THE KASÎDAH VIII, 117, 128

“You all are right, you all are wrong,”
 we hear the careless Soofi say,
“For each believes his glimm’ering lamp
 to be the gorgeous light of day.”

“Thy faith why false, my faith why true?
 ’tis all the work of Thine and Mine,
“The fond and foolish love of self
 that makes the Mine excel the Thine.”

Cease then to mumble rotten bones;
 and strive to clothe with flesh and blood
The skel’eton; and to shape a Form
 that all shall hail as fair and good.

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, 49, 64

Here èxtremes meet, anointed Kings
 whose crownèd heads uneasy lie,
Whose cup of joy contains no more
 than tramps that on the dunghill die.

To fate-doomed Sinner born and bred
 for dangling from the gallows-tree;
To Saint who spends his holy days
 in rapt’urous hope his God to see;

To all that breathe our upper air
 the hands of Dest’iny ever deal,
In fixed and equal parts, their shares
 of joy and sorrow, woe and weal.

“How comes it, then, our span of days
 in hunting wealth and fame we spend
“Why strive we (and all humans strive)
 for vain and visionary end?”

THE KASÎDAH VIII, 33, 48

“Have mercy, man!” the Zâhid cries,
 “of our best visions rob us not!
“Mankind a future life must have
 to balance life’s unequal lot.”

“Nay,” quoth the Magian, “’tis not so;
 I draw my wine for one and all,
“A cup for this, a score for that,
 e’en as his measure’s great or small:

“Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight;
 to poorest passion he was born;
“Who drains the score must e’er expect
 to rue the headache of the morn.”

Safely he jogs along the way
 which ‘Golden Mean’ the sages call;
Who scales the brow of frowning Alp
 must face full many a slip and fall.

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 IV, 61, 72

“Say, Man, deep learnèd in the Scheme
 that orders mysteries sublime,
“How came it this was Jesus, that
 was Judas from the birth of Time?

“How I the tiger, thou the lamb;
 again the Secret, prithee, show
“Who slew the slain, bowman or bolt
 or Fate that drave the man, the bow?

“Man worships self: his God is Man;
 the struggling of the mortal mind
“To form its model as ’twould be,
 the perfect of itself to find.

THE KASÎDAH III, 169, 176

Silence thine immemorial quest,
 contain thy nature’s vain complaint
None heeds, none cares for thee or thine;—
 like thee how many came and went?

Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail;
 enjoy thy shining hour of sun;
We dance along Death’s icy brink,
 but is the dance less full of fun?

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;