierce East / Bear his League-wide Pavilion like a Beast, / Whither he would: yea, the Good Angel held / His subject, and the lower Fiend compell'd. / Till, looking round about him in his pride, / He overtax'd the Fountain that supplied, / Praying that after him no Son of Clay / Should ever touch his Glory. And one Day / Almighty God his Jewel stole away, / And gave it to the Div, who with the Ring / Wore also the Resemblance of the King, / And so for forty days play'd such a Game / As blots Sulayman's forty years with Shame. / Then The Shah-Falcon, tossing up his Head / Blink-hooded as it was — 'Behold,' he said, / 'I am the chosen Comrade of the King, / And perch upon the Fist that wears the Ring;

Born, bred, and nourisht, in the Royal Court, / I take the Royal Name and make the Sport. / And if strict Discipline I undergo / And half my Life am blinded — be it so; / Because the Shah's Companion ill may brook / On aught save Royal Company to look. / And why am Ito leave my King, and fare / With all these Rabble Wings I know not where?' — / 'O blind indeed' — the Answer was, 'and dark / To any but a vulgar Mortal Mark, / And drunk with Pride of Vassalage to those / Whose Humour like their Kingdom comes and goes; / All Mutability: who one Day please / To give: and next Day what they gave not seize: / Like to the Fire: a dangerous Friend at best, / Which who keeps farthest from does wiseliest. / A certain Shah there was in Days foregone / Who had a lovely Slave he doted on, / And cherish'd as the Apple of his Eye, / Clad gloriously, fed sumptuously, set high,

And never was at Ease were He not by, / Who yet, for all this Sunshine, Day by Day / Was seen to wither like a Flower away. / Which, when observing, one without the Veil / Of Favour ask'd the Favourite — Why so pale / And sad?' thus sadly answer'd the poor Thing — / 'No Sun that rises sets until the King, / Whose Archery is famous among Men, / Aims at an Apple on my Head, and when / The stricken Apple splits, and those who stand / Around cry "Lo! the Shah's unerring Hand!" / Then He too laughing asks me "Why so pale / And sorrow-some? as could the Sultan fail, / Who such a master of the Bow confest, / And aiming by the Head that he loves best.'" / Then on a sudden swoop 'd The Phoenix down / As though he wore as well as gave The Crown: / And cried — 'I care not, I, to wait on Kings, / Whose crowns are but the Shadow of my Wings!' / Aye,' was the Answer — And, pray, how has sped,

On which it lighted, many a mortal Head?' / A certain Sultan dying, his Vizier / In Dream beheld him, and in mortal Fear / Began — 'O mighty Shah of Shahs ! Thrice-blest' — / But loud the Vision shriek'd and struck its Breast, / And 'Stab me not with empty Title!' cried — / 'One only Shah there is, and none beside, / Who from his Throne above for certain Ends / Awhile some Spangle of his Glory lends / To Men on Earth; but calling in again / Exacts a strict account of every Grain. / Sultan I lived, and held the World in scorn: / O better had I glean'd the Field of Corn! / O better had I been a Beggar born, / And for my Throne and Crown, down in the Dust / My living Head had laid where Dead I must! / 0 wither'd, wither'd, wither'd, be the Wing / Whose overcasting Shadow made me King!' / Then from a Pond, where all day long he kept, / Waddled the dapper Duck demure, adept

At infinite Ablution, and precise / In keeping of his Raiment clean and nice. / And 'Sure of all the Race of Birds,' said He, / 'None for Religious Purity like Me, / Beyond what strictest Rituals prescribe — / Methinks I am the Saint of all our Tribe, / To whom, by Miracle, the Water, that / 1 wash in, also makes my Praying-Mat.' / To whom, more angrily than all, replied / The Leader, lashing that religious Pride, / That under ritual Obedience / To outer Law with inner might dispense: / For, fair as all the Feather to be seen, / Could one see through, the Maw was not so clean: / But He that made both Maw and Feather too / Would take account of, seeing through and through. / A Shah returning to his Capital, / His subjects drest it forth in Festival, / Thronging with Acclamation Square and Street, / And kneeling flung before his Horse's feet

Jewel and Gold. All which with scarce an Eye / The Sultan superciliously rode by: / Till coming to the public Prison, They / Who dwelt within those grisly Walls, by way / Of Welcome, having neither Pearl nor Gold, / Over the wall chopt Head and Carcase roll'd, / Some almost parcht to Mummy with the Sun, / Some wet with Execution that day done. / At which grim Compliment at last the Shah / Drew Bridle: and amid a wild Hurrah / Of savage Recognition, smiling threw / Silver and Gold among the wretched Crew, / And so rode forward. Whereat of his Train / One wondering that, while others sued in vain / With costly gifts, which carelessly he pass'd, / But smiled at ghastly Welcome like the last; / The Shah made answer — All that Pearl and Gold / Of ostentatious Welcome only told: / A little with great Clamour from the Store / Of hypocrites who kept at home much more.

