The Diwan Of Abu'l-Ala Part 2

So shall you find all armour incomplete And open to the whips of circ.u.mstance, That so shall you be girdled of mischance Till you be folded in the winding-sheet.

VII

Have conversation with the wind that goes Bearing a pack of loveliness and pain: The golden exultation of the grain And the last, sacred whisper of the rose

VIII

But if in some enchanted garden bloom The rose imperial that will not fade, Ah! shall I go with desecrating spade And underneath her glories build a tomb?

IX

Shall I that am as dust upon the plain Think with unloosened hurricanes to fight?

Or shall I that was ravished from the night Fall on the bosom of the night again?

X

Endure! and if you rashly would unfold That ma.n.u.script whereon our lives are traced, Recall the stream which carols thro' the waste And in the dark is rich with alien gold.

XI

Myself did linger by the ragged beach, Whereat wave after wave did rise and curl; And as they fell, they fell--I saw them hurl A message far more eloquent than speech:

XII

_We that with song our pilgrimage beguile, With purple islands which a sunset bore, We, sunk upon the sacrilegious sh.o.r.e, May parley with oblivion awhile_.

XIII

I would not have you keep nor idly flaunt What may be gathered from the gracious land, But I would have you sow with sleepless hand The virtues that will balance your account.

XIV

The days are dressing all of us in white, For him who will suspend us in a row.

But for the sun there is no death. I know The centuries are morsels of the night.

XV

A deed magnanimous, a n.o.ble thought Are as the music singing thro' the years When surly Time the tyrant domineers Against the lute whereoutof it was wrought.

XVI

Now to the Master of the World resign Whatever touches you, what is prepared, For many sons of wisdom are ensnared And many fools in happiness recline.

XVII

Long have I tarried where the waters roll From undeciphered caverns of the main, And I have searched, and I have searched in vain, Where I could drown the sorrows of my soul.

XVIII

If I have harboured love within my breast, 'Twas for my comrades of the dusty day, Who with me watched the loitering stars at play, Who bore the burden of the same unrest.

XIX

For once the witcheries a maiden flung-- Then afterwards I knew she was the bride Of Death; and as he came, so tender-eyed, I--I rebuked him roundly, being young.

XX

Yet if all things that vanish in their noon Are but the part of some eternal scheme, Of what the nightingale may chance to dream Or what the lotus murmurs to the moon!

XXI

Have I not heard sagacious ones repeat An irresistibly grim argument: That we for all our bl.u.s.tering content Are as the silent shadows at our feet.

XXII

Aye, when the torch is low and we prepare Beyond the notes of revelry to pa.s.s-- Old Silence will keep watch upon the gra.s.s, The solemn shadows will a.s.semble there.

XXIII

No Sultan at his pleasure shall erect A dwelling less obedient to decay Than I, whom all the mysteries obey, Build with the twilight for an architect.

XXIV

Dark leans to dark! the pa.s.sions of a man Are twined about all transitory things, For verily the child of wisdom clings More unto dreamland than Arabistan.

XXV

Death leans to death! nor shall your vigilance Prevent him from whate'er he would possess, Nor, brother, shall unfilial peevishness Prevent you from the grand inheritance.