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 V, 49, 60

How long in Man’s pre-Ad’amite days
 to feed and swill, to sleep and breed,
Were the Brute-biped’s only life,
 a perfect life sans Code or Creed?

His choicest garb a shaggy fell,
 his choicest tool a flake of stone;
His best of orn’aments tattoo’d skin
 and holes to hang his bits of bone;

Who fought for female as for food
 when Mays awoke to warm desire;
And such the Lust that grew to Love
 when Fancy lent a purer fire.

THE KASÎDAH III, 153, 168

Dost not, O Maker, blush to hear,
 amid the storm of tears and blood,
Man say Thy mercy made what is,
 and saw the made and said ’twas good?

The marvel is that man can smile
 dreaming his ghostly ghastly dream;-
Better the heedless atomy
 that buzzes in the morning beam!

O the dread pathos of our lives!
 how durst thou, Allah, thus to play
With Love, Affection, Friendship, all
 that shows the god in mortal clay?

But ah! what ’vaileth man to mourn;
 shall tears bring forth what smiles ne’er brought;
Shall brooding breed a thought of joy?
 Ah hush the sigh, forget the thought!

THE KASÎDAH II, 17, 28

“This gloomy night, these grisly waves,
 these winds and whirlpools loud and dread:
What reck they of our wretched plight
 who Safety’s shore so lightly tread?”

Thus quoth the Bard of Love and Wine,
 whose dream of Heaven ne’er could rise
Beyond the brimming Kausar-cup
 and Houris with the white-black eyes;

Ah me! my race of threescore years
 is short, but long enough to pall
My sense with joyless joys as these,
 with Love and Houris, Wine and all.