But when those sever'd Heads and Trunks I saw — / Save by strict Execution of my Law / They had not parted company; not one / But told my Will not talk'd about, but done.' / Then from a Wood was heard unseen to coo / The Ring-dove — Yusuf ! Yusuf ! Yiisuf ! Yu-' / (For thus her sorrow broke her Note in twain, / And, just where broken, took it up again) / '-suf! Yusuf! Yusuf! Yusuf!'— But one Note, / Which still repeating, she made hoarse her throat: / Till checkt — 'O You, who with your idle Sighs / Block up the Road of better Enterprise; / Sham Sorrow all, or bad as sham if true, / When once the better thing is come to do; / Beware lest wailing thus you meet his Doom / Who all too long his Darling wept, from whom / You draw the very Name you hold so dear, / And which the World is somewhat tired to hear.' / When Yusuf from his Father's Home was torn, / The Patriarch's Heart was utterly forlorn,

And, like a Pipe with but one stop, his Tongue / With nothing but the name of Yusuf rung. / Then down from Heaven's Branches flew the Bird / OfHeav'n and said 'God wearies of that word: / Hast thou not else to do and else to say?' / So Jacob's lips were sealed from that Day. / But one Night in a Vision, far away / His darling in some alien Field he saw / Binding the Sheaf; and what between the Awe / Of God's Displeasure and the bitter Pass / Of passionate Affection, sigh'd Alas — ' / And stopp'd — But with the morning Sword of Flame / That oped his Eyes the sterner Angel's came / For the forbidden Word not utter'd by / Thy Lips was yet sequester'd in that Sigh.' / And the right Passion whose Excess was wrong / Blinded the aged Eyes that wept too long. / And after these came others — arguing, / Enquiring and excusing — some one Thing, / And some another — endless to repeat,

But, in the Main, Sloth, Folly, or Deceit. / Their Souls were to the vulgar Figure cast / Of earthly Victual not of Heavenly Fast. / At last one smaller Bird, of a rare kind, / Of modest Plume and unpresumptuous Mind, / Whisper'd 'O Tajidar, we know indeed / How Thou both knowest, and would'st help our Need; / For thou art wise and holy, and hast been / Behind the Veil, and there The Presence seen. / But we are weak and vain, with little care / Beyond our yearly Nests and daily Fare — / How should we reach the Mountain? and if there / How get so great a Prince to hear our Prayer? / For there, you say, dwells The Symurgh alone / In Glory, like Sulayman on his Throne, / And we but Pismires at his feet: can He / Such puny Creatures stoop to hear, or see; / Or hearing, seeing, own us — unakin / As He to Folly, Woe, and Death, and Sin?' — / To whom the Tajidar, whose Voice for those

Bewilder'd ones to full Compassion rose / 'O lost so long in exile, you disclaim / The very Fount of Being whence you came, / Cannot be parted from, and, will or no, / Whether for Good or Evil must re-flow ! / For look — the Shadows into which the Light / Of his pure Essence down by infinite / Gradation dwindles, which at random play / Through Space in Shape indefinite — one Ray / Of his Creative Will into defined / Creation quickens: We that swim the Wind, / And they the Flood below, and Man and Beast / That walk between, from Lion to the least / Pismire that creeps along Sulayman's Wall — / Yea, that in which they swim, fly, walk, and crawl — / However near the Fountain Light, or far / Removed, yet His authentic Shadows are; / Dead Matter's Self but the dark Residue / Exterminating Glory dwindles to. / A Mystery too fearful in the Crowd

To utter — scarcely to Thyself aloud — / But when in solitary Watch and Prayer / Consider'd: and religiously beware / Lest Thou the Copy with the Type confound; / And Deity, with Deity indrown'd, — / For as pure Water into purer Wine / Incorporating shall itself reline / While the dull Drug lies half-re solved below, / With Him and with his Shadows is it so: / The baser Forms, to whatsoever Change / Subject, still vary through their lower Range: / To which the higher even shall decay, / That, letting ooze their better Part away / For Things of Sense and Matter, in the End / Shall merge into the Clay to which they tend. / Unlike to him, who straining through the Bond / Of outward Being for a Life beyond, / While the gross Worldling to his Centre clings, / That draws him deeper in, exulting springs / To merge him in the central Soul of Things.

And shall not he pass home with other Zest / Who, with full Knowledge, yearns for such a Rest, / Than he, who with his better self at strife, / Drags on the weary Exile call'd This Life? — / One, like a child with outstretcht Arms and Face / Upturn'd, anticipates his Sire's Embrace; / The other crouching like a guilty Slave / Till flogg'd to Punishment across the Grave. / And, knowing that His glory ill can bear / The unpurged Eye; do thou Thy Breast prepare: / And the mysterious Mirror He set there, / To temper his reflected Image in, / Clear of Distortion, Doubleness, and Sin: / And in thy Conscience understanding this, / The Double only seems, but The One is, / Thyself to Self-annihilation give / That this false Two in that true One may live. / For this I say: if, looking in thy Heart, / Thou for Self-whole mistake thy Shadow-part, / That Shadow-part indeed into The Sun

Shall melt, but senseless of its Union: / But in that Mirror if with purged eyes / Thy Shadow Thou for Shadow recognise, / Then shalt Thou back into thy Centre fall / A conscious Ray of that eternal All.' / He ceased, and for awhile Amazement quell'd / The Host, and in the Chain of Silence held: / A Mystery so awful who would dare — / So glorious who would not wish — to share? / So Silence brooded on the feather'd Folk, / Till here and there a timid Murmur broke / From some too poor in honest Confidence, / And then from others of too much Pretence; / Whom both, as each unduly hoped or fear'd, / The Tajidar in answer check'd or cheer'd. / Some said their Hearts were good indeed to go / The Way he pointed out: but they were slow / Of Comprehension, and scarce understood / Their present Evil or the promised Good: / And so, tho' willing to do all they could,

