Читать книгу The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2) - Lady Isabel Burton - Страница 30

The hour is nigh; the waning Queen walks forth to rule the later night;

Crown'd with the sparkle of a Star, and throned on orb of ashen light:

The Wolf-tail10 sweeps the paling East to leave a deeper gloom behind, And Dawn uprears her shining head, sighing with semblance of a wind: The highlands catch yon Orient gleam, while purpling still the lowlands lie; And pearly mists, the morning-pride, soar incense-like to greet the sky. The horses neigh, the camels groan, the torches gleam, the cressets flare; The town of canvas falls, and man with din and dint invadeth air: The Golden Gates swing right and left; up springs the Sun with flamy brow; The dew-cloud melts in gush of light; brown Earth is bathed in morning-glow. Slowly they wind athwart the wild, and while young Day his anthem swells, Sad falls upon my yearning ear the tinkling of the Camel-bells: O'er fiery waste and frozen wold, o'er horrid hill and gloomy glen, The home of grisly beast and Ghoul,11 the haunts of wilder, grislier men;— With the brief gladness of the Palms, that tower and sway o'er seething plain, Fraught with the thoughts of rustling shade, and welling spring, and rushing rain; With the short solace of the ridge, by gentle zephyrs played upon, Whose breezy head and bosky side front seas of cooly celadon;— 'Tis theirs to pass with joy and hope, whose souls shall ever thrill and fill Dreams of the Birthplace and the Tomb—visions of Allah's Holy Hill.12 But we? Another shift of scene, another pang to rack the heart; Why meet we on the bridge of Time to 'change one greeting and to part? We meet to part; yet asks my sprite, Part we to meet? Ah! is it so? Man's fancy-made Omniscience knows, who made Omniscience nought can know. Why must we meet, why must we part, why must we bear this yoke of MUST, Without our leave or askt or given, by tyrant Fate on victim thrust? That Eve so gay, so bright, so glad, this Morn so dim, and sad, and grey; Strange that life's Registrar should write this day a day, that day a day! Mine eyes, my brain, my heart, are sad—sad is the very core of me; All wearies, changes, passes, ends; alas! the Birthday's injury! Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again; Yet ne'er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us other men: The light of morn has grown to noon, has paled with eve, and now farewell! Go, vanish from my Life as dies the tinkling of the Camel's bell. * * * * * In these drear wastes of sea-born land, these wilds where none may dwell but He, What visionary Pasts revive, what process of the Years we see: Gazing beyond the thin blue line that rims the far horizon-ring, Our sadden'd sight why haunt these ghosts, whence do these spectral shadows spring? What endless questions vex the thought, of Whence and Whither, When and How? What fond and foolish strife to read the Scripture writ on human brow; As stand we percht on point of Time, betwixt the two Eternities, Whose awful secrets gathering round with black profound oppress our eyes. "This gloomy night, these grisly waves, these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: What reck they of our wretched plight who Safety's shore so lightly tread?" Thus quoth the Bard of Love and Wine,13 whose dream of Heaven ne'er could rise Beyond the brimming Kausar-cup and Houris with the white-black eyes; Ah me! my race of threescore years is short, but long enough to pall My sense with joyless joys as these, with Love and Houris, Wine and all. Another boasts he would divorce old barren Reason from his bed, And wed the Vine-maid in her stead;—fools who believe a word he said!14 And "'Dust thou art to dust returning,' ne'er was spoke of human soul" The Soofi cries, 'tis well for him that hath such gift to ask its goal. "And this is all, for this we're born to weep a little and to die!" So sings the shallow bard whose life still labours at the letter "I." "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 microcrosm abides in ME; Eternal Allah's nought but I!" Mansûr15 was wise, but wiser they who smote him with the hurled stones; And, though his blood a witness bore, no wisdom-might could mend his bones. "Eat, drink, and sport; the rest of life's not worth a fillip," quoth the King; Methinks the saying saith too much: the swine would say the self-same thing? Two-footed beasts that browse through life, by Death to serve as soil design'd, Bow prone to Earth whereof they be, and there the proper pleasures find: But you of finer, nobler stuff, ye, whom to Higher leads the High, What binds your hearts in common bond with creatures of the stall and sty? "In certain hope of Life-to-come I journey through this shifting scene" The Zâhid16 snarls and saunters down his Vale of Tears with confi'dent mien. Wiser than Amrân's Son17 art thou, who ken'st so well the world-to-be, The Future when the Past is not, the Present merest dreamery; What know'st thou, man, of Life? and yet, for ever 'twixt the womb, the grave, Thou pratest