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 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, 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 II, 41, 52

“Ear never heard, Eye never saw
 the bliss of those who enter in
My heavenly kingdom,” Isâ said,
 who wailed our sorrows and our sin:

Too much of words or yet too few!
 What to thy Godhead easier than
One little glimpse of Paradise
 to ope the eyes and ears of man?

“I am the Truth! I am the Truth!”
 we hear the God-drunk gnostic cry
“The microcosm abides in ME;
 Eternal Allah’s nought but I!”