Must not they fall short, or go wholly wrong, / On such mysterious Errand, and so long? / Whom the wise Leader bid but Do their Best / In Hope and Faith, and leave to Him the rest, / For He who fix'd the Race, and knew its Length / And Danger, also knew the Runner's Strength. / Shah Mahmud, absent on an Enterprise, / Ayas, the very Darling of his eyes, / At home under an Evil Eye fell sick, / Then cried the Sultan to a soldier 'Quick! / To Horse! to Horse! without a Moment's Stay, — / The shortest Road with all the Speed you may, — / Or, by the Lord, your Head shall pay for it!' — / Off went the Soldier, plying Spur and Bit — / Over the sandy Desert, over green / Valley, and Mountain, and the Stream between, / Without a Moment's Stop for rest or bait, / Up to the City — to the Palace Gate — / Up to the Presence-Chamber at a Stride — / And Lo! The Sultan at his Darling's side! —

Then thought the Soldier — I have done my Best, / And yet shall die for it.' The Sultan guess'd / His Thought and smiled. 'Indeed your Best you did, / The nearest Road you knew, and well you rid: / And if / knew a shorter, my Excess / Of Knowledge does but justify thy Less.' / And then, with drooping Crest and Feather, came / Others, bow'd down with Penitence and Shame. / They long'd indeed to go; 'but how begin, / Mesh'd and entangled as they were in Sin / Which often-times Repentance of past Wrong / As often broken had but knit more strong?' / Whom the wise Leader bid be of good cheer, / And, conscious of the Fault, dismiss the Fear, / Nor at the very Entrance of the Fray / Their Weapon, ev'n if broken, fling away: / Since Mercy on the broken Branch anew / Would blossom were but each Repentance true. / For did not God his Prophet take to Task? / 'Sev'n-times of Thee did Karun Pardon ask;

Which, hadst thou been like Me his Maker — yea, / But present at the Kneading of his Clay / With those twain Elements of Hell and Heav'n, — / One prayer had won what Thou deny'st to Sev'n.' / For like a Child sent with a fluttering Light / To feel his way along a gusty Night / Man walks the World: again and yet again / The Lamp shall be by Fits of Passion slain: / But shall not He who sent him from the Door / Relight the Lamp once more, and yet once more? / When the rebellious Host from Death shall wake / Black with Despair of Judgment, God shall take / Ages of holy Merit from the Count / Of Angels to make up Man's short Amount, / And bid the murmuring Angel gladly spare / Of that which, undiminishing his Share, / Of Bliss, shall rescue Thousands from the Cost / Of Bankruptcy within the Prison lost. / Another Story told how in the Scale / Good Will beyond mere Knowledge would prevail.

In Paradise the Angel Gabriel heard / The Lips of Allah trembling with the Word / Of perfect Acceptation: and he thought / 'Some perfect Faith such perfect Answer wrought, / But whose?' — And therewith slipping from the Crypt / Of Sidra, through the Angel-ranks he slipt / Watching what Lip yet trembled with the Shot / That so had hit the Mark — but found it not. / Then, in a Glance to Earth, he threaded through / Mosque, Palace, Cell and Cottage of the True / Belief — in vain; so back to Heaven went / And — Allah's Lips still trembling with assent! / Then the tenacious Angel once again / Threaded the Ranks of Heav'n and Earth — in vain — / Till, once again return'd to Paradise, / There, looking into God's, the Angel's Eyes / Beheld the Prayer that brought that Benison / Rising like Incense from the Lips of one / Who to an Idol bowed — as best he knew / Under that False God worshipping the True.

And then came others whom the summons found / Not wholly sick indeed, but far from sound: / Whose light inconstant Soul alternate flew / From Saint to Sinner, and to both untrue; / Who like a niggard Tailor, tried to match / Truth's single Garment with a worldly Patch. / A dangerous Game; for, striving to adjust / The hesitating Scale of either Lust, / That which had least within it upward flew, / And still the weightier to the Earth down drew, / And, while suspended between Rise and Fall, / Apt with a shaking Hand to forfeit all. / There was a Queen of Egypt like the Bride / Of Night, Full-moon-faced and Canopus-eyed, / Whom one among the meanest of her Crowd / Loved — and she knew it (for he loved aloud), / And sent for him, and said 'Thou lov'st thy Queen: / Now therefore Thou hast this to choose between: / Fly for thy Life: or for this one night Wed / Thy Queen, and with the Sunrise lose thy Head.'

He paused — he turn'd to fly — she struck him dead. / For had he truly loved his Queen,' said She, / 'He would at once have giv'n his Life for me, / And Life and Wife had carried: but he lied; / And loving only Life, has justly died.' / And then came one who having clear'd his Throat / With sanctimonious Sweetness in his Note / Thus lisp'd — 'Behold I languish from the first / With passionate and unrequited Thirst / Of Love for more than any mortal Bird. / Therefore have I withdrawn me from the Herd / To pine in Solitude. But Thou at last / Hast drawn a line across the dreary Past, / And sure I am by Foretaste that the Wine / I long'd for, and Thou tell'st of, shall be mine.' / But he was sternly checkt. 'I tell thee this: / Such Boast is no Assurance of such Bliss: / Thou canst not even fill the sail of Prayer / Unless from Him breathe that authentic Air / That shall lift up the Curtain that divides

His Lover from the Harim where He hides — / And the Fulfilment of thy Vows must be, / Not from thy Love for Him, but His for Thee.' / The third night after Bajazyd had died, / One saw him, in a dream, at his Bedside, / And said, 'Thou Bajazyd? Tell me O Pyr, / How fared it there with Munkar and Nakyr?' / And Bajazyd replied, 'When from the Grave / They met me rising, and "If Allah's slave" / Ask'd me, "or collar'd with the Chain of Hell?" / I said "Not I but God alone can tell: / My Passion for his service were but fond / Ambition had not He approved the Bond: / Had He not round my neck the Collar thrown / And told me in the Number of his own; / And that He only knew. What signifies / A hundred Years of Prayer if none replies?'" / 'But,' said Another, 'then shall none the Seal / Of Acceptation on his Forehead feel / Ere the Grave yield them on the other Side

