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1
Awake!
for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone
that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of
the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of
Light.
2
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in
the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before
Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
3
And, as
the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern
shouted -"Open then the Door!
You know how little
while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return
no more."
4
Now the New Year reviving old
Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough
Puts out,
and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
5
Iram
indeed is gone with all its Rose,
And Jamshyd's Sev'n-ringed
Cup where no one knows;
But still the Vine her
ancient Ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water
blows.
6
And David's Lips are lockt; but in
divine
High piping Pehlevi, with "Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!" -the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That
yellow Cheek of hers t'incarnadine.
7
Come,
fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter
Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but
a little way
To fly -and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
8
And look -a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke -and a thousand scattered into Clay:
And this
first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take
Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.
9
But come with old
Khayyam, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobad and Kaikhosru
forgot!
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or
Hatim Tai cry Supper -heed them not.
10
With
me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just
divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave
and Sultan scarce is known,
And pity Sultan Mahmud on
his Throne.
11
Here with a Loaf of Bread
beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse
-and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
12
"How sweet
is mortal Sovranty!" -think some:
Others -"How blest
the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and
waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a distant
Drum!
13
Look to the Rose that blows about us
-"Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow:
At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its
Treasure on the Garden throw."
14
The Worldly
Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes -or it
prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty
Face
Lighting a little Hour or two -is gone.
15
And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And
those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to
no such aureate Earth are turned
As, buried once, Men
want dug up again.
16
Think, in this battered
Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and
Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode
his Hour or two, and went his way.
17
They say
the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd
gloried and drank deep;
And Bahram, that great Hunter
-the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, and he lies fast
asleep.
18
I sometimes think that never blows
so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap
from some once lovely Head.
19
And this
delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the
River's Lip on which we lean -
Ah, lean upon it
lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it
springs unseen!
20
Ah, my Beloved, fill the
Cup that clears
TODAY of past Regrets and future
Fears -
Tomorrow? -Why, Tomorrow I may be
Myself
with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.
21
Lo!
some we loved, the loveliest and best
That Time and
Fate of all their Vintage prest,
Have drunk their Cup
a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently
to Rest.
22
And we, that now make merry in the
Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend,
ourselves to make a Couch -for whom?
23
Ah,
make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too
into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under
Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and
-sans End!
24
Alike for those who for TODAY
prepare,
And those that after a TOMORROW stare,
A
Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! your
Reward is neither Here nor There!"
25
Why, all
the Saints and Sages who discussed
Of the Two Worlds
so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth;
their Words to Scorn
Are scattered, and their Mouth's
are stopt with Dust.
26
Oh, come with old
Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is
certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and
the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for
ever dies.
27
Myself when young did eagerly
frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same
Door as in I went.
28
With them the Seed of
Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand laboured it to
grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reaped -
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."
29
Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence,
like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as
Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly
blowing.
30
What, without asking, hither
hurried whence?
And, without asking, whither hurried
hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory
of this Impertinence!
31
Up from Earth's
Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the
Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravelled by
the Road;
But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.
32
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some
little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed -and
then no more of THEE and ME.
33
Then to the
rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, "What Lamp had
Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the
Dark?"
And -"A blind Understanding!" Heav'n replied.
34
Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My
Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip
it murmured -"While you live
Drink! -for once dead
you never shall return."
35
I think the
Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answered,
once did live,
And merry-make; and the cold Lip I
kissed
How many Kisses might it take -and give!
36
For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I
watched the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with
its all obliterated Tongue
It murmured -"Gently,
Brother, gently, pray!"
37
Ah, fill the Cup:
-what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping
underneath our Feet:
Unborn TOMORROW, and dead
YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TODAY be sweet!
38
One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,
One
Moment, of the Well of Life to taste -
The stars are
setting and the Caravan
Starts for the Dawn of
Nothing -Oh, make haste!
39
How long, how
long, in infinite Pursuit
Of This and That endeavour
and dispute?
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
40
You know, my Friends, how long since in my House
For
a new Marriage I did make Carouse:
Divorced old
barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of
the Vine to Spouse.