of the Coming Life, of Heav'n and Hell thou fain must rave. The world is old and thou art young; the world is large and thou art small; Cease, atom of a moment's span, to hold thyself an All-in-All! * * * * * Fie, fie! you visionary things, ye motes that dance in sunny glow, Who base and build Eternities on briefest moment here below; Who pass through Life like cagèd birds, the captives of a despot will; Still wond'ring How and When and Why, and Whence and Whither, wond'ring still; Still wond'ring how the Marvel came because two coupling mammals chose To slake the thirst of fleshly love, and thus the "Immortal Being" rose; Wond'ring the Babe with staring eyes, perforce compell'd from night to day, Gript in the giant grasp of Life like gale-borne dust or wind-wrung spray; Who comes imbecile to the world 'mid double danger, groans, and tears; The toy, the sport, the waif and stray of passions, error, wrath and fears; Who knows not Whence he came nor Why, who kens not Whither bound and When, Yet such is Allah's choicest gift, the blessing dreamt by foolish men; Who step by step perforce returns to countless youth, wan, white and cold, Lisping again his broken words till all the tale be fully told: Wond'ring the Babe with quenched orbs, an oldster bow'd by burthening years, How 'scaped the skiff an hundred storms; how 'scaped the thread a thousand shears; How coming to the Feast unbid, he found the gorgeous table spread With the fair-seeming Sodom-fruit, with stones that bear the shape of bread: 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 ravening 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; How every high heroic Thought that longed to breathe empyrean air, Failed of its feathers, fell to earth, and perisht of a sheer despair; How, dower'd with heritage of brain, whose might has split the solar ray, His rest is grossest coarsest earth, a crown of gold on brow of clay; This House whose frame be flesh and bone, mortar'd with blood and faced with skin, The home of sickness, dolours, age; unclean without, impure within; Sans ray to cheer its inner gloom, the chambers haunted by the Ghost, Darkness his name, a cold dumb Shade stronger than all the heav'nly host. This tube, an enigmatic pipe, whose end was laid before begun, That lengthens, broadens, shrinks and breaks;—puzzle, machine, automaton; The first of Pots the Potter made by Chrysorrhoas' blue-green wave;18 Methinks I see him smile to see what guerdon to the world he gave! How Life is dim, unreal, vain, like scenes that round the drunkard reel; How "Being" meaneth not to be; to see and hear, smell, taste and feel. A drop in Ocean's boundless tide, unfathom'd waste of agony; Where millions live their horrid lives by making other millions die. How with a heart that would through love, to Universal Love aspire, Man woos infernal chance to smite, as Min'arets draw the Thunder-fire. How Earth on Earth builds tow'er and wall, to crumble at a touch of Time; How Earth on Earth from Shinar-plain the heights of Heaven fain would climb. How short this Life, how long withal; how false its weal, how true its woes, This fever-fit with paroxysms to mark its opening and its close. Ah! gay the day with shine of sun, and bright the breeze, and blithe the throng Met on the River-bank to play, when I was young, when I was young: Such general joy could never fade; and yet the chilling whisper came One face had paled, one form had failed; had fled the bank, had swum the stream; Still revellers danced, and sang, and trod the hither bank of Time's deep tide, Still one by one they left and fared to the far misty thither side; And now the last hath slipt away yon drear Death-desert to explore, And now one Pilgrim worn and lorn still lingers on the lonely shore. Yes, Life in youth-tide standeth still; in Manhood streameth soft and slow; See, as it nears th abysmal goal how fleet the waters flash and flow! And Deaths are twain; the Deaths we see drop like the leaves in windy Fall; But ours, our own, are ruined worlds, a globe collapst, last end of all. We live our lives with rogues and fools, dead and alive, alive and dead, We die 'twixt one who feels the pulse and one who frets and clouds the head: And—oh, the Pity!—hardly conned the lesson comes its fatal term; Fate bids us bundle up our books, and bear them bod'ily to the worm: Hardly we learn to wield the blade before the wrist grows stiff and old; Hardly we learn to ply the pen ere Thought and Fancy faint with cold: Hardly we find the path of love, to sink the Self, forget the "I," When sad suspicion grips the heart, when Man, the Man, begins to die: Hardly we scale the wisdom-heights, and sight the Pisgah-scene around, And breathe the breath of heav'enly air, and hear the Spheres' harmonious sound; When swift the Camel-rider spans the howling waste, by Kismet sped, And of his Magic Wand a wave hurries the quick to join the dead.19 How sore the burden, strange the strife; how full of splendour, wonder, fear; Life, atom of that Infinite Space that stretches 'twixt the Here and There. How Thought