Where all is settled?' / But the Chief replied — / 'Enough for us to know that who is meet / Shall enter, and with unreproved Feet, / (Ev'n as he might upon the Waters walk) / The Presence-room, and in the Presence talk / With such unbridled Licence as shall seem / To the Uninitiated to blaspheme.' / Just as another Holy Spirit fled, / The Skies above him burst into a Bed / Of Angels looking down and singing clear / 'Nightingale! Nightingale! thy Rose is here!' / And yet, the Door wide open to that Bliss, / As some hot Lover slights a scanty Kiss, / The Saint cried All I sigh'd for come to thisl / I who lifelong have struggled, Lord, to be / Not of thy Angels one, but one with Thee!' / Others were sure that all he said was true: / They were extremely wicked, that they knew: / And much they long'd to go at once — but some,

They said, so unexpectedly had come / Leaving their Nests half-built — in bad Repair — / With Children in — Themselves about to pair — / 'Might he not choose a better Season — nay, / Better perhaps a Year or Two's Delay, / Till all was settled, and themselves more stout / And strong to carry their Repentance out — / And then' — / 'And then, the same or like Excuse, / With harden'd Heart and Resolution loose / With dallying: and old Age itself engaged / Still to shirk that which shirking we have aged: / And so with Self-delusion, till, too late, / Death upon all Repentance shuts the Gate; / Or some fierce blow compels the Way to choose, / And forced Repentance half its Virtue lose.' / As of an aged Indian King they tell / Who, when his Empire with his Army fell / Under young Mahmud's Sword of Wrath, was sent / At sunset to the Conqueror in his Tent;

But, ere the old King's silver head could reach / The Ground, was lifted up — with kindly Speech, / And with so holy Mercy reassured, / That, after due Persuasion, he abjured / His idols, sate upon Mahmud's Divan, / And took the Name and Faith of Musulman. / But when the Night fell, in his Tent alone / The poor old King was heard to weep and groan / And smite his Bosom; which, when Mahmud knew, / He went to him and said 'Lo, if Thou rue / Thy lost Dominion, Thou shalt wear the Ring / Of thrice as large a Realm.' But the dark King / Still wept, and Ashes on his Forehead threw / And cried 'Not for my Kingdom lost I rue: / But thinking how at the Last Day, will stand / The Prophet with The Volume in his Hand, / And ask of me "How was't that, in thy Day / Of Glory, Thou didst turn from Me and slay / My People; but soon as thy Infidel / Before my True Believers' Army fell

Like Corn before the Reaper — thou didst own / His Sword who scoutedst Me." Of seed so sown / What profitable Harvest should be grown?' / Then after cheering others who delay'd, / Not of the Road but of Themselves afraid, / The Tajidar the Troop of those address'd, / Whose uncomplying Attitude confess'd / Their Souls entangled in the old Deceit, / And hankering still after forbidden Meat — / 'O ye who so long feeding on the Husk / Forgo the Fruit, and doting on the Dusk / Of the false Dawn, are blinded to the True: / That in the Maidan of this World pursue / The Golden Ball which, driven to the Goal, / Wins the World's Game but loses your own Soul: / Or like to Children after Bubbles run / That still elude your Fingers; or, if won, / Burst in Derision at your Touch; all thin / Glitter without, and empty Wind within. / So as a prosperous Worldling on the Bed

Of Death — "Behold, I am as one," he said, / "Who all my Life long have been measuring Wind, / And, dying, now leave even that behind" — / This World's a Nest in which the Cockatrice / Is warm'd and hatcht of Vanity and Vice: / A false Bazaar whose Wares are all a lie, / Or never worth the Price at which you buy: / A many-headed Monster that, supplied / The faster, faster is unsatisfied; / So as one, hearing a rich Fool one day / To God for yet one other Blessing pray, / Bid him no longer bounteous Heaven tire / For Life to feed, but Death to quench, the Fire. / And what are all the Vanities and Wiles / In which the false World decks herself and smiles / To draw Men down into her harlot Lap? / Lusts of the Flesh that Soul and Body sap, / And, melting Soul down into carnal Lust, / Ev'n that for which 'tis sacrificed disgust: / Or Lust of worldly Glory — hollow more

Than the Drum beaten at the Sultan's Door, / And fluctuating with the Breath of Man / As the Vain Banner flapping in the Van. / And Lust of Gold — perhaps of Lusts the worst; / The mis-created Idol most accurst / That between Man and Him who made him stands: / The Felon that with suicidal hands / He sweats to dig and rescue from his Grave, / And sets at large to make Himself its Slave. / For lo, to what worse than oblivion gone / Are some the cozening World most doted on. / Pharaoh tried Glory: and his Chariots drown'd: / Karun with all his Gold went underground: / Down toppled Nembroth with his airy Stair: / Schedad among his Roses lived — but where! / 'And as the World upon her victims feeds / So She herself goes down the Way she leads. / For all her false allurements are the Threads / The Spider from her Entrail spins, and spreads / For Home and hunting-ground: And by and by

Darts at due Signal on the tangled Fly, / Seizes, dis-wings, and drains the Life, and leaves / The swinging Carcase, and forthwith re- weaves / Her Web: each Victim adding to the store / Of poison'd Entrail to entangle more. / And so She bloats in Glory: till one Day / The Master of the House, passing that way, / Perceives, and with one flourish of his Broom / Of Web and Fly and Spider clears the Room. / 'Behold, dropt through the Gate of Mortal Birth, / The Knightly Soul alights from Heav'n on Earth; / Begins his Race, but scarce the Saddle feels, / When a foul Imp up from the distance steals, / And, double as he will, about his Heels / Closer and ever closer circling creeps, / Then, half-invited, on the Saddle leaps, / Clings round the Rider, and, once there, in vain / The strongest strives to thrust him off again. / In Childhood just peeps up the Blade of 111, / That Youth to Lust rears, Fury, and Self-will:

And, as Man cools to sensual Desire, / Ambition catches with as fierce a Fire; / Until Old Age sends him with one last Lust / Of Gold, to keep it where he found — in Dust. / Life at both ends so feeble and constrain'd / How should that Imp of Sin be slain or chain'd? / And woe to him who feeds the hateful Beast / That of his Feeder makes an after-feast! / We know the Wolf: by Strategem and Force / Can hunt the Tiger down: but what Resource / Against the Plague we heedless hatch within, / Then, growing, pamper into full-blown Sin / With the Soul's self: ev'n, as the wise man said, / Feeding the very Devil with God's own Bread; / Until the Lord his Largess misapplied / Resent, and drive us wholly from his Side? / For should the Greyhound whom a Sultan fed, / And by a jewell'd String a-hunting led, / Turned by the Way to gnaw some nasty Thing / And snarl at Him who twitch'd the silken String,

Would not his Lord soon weary of Dispute, / And turn adrift the incorrigible Brute? / 'Nay, would one follow, and without a Chain, / The only Master truly worth the Pain, / One must beware lest, growing over-fond / Of even Life's more consecrated Bond, / We clog our Footsteps to the World beyond. / Like that old Arab Chieftain, who confess'd / His soul by two too Darling Things possess'd — / That only Son of his: and that one Colt / Descended from the Prophet's Thunderbolt. / "And I might well bestow the last," he said, / "On him who brought me Word the Boy was dead." / And if so vain the glittering Fish we get, / How doubly vain to dote upon the Net, / Call'd Life, that draws them, patching up this thin / Tissue of Breathing out and Breathing in, / And so by husbanding each wretched Thread / Spin out Death's very terror that we dread — / For as the Raindrop from the sphere of God

Dropt for a while into the Mortal Clod / So little makes of its allotted Time / Back to its Heav'n itself to re- sublime, / That it but serves to saturate its Clay / With Bitterness that will not pass away.' / One day the Prophet on a River Bank, / Dipping his Lips into the Channel, drank / A Draught as sweet as Honey. Then there came / One who an earthen Pitcher from the same / Drew up, and drank: and after some short stay / Under the Shadow, rose and went his Way. / Leaving his earthen Bowl. In which, anew / Thirsting, the Prophet from the River drew, / And drank from: but the Water that came up / Sweet from the Stream, drank bitter from the Cup. / At which the Prophet in a still Surprise / For Answer turning up to Heav'n his Eyes, / The Vessel's Earthen Lips with Answer ran — / 'The Clay that I am made of once was Man, / Who dying, and resolved into the same

Obliterated Earth from which he came / Was for the Potter dug, and chased in turn / Through long Vicissitude of Bowl and Urn: / But howsoever moulded, still the Pain / Of that first mortal Anguish would retain, / And cast, and re-cast, for a Thousand years / Would turn the sweetest Water into Tears.' / And after Death? — that, shirk it as we may, / Will come, and with it bring its After-Day — / For ev'n as Yusuf (when his Brotherhood / Came up from Egypt to buy Corn, and stood / Before their Brother in his lofty Place, / Nor knew him, for a Veil before his Face) / Struck on his Mystic Cup, which straightway then / Rung out their Story to those guilty Ten: — / Not to them only, but to every one; / Whatever he have said and thought and done, / Unburied with the Body shall fly up, / And gather into Heav'n's inverted Cup, / Which, stricken by God's Finger, shall tell all

The Story whereby we must stand or fall. / And though we walk this World as if behind / There were no Judgement, or the Judge half-blind, / Beware, for He with whom we have to do / Outsees the Lynx, outlives the Phoenix too — / So Sultan Mahmud, coming Face to Face / With mightier numbrs of the swarthy Race, / Vow'd that if God to him the battle gave, / God's Dervish People all the Spoil should have. / And God the Battle gave him; and the Fruit / Of a great Conquest coming to compute, / A Murmur through the Sultan's Army stirr'd / Lest, ill committed to one hasty Word, / The Shah should squander on an idle Brood / What should be theirs who earn'd it with their Blood, / Or go to fill the Coffers of the State. / So Mahmud's Soul began to hesitate: / Till looking round in Doubt from side to side / A raving Zealot in the Press he spied, / And call'd and had him brought before his Face,

And, telling, bid him arbitrate the case. / Who, having listen'd, said — 'The Thing is plain: / If Thou and God should never have again / To deal together, rob him of his share: / But if perchance you should — why then Beware!' / So spake the Tajidar: but Fear and Doubt / Among the Birds in Whispers went about: / Great was their Need: and Succour to be sought / At any Risk: at any Ransom bought: / But such a Monarch — greater than Mahmud / The Great Himself! Why how should he be woo'd / To listen to them? they too have come / O So suddenly, and unprepared from home / With any Gold, or Jewel, or rich Thing / To carry with them to so great a King — / Poor Creatures! with the old and carnal Blind, / Spite of all said, so thick upon the Mind, / Devising how they might ingratiate / Access, as to some earthly Potentate. / 'Let him that with this Monarch would engage

