THE KASÎDAH VIII, 105, 116

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?”

THE KASÎDAH VIII, 17, 32

While Reason sternly bids us die,
 Love longs for life beyond the grave:
Our hearts, affections, hopes and fears
 for Life-to-be shall ever crave.

Hence came the despot’s darling dream,
 a Church to rule and sway the State;
Hence sprang the train of countless griefs
 in priestly sway and rule innate.

For future Life who dares reply?
 No witness at the bar have we;
Save what the brother Potsherd tells,—
 old tales and novel jugglery.

Who e’er return’d to teach the Truth,
 the things of Heaven and Hell to limn?
And all we hear is only fit
 for grandam-talk and nursery-hymn.

THE KASÎDAH V, 1, 12

There is no Good, there is no Bad;
 these be the whims of mortal will:
What works me weal that call I ‘good,’
 what harms and hurts I hold as ‘ill:’

They change with place, they shift with race;
 and, in the veriest span of Time,
Each Vice has worn a Virtue’s crown;
 all Good was banned as Sin or Crime:

Like ravelled skeins they cross and twine,
 while this with that connects and blends;
And only Khizr his eye shall see
 where one begins, where other ends:

THE KASÎDAH IV, 121, 132

“Where are the crown of Kay Khusraw,
 the sceptre of Anûshirwân,
“The holy grail of high Jamshîd,
 Afrâsiyab’s hall?—Canst tell me, man?

“Gone, gone, where I and thou must go,
 borne by the winnowing wings of Death,
“The Horror brooding over life,
 and nearer brought with every breath:

“Their fame hath filled the Seven Climes,
 they rose and reigned, they fought and fell,
“As swells and swoons across the wold
 the tinkling of the Camel’s bell.”

THE KASÎDAH III, 125, 136

Hardly we find the path of love,
 to sink the self, forget the “I,”
When sad suspicion grips the heart,
 when Man, the Man begins to die:

Hardly we scale the wisdom-heights,
 and sight the Pisgah-scene around,
And breathe the breath of heav’enly air,
 and hear the Spheres’ harmonious sound;

When swift the Camel-rider spans
 the howling waste, by Kismet sped,
And of his Magic Wand a wave
 hurries the quick to join the dead

THE KASÎDAH I, 29,40

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.