is imp'otent to divine the secret which the gods defend, The Why of birth and life and death, that Isis-veil no hand may rend. Eternal Morrows make our Day; our Is is aye to be till when Night closes in; 'tis all a dream, and yet we die—and then and THEN? And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man Weaving th' unpattern'd dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan. Dost not, O Maker, blush to hear, amid the storm of tears and blood, Man say Thy mercy made what is, and saw the made and said 'twas good? The marvel is that man can smile dreaming his ghostly ghastly dream;—Better the heedless atomy that buzzes in the morning beam! O the dread pathos of our lives! how durst thou, Allah, thus to play With Love, Affection, Friendship, all that shows the god in mortal clay? But ah! what 'vaileth man to mourn; shall tears bring forth what smiles ne'er brought; Shall brooding breed a thought of joy? Ah hush the sigh, forget the thought! 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? * * * * * What Truths hath gleaned that Sage consumed by many a moon that waxt and waned? What Prophet-strain be his to sing? What hath his old Experience gained? There is no God, no man-made God; a bigger, stronger, crueller man; Black phantom of our baby-fears, ere Thought, the life of Life, began. Right quoth the Hindu Prince of old,20 "An Ishwara for one I nill, Th' almighty everlasting Good who cannot 'bate th' Eternal Ill:" "Your gods may be, what shows they are?" Hear China's Perfect Sage declare;21 "And being, what to us be they who dwell so darkly and so far?" "All matter hath a birth and death; 'tis made, unmade and made anew; "We choose to call the Maker 'God':"—such is the Zâhid's owly view. "You changeful finite Creatures strain" (rejoins the Drawer of the Wine)22 "The dizzy depths of Inf'inite Power to fathom with your foot of twine;" "Poor idols of man's heart and head with the Divine Idea to blend; "To preach as 'Nature's Common Course' what any hour may shift or end." "How shall the Shown pretend to ken aught of the Showman or the Show? "Why meanly bargain to believe, which only means thou ne'er canst know? "How may the passing Now contain the standing Now—Eternity?— "An endless is without a was, the be and never the to-be? "Who made your Maker? If Self-made, why fare so far to fare the worse? "Sufficeth not a world of worlds, a self-made chain of universe? "Grant an Idea, Primal Cause, the Causing Cause, why crave for more? "Why strive its depth and breadth to mete, to trace its work, its aid to 'implore? "Unknown, Incomprehensible, whate'er you choose to call it, call; "But leave it vague as airy space, dark in its darkness mystical. "Your childish fears would seek a Sire, by the non-human God defin'd, "What your five wits may wot ye weet; what is you please to dub 'design'd;' "You bring down Heav'en to vulgar Earth; your Maker like yourselves you make, "You quake to own a reign of Law, you pray the Law its laws to break; "You pray, but hath your thought e'er weighed how empty vain the prayer must be, "That begs a boon already giv'en, or craves a change of Law to see? "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 God became sage, priest and scribe where Nilus' serpent made the vale; "A gloomy Brahm in glowing Ind, a neutral something cold and pale: "Amid the high Chaldean hills a moulder of the heavenly spheres; "On Guebre steppes the Timeless-God who governs by his dual peers: "In Hebrew tents the Lord that led His leprous slaves to fight and jar; "Yahveh,23 Adon or Elohim, the God that smites, the Man of War. "The lovely Gods of lib'ertine Greece, those fair and frail humanities "Whose homes o'erlooked the Middle Sea, where all Earth's beauty cradled lies, "Ne'er left its blessèd bounds, nor sought the barb'arous climes of barb'arous gods "Where Odin of the dreary North o'er hog and sickly mead-cup nods: "And when, at length, 'Great Pan is dead' uprose the loud and dol'orous cry "A glamour wither'd on the ground, a splendour faded in the sky. "Yea, Pan was dead, the Nazar'ene came and seized his seat beneath the sun, "The votary of the Riddle-god, whose one is three and three is one; "Whose sadd'ening creed of herited Sin split o'er the world its cold grey spell; "In every vista showed a grave, and 'neath the grave the glare of Hell; "Till all Life's Po'esy sinks to prose; romance to dull Real'ity fades; "Earth's flush of gladness pales in gloom and God again to man degrades. "Then the lank Arab foul with sweat, the drainer of the camel's dug, "Gorged with his leek-green lizard's meat, clad in his filthy rag and rug, "Bore his fierce Allah o'er his sands and broke, like lava-burst upon "The realms where reigned pre-Adamite Kings, where rose the grand Kayânian throne.24 "Who now of ancient Kayomurs, of Zâl or Rustam cares to sing, "Whelmed by the tempest of the tribes that called the Camel-driver King? "Where are the crown of Kay Khusraw, the sceptre of Anûshirwân, "The holy grail of high Jamshîd, Afrâsiyab's hall?