Bring the Gold Dust of a long Pilgrimage: / The Ruby of a bleeding Heart, whose Sighs / Breathe more than Amber-incense as it dies; / And while in naked Beggary he stands / Hope for the Robe of Honour from his Hands.' / And, as no gift this Sovereign receives / Save the mere Soul and Self of him who gives, / So let that Soul for other none Reward / Look than the Presence of its Sovereign Lord.' / And as his Hearers seem'd to estimate / Their Scale of Glory from Mahmud the Great, / A simple Story of the Sultan told / How best a subject with his Shah made bold — / One night Shah Mahmud who had been of late / Somewhat distemper'd with Affairs of State / Stroll'd through the Streets disguised, as wont to do — / And, coming to the Baths, there on the Flue / Saw the poor Fellow who the Furnace fed / Sitting beside his Water-jug and Bread. / Mahmud stept in — sat down — unask'd took up

And tasted of the untasted Loaf and Cup, / Saying within himself, 'Grudge but a bit, / And, by the Lord, your Head shall pay for it!' / So having rested, warm'd and satisfied / Himself without a Word on either side, / At last the wayward Sultan rose to go. / And then at last his Host broke silence — 'So? — / Art satisfied? Well, Brother, any Day / Or Night, remember, when you come this Way / And want a bit of Provender — why, you / Are welcome, and if not — why, welcome too.' — / The Sultan was so tickled with the whim / Of this quaint Entertainment and of him / Who offer'd it, that many a Night again / Stoker and Shah forgather'd in that Vein — / Till, the poor Fellow having stood the Test / Of true Good-fellowship, Mahmud confess'd / One Night the Sultan that had been his Guest: / And in requital of the scanty Dole / The Poor Man offer'd with so large a soul,

Bid him ask any Largess that he would / A Throne — if he would have it, so he should. / The Poor Man kiss'd the Dust, and All,' said he, / 'I ask is what and where I am to be; / If but the Shah from time to time will come / As now and see me in the lowly Home / His presence makes a palace, and my own / Poor Flue more royal than another's Throne.' / So said the cheery Tale: and, as they heard, / Again the Heart beneath the Feather stirr'd: / Again forgot the Danger and the Woes / Of the long Travel in its glorious Close: — / 'Here truly all was Poverty, Despair / And miserable Banishment — but there / That more than Mahmud, for no more than Prayer / Who would restore them to their ancient Place, / And round their Shoulders fling his Robe of Grace.' / They clapp'd their Wings, on Fire to be assay'd / And prove of what true Metal they were made, / Although defaced, and wanting the true Ring

And Superscription of their rightful King. / 'The Road! The Road!' in countless voices cried / The Host — 'The Road! and who shall be our Guide?' / And they themselves 'The Tajidar!' replied: / Yet to make doubly certain that the Voice / Of Heav'n according with the People's Choice, / Lots should be drawn; and He on whom should light / Heav'n's Hand — they swore to follow him outright. / This settled, and once more the Hubbub quell'd, / Once more Suspense the Host in Silence held, / While, Tribe by Tribe, the Birds their fortune drew; / And Lo ! upon the Tajidar it flew. / Then rising up again in wide and high / Circumference of wings that mesh'd the sky / 'The Tajidar! The Tajidar!' they cry — / 'The Tajidar! The Tajidar!' with Him / Was Heav'n, and They would follow Life and Limb ! / Then, once more fluttering to their Places down, / Upon his Head they set the Royal Crown / As Khalif of their Khalif so long lost,

And Captain of his now repentant Host; / And setting him on high, and Silence call'd, / The Tajidar, in Pulpit-throne install'd, / His Voice into a Trumpet-tongue so clear / As all the winged Multitude should hear / Raised, to proclaim the Order and Array / Of March; which, many as it frighten'd — yea, / The Heart of Multitudes at outset broke, / Yet for due Preparation must be spoke. / — A Road indeed that never Wing before / Flew, nor Foot trod, nor Heart imagined — o'er / Waterless Deserts — Waters where no Shore — / Valleys comprising cloud-high Mountains: these / Again their Valleys deeper than the Seas: / Whose Dust all Adders, and whose vapour Fire: / Where all once hostile Elements conspire / To set the Soul against herself, and tear / Courage to Terror — Hope into Despair, / And Madness; Terrors, Trials, to make stray / Or Stop where Death to wander or delay:

Where when half dead with Famine, Toil, and Heat, / 'Twas Death indeed to rest, or drink, or eat. / A Road still waxing in Self-sacrifice / As it went on: still ringing with the Cries / And Groans of Those who had not yet prevail'd, / And bleaching with the Bones of those who fail'd: / Where, almost all withstood, perhaps to earn / Nothing: and, earning, never to return. — / And first the VALE OF SEARCH: an endless Maze, / Branching into innumerable Ways / All courting Entrance: but one right: and this / Beset with Pitfall, Gulf, and Precipice, / Where Dust is Embers, Air a fiery Sleet, / Through which with blinded Eyes and bleeding Feet / The Pilgrim stumbles, with Hyena's Howl / Around, and hissing Snake, and deadly Ghoul, / Whose Prey he falls if tempted but to droop, / Or if to wander famish'd from the Troop / For fruit that falls to ashes in the Hand, / Water that reacht recedes into the Sand.