41
For "IS" and "IS-NOT"
though with Rule and Line,
And "UP-AND-DOWN" without,
I could define,
I yet in all I only cared to know,
Was never deep in anything but -Wine.
42
And
lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing
through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on
his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas
-the Grape!
43
The Grape that can with Logic
absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The subtle Alchemist that in a Thrice
Life's leaden
Metal into Gold transmute.
44
The mighty
Mahmud, the victorious Lord,
That all the
misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows
that infest the Soul
Scatters and slays with his
enchanted Sword.
45
But leave the Wise to
wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let
be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make
Game of that which makes as much of Thee.
46
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but
a Magic Shadow-show,
Played in a Box whose Candle is
the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
47
And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in -Yes -
Then
fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be
-Nothing -Thou shalt not be less.
48
While the
Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyam
the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his
darker Draught
Draws up to thee -take that, and do
not shrink.
49
'Tis all a Chequer-board of
Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces
plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and
slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
50
The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He
that tossed Thee down into the Field,
He knows about
it all -He knows -HE knows!
51
The moving
finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all
thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a
Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
52
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coopt we live and die,
Lift not
thy hands to It for help -for It
Rolls impotently on
as Thou or I.
53
With Earth's first Clay They
did the Last Man's knead,
And then of the Last
Harvest sowed the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of
Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall
read.
54
I tell Thee this -When, starting from
the Goal,
Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal
Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtara they flung,
In my
predestined Plot of Dust and Soul.
55
The Vine
had struck a Fibre; which about
If clings my being
-let the Sufi flout;
Of my Base Metal may be filed a
Key,
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.
56
And this I know: whether the one True Light,
Kindle to Love, or Wrath, consume me quite,
One
Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
Better than in
the Temple lost outright.
57
Oh Thou, who
didst with Pitfall and with Gin
Beset the Road I was
to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?
58
Oh
Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with
Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin
wherewith the Face of Man
Is blackened, Man's
Forgiveness give -and take!
Kuza-Nama
59
Listen again. One Evening at the Close
Of Ramazan,
ere the better Moon arose,
In that old Potter's Shop
I stood alone
With the clay Population round in Rows.
60
And, strange to tell, among the Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly
one more impatient cried -
"Who is the Potter, pray,
and who the Pot?"
61
Then said another
-"Surely not in vain
My Substance from the common
Earth was ta'en,
That He who subtly wrought me into
Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again."
62
Another said -"Why, ne'er a peevish Boy,
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;
Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love
And Fancy,
in an after Rage destroy!"
63
None answered
this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more
ungainly Make:
"They sneer at me for leaning all
awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"
64
Said one -"Folks of a surly Tapster tell,
And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell;
They talk
of some strict Testing of us -Pish!
He's a Good
Fellow, and 'twill all be well."
65
Then said
another, with a long-drawn Sigh,
"My Clay with long
oblivion is gone dry:
But, fill me with the old
familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-bye!"
66
So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
One spied the little Crescent all were seeking:
And
then they jogged each other, "Brother! Brother!
Hark
to the Potter's Shoulder-knot a-creaking!"
67
Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash
my Body whence the Life has died,
And in a
Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt,
So bury me by some
sweet Garden-side.
68
That ev'n my buried
Ashes such a Snare
Of Perfume shall fling up into the
Air,
As not a True Believer passing by
But shall
be overtaken unaware.
69
Indeed the Idols I
have loved so long
Have done my Credit in Men's Eye
much wrong:
Have drowned my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.
70
Indeed,
indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore -but was I
sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring,
and Rose-in-hand
My threadbare Penitence apieces
tore.
71
And much as Wine has played the
Infidel,
And robbed me of my Robe of Honour -well,
I often wonder what the Vintners buy
One half so
precious as the Goods they sell.
72
Alas, that
Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's
sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The
Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence,
and whither flown again, who knows!
73
Ah
Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp
this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we
shatter it to bits -and then
Re-mould it nearer to
the Heart's Desire!
74
Ah, Moon of my Delight
who know'st know wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising
once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me -in vain!
75
And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
Among
the Guests Star-scattered on the Grass,
And in thy
joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one -turn
down an empty Glass!
Taman Shud
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