—Canst tell me, man? "Gone, gone, where I and thou must go, borne by the winnowing wings of Death, "The Horror brooding over life, and nearer brought with every breath: "Their fame hath filled the Seven Climes, they rose and reigned, they fought and fell, "As swells and swoons across the wold the tinkling of the Camel's bell." * * * * * There is no Good, there is no Bad; these be the whims of mortal will: What works me weal that call I 'good,' what harm and hurts I hold as 'ill:' They change with place, they shift with race; and, in the veriest span of Time, Each Vice has worn a Virtue's crown; all Good was banned as Sin or Crime: Like ravelled skeins they cross and twine, while this with that connects and blends; And only Khizr25 his eye shall see where one begins, where other ends: What mortal shall consort with Khizr, when Musâ turned in fear to flee? What man foresees the flow'er or fruit whom Fate compels to plant the tree? For Man's Free-will immortal Law, Anagkê, Kismet, Des'tiny read That was, that is, that aye shall be, Star, Fortune, Fate, Urd, Norn or Need. "Man's nat'ural State is God's design"; such is the silly sage's theme; "Man's primal Age was Age of Gold"; such is the Poet's waking dream: Delusion, Ign'orance! Long ere Man drew upon earth his earli'est breath The world was one contin'uous scene of anguish, torture, prey and Death; Where hideous Theria of the wild rended their fellows limb by limb; Where horrid Saurians of the sea in waves of blood were wont to swim: The "fair young Earth" was only fit to spawn her frightful monster-brood; Now fiery hot, now icy frore, now reeking wet with steamy flood. Yon glorious Sun, the greater light, the "Bridegroom" of the royal Lyre, A flaming, boiling, bursting mine; a grim black orb of whirling fire: That gentle Moon, the lesser light, the Lover's lamp, the Swain's delight, A ruined world, a globe burnt out, a corpse upon the road of night. What reckt he, say, of Good or Ill who in the hill-hole made his lair, The blood-fed rav'ening Beast of prey, wilder than wildest wolf or bear? 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. Where then "Th' Eternal nature-law by God engraved on human heart"? Behold his simiad sconce and own the Thing could play no higher part. Yet, as long ages rolled, he learnt from Beaver, Ape and Ant to build Shelter for sire and dam and brood, from blast and blaze that hurt and killed; And last came Fire; when scrap of stone cast on the flame that lit his den, Gave out the shining ore, and made the Lord of beasts a Lord of men. The "moral sense," your Zâhid-phrase, is but the gift of latest years; Conscience was born when man had shed his fur, his tail, his pointed ears. What conscience has the murderous Moor, who slays his guest with felon blow, Save sorrow he can slay no more, what prick of pen'itence can he know? You cry the "Cruelty of Things" is myst'ery to your purblind eye, Which fixed upon a point in space the general project passes by: For see! the Mammoth went his ways, became a mem'ory and a name; While the half-reasoner with the hand26 survives his rank and place to claim. 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: What call ye them or Goods or Ills, ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain, When realms arise and falls a roof; a world is won, a man is slain? And thus the race of Being runs, till haply in the time to be Earth shifts her pole and Mushtari-men27 another falling star shall see: Shall see it fall and fade from sight, whence come, where gone no Thought can tell— Drink of yon mirage-stream and chase the tinkling of the Camel-bell! * * * * * 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,28 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. 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 An it can add to Life a light:—only remains to show us how. E'en if I could I nould believe your tales and fables stale and trite, Irksome as twice-sung tune that tires the dullèd ear of drowsy wight. With God's foreknowledge man's free will! what monster-growth of human brain, What pow'ers of light shall ever pierce this puzzle dense with words inane? Vainly the heart on Providence calls, such aid to seek were hardly wise For man must own the pitiless Law that sways the globe and sevenfold skies. "Be ye Good Boys, go seek for Heav'en, come pay the priest that holds the key;" So spake, and speaks, and aye shall speak the last to enter Heaven—he. Are these the words for men to hear? yet such the Church's general tongue, The horseleech-cry so strong so high her heav'enward Psalms and Hymns among. What? Faith a merit and a claim, when with the brain 'tis born and bred? Go, fool, thy foolish way and dip in holy water burièd dead!29 Yet follow not th' unwisdom-path, cleave not to this and that disclaim; Believe in all that man believes; here all and naught are both the same. But is it so? How may we know? Happily 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. * * * * * Man hath no Soul, a state of things, a no-thing still, a sound, a word Which so begets substantial thing that eye shall see