The only word is 'Forward!' Guide in sight, / After him, swerving neither left nor right, / Thyself for thine own Victual by Day, / At night thine own Self s Caravanserai. / Till suddenly, perhaps when most subdued / And desperate, the Heart shall be renew'd / When deep in utter Darkness, by one Gleam / Of Glory from the far remote Harim, / That, with a scarcely conscious Shock of Change, / Shall light the Pilgrim toward the Mountain Range / Of KNOWLEDGE: where, if stronger and more pure / The Light and Air, yet harder to endure; / And if, perhaps, the Footing more secure, / Harder to keep up with a nimble Guide, / Less from lost Road than insufficient Stride — / Yet tempted still by false Shows from the Track, / And by false Voices call'd aside or back, / Which echo from the Bosom, as if won / The Journey's End when only just begun, / And not a Mountain Peak with Toil attain'd

But shows a top yet higher to be gain'd. / Wherefore still Forward, Forward! Love that fired / Thee first to search, by Search so re-inspired / As that the Spirit shall the carnal Load / Burn up, and double wing Thee on the Road; / That wert thou knocking at the very Door / Of Heav'n, thou still would'st cry for More, More, More! / Till loom in sight Kaf s Mountain Peak ashroud / In Mist — uncertain yet Mountain or Cloud, / But where the Pilgrim 'gins to hear the Tide / Of that one Sea in which the Sev'n subside; / And not the Sev'n Seas only: but the sev'n / And self-enfolded Spheres of Earth and Heav'n — / Yea, the Two Worlds, that now as Pictures sleep / Upon its Surface — but when once the Deep / From its long Slumber 'gins to heave and sway — / Under the Tempest shall be swept away / With all their Phases and Phenomena: / Not senseless Matter only, but combined / With Life in all Varieties of Kind;

Yea, ev'n the abstract Forms that Space and Time / Men call, and Weal and Woe, Virtue and Crime, / And all the several Creeds like those who fell / Before them, Musulman and Infidel / Shall from the Face of Being melt away, / Cancell'd and swept as Dreams before the Day. / So hast thou seen the Astrologer prepare / His mystic Table smooth of sand, and there / Inscribe his mystic figures, Square, and Trine, / Circle and Pentagram, and heavenly Sign / Of Star and Planet: from whose Set and Rise, / Meeting and Difference, he prophesies; / And, having done it, with his Finger clean / Obliterates as never they had been. / Such is when reacht the Table Land of One / And Wonder: blazing with so fierce a Sun / Of Unity that blinds while it reveals / The Universe that to a Point congeals, / So, stunn'd with utter Revelation, reels / The Pilgrim, when that Double- seeming House,

Against whose Beams he long had chafed his Brows, / Crumbles and cracks before that Sea, whose near / And nearer Voice now overwhelms his Ear. / Till blinded, deafen'd, madden 'd, drunk with doubt / Of all within Himself as all without, / Nay, whether a Without there be, or not, / Or a Within that doubts: and if, then what? — / Ev'n so shall the bewilder'd Pilgrim seem / When nearest waking deepliest in Dream, / And darkest next to Dawn; and lost what had / When All is found: and just when sane quite Mad — / As one that having found the Key once more / Returns, and Lo! he cannot find the Door / He stumbles over — So the Pilgrim stands / A moment on the Threshold — with raised Hands / Calls to the eternal Saki for one Draught / Of Light from the One Essence: which when quaff d, / He plunges headlong in: and all is well / With him who never more returns to tell. / Such being then the Race and such the Goal,

Judge if you must not Body both and Soul / With Meditation, Watch and Fast prepare. / For he that wastes his body to a Hair / Shall seize the Locks of Truth: and He that prays / Good Angels in their Ministry waylays: / And the Midnightly Watcher in the Folds / Of his own Darkness God Almighty holds. / He that would prosper here must from him strip / The World, and take the Dervish Gown and Scrip: / And as he goes must gather from all Sides / Irrelevant Ambitions, Lusts and Prides, / Glory and Gold, and sensual Desire, / Whereof to build the fundamental Pyre / Of Self-annihilation: and cast in / All old Relations and Regards of Kin / And Country: and, the Pile with this perplext / World platform'd, from the Fables of the Next / Raise it tow'rd Culmination, with the torn / Rags and Integuments of Creeds out-worn; / And top the giddy Summit with the Scroll

Of Reason that in dingy Smoke shall roll / Over the true Self-sacrifice of Soul: / (For such a Prayer was his — 'O God, do Thou / With all my Wealth in the other World endow / My Friends: and with my Wealth in this my Foes, / Till bankrupt in thy Riches I repose!') / Then, all the Pile completed of the Pelf / Of either World — at last throw on Thyself, / And with the torch of Self-negation fire; / And ever as the Flames rise high and higher, / With Cries of agonising Glory still / All of that Self 'burn up that burn up will, / Leaving the Phoenix that no Fire can slay / To spring from its own Ashes kindled — nay, / Itself an inextinguishable Spark / Of Being, now beneath Earth-ashes dark, / Transcending these, at last Itself transcends / And with the One Eternal Essence blends. / The Moths had long been exiled from the Flame / They worship: so to solemn Council came,

And voted One of them by Lot be sent / To find their Idol. One was chosen: went. / And after a long Circuit in sheer Gloom, / Seeing, he thought, the TAPER in a Room / Flew back at once to say so. But the chief / Of Mothistan slighted so slight Belief, / And sent another Messenger, who flew / Up to the House, in at the window, through / The Flame itself; and back the Message brings, / With yet no sign of Conflict on his wings. / Then went a Third, and spurr'd with true Desire, / Plunging at once into the sacred Fire, / Folded his Wings within, till he became / One Colour and one Substance with the Flame. / He only knew the Flame who in it burn'd; / And only He could tell who ne'er to tell return'd. / After declaring what of this declared / Must be, that all who went should be prepared, / From his high Station ceased the Tajidar — / And lo ! the Terrors that, when told afar,

