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 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, 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 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: