THE KASÎDAH VIII, 141, 152

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.

THE KASÎDAH VIII, 65, 80

Reply: mankind obeys a law
 that bids him labour, struggle, strain;
The Sage well knowing its unworth,
 the Fool a-dreaming foolish gain.

And who, ’mid e’en the Fools, but feels
 that half the joy is in the race
For wealth and fame and place, nor sighs
 when comes success to crown the chase?

Again: in Hind, Chîn, Franguestân
 that accident of birth befell,
Without our choice, our will, our voice:
 Faith is an accident as well.

What to the Hindu saith the Frank:
 “Denier of the Laws divine!
“However godly-good thy Life,
 Hell is the home for thee and thine.”

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 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, 25, 36

Life is a ladder infinite-stepped,
 that hides its rungs from human eyes;
Planted its foot in chaos-gloom,
 its head soars high above the skies:

No break the chain of Being bears;
 all things began in unity;
And lie the links in regular line
 though haply none the sequence see.

The Ghost, embodied natural Dread
 of dreary death and foul decay,
Begat the Spirit, Soul and Shade
 with Hades’ pale and wan array.

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, 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 III, 137, 152

How sore the burden, strange the strife;
 how full of splendour, wonder, fear;
Life, atom of that Infinite Space
 that stretcheth ’twixt the Here and There.

How Thought is imp’otent to divine
 the secret which the gods defend,
The Why of birth and life and death,
 that Isis-veil no hand may rend.

Eternal Morrows make our Day;
 our Is is aye to be till when
Night closes in; ’tis all a dream,
 and yet we die,—and then and THEN?

And still the Weaver plies his loom,
 whose warp and woof is wretched Man
Weaving th’ unpattern’d dark design,
 so dark we doubt it owns a plan.

THE KASÎDAH III, 107, 124

Yes, Life in youth-tide standeth still;
 in manhood streameth soft and slow;
See, as it nears the ’abysmal goal
 how fleet the waters flash and flow!

And Deaths are twain; the Deaths we see
 drop like the leaves in windy Fall;
But ours, our own, are ruined worlds,
 a globe collapst, last end of all.

We live our lives with rogues and fools,
 dead and alive, alive and dead,
We die ’twixt one who feels the pulse
 and one who frets and clouds the head:

And,—oh, the Pity!—hardly conned
 the lesson comes its fatal term;
Fate bids us bundle up our books,
 and bear them bod’ily to the worm:

Hardly we learn to wield the blade
 before the wrist grows stiff and old;
Hardly we learn to ply the pen
 ere Thought and Fancy faint with cold.

THE KASÎDAH III, 75, 90

A drop in Ocean’s boundless tide,
 unfathom’d waste of agony;
Where millions live their horrid lives
 by making other millions die.

How with a heart that would through love
 to Universal Love aspire,
Man woos infernal chance to smite,
 as Min’arets draw the Thunder-fire.

How Earth on Earth builds tow’er and wall,
 to crumble at a touch of Time;
How Earth on Earth from Shînar-plain
 the heights of Heaven fain would climb.

How short this Life, how long withal;
 how false its weal, how true its woes,
This fever-fit with paroxysms
 to mark its opening and its close.

THE KASÎDAH III, 37, 46

How Life was nought but ray of sun
 that clove the darkness thick and blind,
The ravings of the reckless storm,
 the shrieking of the rav’ening wind;

How lovely visions ’guiled his sleep,
 aye fading with the break of morn,
Till every sweet became a sour,
 till every rose became a thorn;

Till dust and ashes met his eyes
 wherever turned their saddened gaze;
The wrecks of joys and hopes and loves,
 the rubbish of his wasted days;

THE KASÎDAH III, 13, 24

Wond’ring the Babe with staring eyes,
 perforce compel’d from night to day,
Gript in the giant grasp of Life
 like gale-born dust or wind-wrung spray;

Who comes imbecile to the world
 ’mid double danger, groans, and tears;
The toy, the sport, the waif and stray
 of passions, error, wrath and fears;

Who knows not Whence he came nor Why,
 who kens not Whither bound and When,
Yet such is Allah’s choicest gift,
 the blessing dreamt by foolish men;

THE KASÎDAH III, 1,12

Fie, fie! you visionary things,
 ye motes that dance in sunny glow,
Who base and build Eternities
 on briefest moment here below;

Who pass through Life liked cagèd birds,
 the captives of a despot will;
Still wond’ring How and When and Why,
 and Whence and Whither, wond’ring still;

Still wond’ring how the Marvel came
 because two coupling mammals chose
To slake the thirst of fleshly love,
 and thus the “Immortal Being” rose;

THE KASÎDAH II, 73, 84

Wiser than Amrân’s Son art thou,
 who ken’st so well the world-to-be,
The Future when the Past is not,
 the Present merest dreamery;

What know’st thou, man, of Life? and yet,
 forever twixt the womb, the grave,
Thou pratest of the Coming Life,
 of Heav’n and Hell thou fain must rave.

The world is old and thou art young;
 the world is large and thou art small;
Cease, atom of a moment’s span,
 To hold thyself an All-in-All!

THE KASÎDAH I, 57, 68

Mine eyes, my brain, my heart, are sad,—
 sad is the very core of me;
All wearies, changes, passes, ends;
 alas! the Birthday’s injury!

Friends of my youth, a last adieu!
 haply some day we meet again;
Yet ne’er the self-same men shall meet;
 the years shall make us other men:

The light of morn has grown to noon,
 has paled with eve, and now farewell!
Go, vanish from my Life as dies
 the tinkling of the Camel’s bell.