Seem'd but as Shadows of a Noonday Sun, / Now that the talkt-of Thing was to be done, / Lengthening into those of closing Day / Strode into utter Darkness: and Dismay / Like Night on the husht Sea of Feathers lay, / Late so elate — 'So terrible a Track! / Endless — or, ending, never to come back! — / Never to Country, Family, or Friend!' — / In sooth no easy Bow for Birds to bend! — / Even while he spoke, how many Wings and Crests / Had slunk away to distant Woods and Nests; / Others again in Preparation spent / What little Strength they had, and never went: / And others, after preparation due — / When up the Veil of that first Valley drew / From whose waste Wilderness of Darkness blew / A Sarsar, whether edged of Flames or Snows, / That through from Root to Tip their Feathers froze — / Up went a Multitude that overhead / A moment darken'd, then on all sides fled,

Dwindling the World- assembled Caravan / To less than half the Number that began. / Of those who fled not, some in Dread and Doubt / Sat without stirring: others who set out / With frothy Force, or stupidly resign'd, / Before a League, flew off or fell behind. / And howsoever the more Brave and Strong / In Courage, Wing, or Wisdom push'd along, / Yet League by League the Road was thicklier spread / By the fast falling Foliage of the Dead: / Some spent with Travel over Wave and Ground; / Scorcht, frozen, dead for Drought, or drinking drown'd. / Famisht, or poison'd with the Food when found: / By Weariness, or Hunger, or Affright / Seduced to stop or stray, become the Bite / Of Tiger howling round or hissing Snake, / Or Crocodile that eyed them from the Lake: / Or raving Mad, or in despair Self-slain: / Or slaying one another for a Grain: — / Till of the mighty Host that fledged the Dome

Of Heav'n and Floor of Earth on leaving Home, / A Handful reach'd and scrambled up the Knees / Of Kaf whose Feet dip in the Seven Seas; / And of the few that up his Forest- sides / Of Light and Darkness where The Presence hides, / But Thirty — thirty desperate draggled Things, / Half-dead, with scarce a Feather on their Wings, / Stunn'd, blinded, deafen'd with the Crash and Craze / Of Rock and Sea collapsing in a Blaze / That struck the Sun to Cinder — fell upon / The Threshold of the Everlasting One, / With but enough of Life in each to cry, / On THAT which all absorb'd— / And suddenly / Forth flash'd a winged Harbinger of Flame / And Tongue of Fire, and 'Who?' and 'Whence they came?' / And Why?' demanded. And the Tajidar / For all the Thirty answer'd him — We are / Those Fractions of the Sum of Being, far / Dis- spent and foul disfigured, that once more

Strike for Admission at the Treasury Door.' / To whom the Angel answer'd — 'Know ye not / That He you seek recks little who or what / Of Quantity and Kind — himself the Fount / Of Being Universal needs no Count / Of all the Drops o'erflowing from his Urn, / In what Degree they issue or return?' / Then cried the Spokesman, 'Be it even so: / Let us but see the Fount from which we flow, / And, seeing, lose Ourselves therein!' and, Lo! / Before the Word was utter'd, or the Tongue / Of Fire replied, or Portal open flung. / They were within — they were before the Throne, / Before the Majesty that sat thereon, / But wrapt in so insufferable a Blaze / Of Glory as beat down their baffled Gaze. / Which, downward dropping, fell upon a Scroll / That, Lightning-like, flash'd back on each the whole / Past half-forgotten Story of his Soul: / Like that which Yusuf in his Glory gave

His Brethren as some Writing he would have / Interpreted; and at a Glance, behold / Their own Indenture for their Brother sold! / And so with these poor Thirty: who, abasht / In Memory all laid bare and Conscience lasht, / By full Confession and Self-loathing flung / The Rags of carnal Self that round them clung; / And, their old selves self-knowledged and self-loathed, / And in the Soul's Integrity re-clothed, / Once more they ventured from the Dust to raise / Their Eyes — up to the Throne — into the Blaze, / And in the Centre of the Glory there / Beheld the Figure of — Themselves — as 'twere / Transfigured — looking to Themselves, beheld / The Figure on the Throne en-miracled, / Until their Eyes themselves and That between / Did hesitate which Seer was, which Seen; / They That, That They: Another, yet the Same: / Dividual, yet One: from whom there came / A Voice of awful Answer, scarce discern'd

From which to Aspiration whose return'd / They scarcely knew; as when some Man apart / Answers aloud the Question in his Heart — / 'The Sun of my Perfection is a Glass / Wherein from Seeing into Being pass / All who, reflecting as reflected see / Themselves in Me, and Me in Them: not Me, / But all of Me that a contracted Eye / Is comprehensive of Infinity: / Nor yet Themselves: no Selves, but of The All / Fractions, from which they split and whither fall. / As Water lifted from the Deep, again / Falls back in individual Drops of Rain / Then melts into the Universal Main. / All you have been, and seen, and done, and thought, / Not You but /, have seen and been and wrought: / I was the Sin that from Myself rebell'd: / I the Remorse that tow'rd Myself compell'd: / I was the Tajidar who led the Track: / I was the little Briar that pull'd you back:

Sin and Contrition — Retribution owed, / And cancell'd — Pilgrim, Pilgrimage, and Road, / Was but Myself toward Myself: and Your / Arrival but Myself at my own Door: / Who in your Fraction of Myself behold / Myself within the Mirror Myself hold / To see Myself in, and each part of Me / That sees himself, though drown'd, shall ever see. / Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw, / And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw: / Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide / Return, and back into your Sun subside.' — / This was the Parliament of Birds: and this / The Story of the Host who went amiss, / And of the Few that better Upshot found; / Which being now recounted, Lo, the Ground / Of Speech fails underfoot: But this to tell — / Their Road is thine — Follow — and Fare thee well.