THE KASÎDAH VIII, 1, 16

There is no Heav’en, there is no Hell;
 these be the dreams of baby minds;
Tools of the wily Fetisheer,
 to ’fright the fools his cunning blinds.

Learn from the mighty Spi’rits of old
 to set thy foot on Heav’en and Hell;
In Life to find thy hell and heav’en
 as thou abuse or use it well.

So deemed the doughty Jew who dared
 by studied silence low to lay
Orcus and Hades, lands of shades,
 the gloomy night of human day.

Hard to the heart is final death:
 fain would an Ens not end in Nil;
Love made the senti’ment kindly good:
 the Priest perverted all to ill.

THE KASÎDAH VII,77, 92

“Reason and Instinct!” How we love
 to play with words that please our pride;
Our noble race’s mean descent
 by false forged titles seek to hide!

For “gift divine” I bid you read
 the better work of higher brain,
From Instinct diff’ering in degree
 as golden mine from leaden vein.

Reason is Life’s sole arbiter,
 the magic Laby’rinth’s single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken;
 what crosses it can ne’er be true.

“Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!”
 Angels and Fools have equal claim
To do what Nature bids them do,
 sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame!

THE KASÎDAH VII, 61, 76

Vain cavil! all that is hath come
 either by Mir’acle or by Law;—
Why waste on this your hate and fear,
 why waste on that your love and awe?

Why heap such hatred on a word,
 why “Prototype” to type assign,
Why upon matter spirit mass?
 wants an appendix your design?

Is not the highest honour his
 who from the worst hath drawn the best;
May not your Maker make the world
 from matter, an it suit His hest?

Nay more, the sordider the stuff
 the cunninger the workman’s hand:
Cease, then, your own Almighty Power
 to bind, to bound, to understand.

THE KASÎDAH VII, 49, 60

Thought is the work of brain and nerve,
 in small-skulled idiot poor and mean;
In sickness sick, in sleep asleep,
 and dead when Death lets drop the scene.

“Tush!” quoth the Zâhid, “well we ken
 the teaching of the school abhorr’d
“That maketh man automaton,
 mind a secretion, soul a word.”

“Of molecules and protoplasm
 you matter-mongers prompt to prate;
“Of jelly-speck development
 and apes that grew to man’s estate.”

THE KASÎDAH VII, 37, 48

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!

“Th’ immortal mind of mortal man!”
 we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry;
Whose mind but means his sum of thought,
 an essence of atomic “I.”

THE KASÎDAH VII, 13, 24

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:

THE KASÎDAH VI, 61, 72

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.

THE KASÎDAH VI, 49, 60

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.

THE KASÎDAH VI, 33, 48

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.

THE KASÎDAH VI, 17, 32

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.

THE KASÎDAH VI, 1, 16

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;

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.

THE KASÎDAH V, 101, 112

What call ye them or Goods or Ills,
 ill-goods, 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:

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!

THE KASÎDAH V, 89, 100

Earthquake and plague, storm, fight and fray,
 portents and curses man must deem
Since he regards his self alone,
 nor cares to trace the scope, the scheme;

The Quake that comes in eyelid’s beat
 to ruin, level, ’gulf and kill,
Builds up a world for better use,
 to general Good bends special Ill:

The dreadest sound man’s ear can hear,
 the war and rush of stormy Wind
Depures the stuff of human life,
 breeds health and strength for humankind:

THE KASÎDAH V, 73, 88

The “moral sense,” your Zâhid-phrase,
 is but the gift of latest years;
Conscience was born when man had shed
 his fur, his tail, his pointed ears.

What conscience has the murd’erous Moor,
 who slays his guest with felon blow,
Save sorrow he can slay no more,
 what prick of pen’itence can he know?

You cry the “Cruelty of Things”
 is myst’ery to your purblind eye,
Which fixed upon a point in space
 the general project passes by:

For see! the Mammoth went his ways,
 became a mem’ory and a name;
While the half-reasoner with the hand
 survives his rank and place to claim.