what ear hath heard. Where was his Soul the savage beast which in primeval forests strayed, What shape had it, what dwelling-place, what part in nature's plan it played? This Soul to ree a riddle made; who wants the vain duality? Is not myself enough for me? what need of "I" within an "I"? Words, words that gender things! The soul is a new-comer on the scene; Sufficeth not the breath of Life to work the matter-born machine? We know the Gen'esis of the Soul; we trace the Soul to hour of birth; We mark its growth as grew mankind to boast himself sole Lord of Earth: The race of Be'ing from dawn of Life in an unbroken course was run; What men are pleased to call their Souls was in the hog and dog begun: Life is a ladder infinite-stepped, that hides its rungs from human eyes; Planted its foot in chaos-gloom, its head soars high above the skies: No break the chain of Being bears; all things began in unity; And lie the links in regular line though haply none the sequence see. The Ghost, embodied natural Dread of dreary death and foul decay, Begat the Spirit, Soul and Shade with Hades' pale and wan array. 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-land30 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." 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." 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 best? Nay more, the sordider the stuff the cunninger the workman's hand: Cease, then, your own Almighty Power to bind, to bound, to understand. "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! * * * * * 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; made the senti'ment kindly good: the Priest perverted all to ill. 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. "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 for 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. Here èxtremes meet, anointed Kings whose crowned 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 rapturous 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?" 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, Chin, 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." "Go strain the draught before 'tis drunk, and learn that breathing every breath, "With every step, with every gest, some thing of life thou do'est to death." Replies the Hindu: "Wend thy way for foul and foolish Mlenchhas fit; "Your Pariah-par'adise woo and win; at such dog-Heav'en I laugh and spit. "Cannibals of the Holy Cow! who make your rav'ening maws the grave "Of Things with self-same right to live;—what Fiend the filthy license gave?" What to the Moslem cries the Frank? "A polygamic Theist thou! "From an impostor-Prophet turn; thy stubborn head to Jesus bow." Rejoins the Moslem: "Allah's one tho' with four Moslemahs I wive, "One-wife-men ye and (damnèd race!) you split your God to Three and Five." The Buddhist to Confucians thus: "Like dogs ye live, like dogs ye die; "Content ye rest with wretched earth; God, judgment, Hell ye fain defy." Retorts the Tartar: "Shall I lend mine only ready-money 'now,' For vain usurious 'Then' like thine, avaunt, a triple idiot Thou!" "With this poor life, with this mean world I fain complete what in me lies; I strive to perfect this my me; my sole ambition's to be wise." When doctors differ who decides amid the milliard-headed throng? Who save the madman dares to cry: "'Tis I am right, you all are wrong"? "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, 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. "For gen'erous youth," an Arab saith. "Jahim's31 the only genial state; "Give us the fire but not the shame with the sad, sorry blest to mate." And if your Heav'en and Hell be true, and Fate that forced me to be born Force me to Heav'en or Hell—I go, and hold Fate's insolence in scorn. I want not this, I want not that, already sick of Me and Thee; And if we're both transform'd and changed, what then becomes of Thee and Me? Enough to think such things may be; to say they are not or they are Were folly: leave them all to Fate, nor wage on shadows useless war. Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws. All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell, A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the Camel-bell. * * * * * How then shall man so order life that when his tale of years is told, Like sated guest he wend his way; how shall his even tenour hold? Despite the Writ that stores the skull; despite the Table and the Pen;32 Maugre the Fate that plays us down, her board the world, her pieces men? How when the light and glow of life wax dim in thickly gath'ering gloom, Shall mortal scoff at sting of Death, shall scorn the victory of the Tomb? One way, two paths, one end the grave. This runs athwart the flow'ery plain, That breasts the bush, the steep, the crag, in sun and wind and snow and rain: Who treads the first must look adown, must deem his life an all in all; Must see no heights where man may rise, must sight no depths where man may fall. Allah in Adam form must view; adore the Maker in the made Content to bask in Mâyâ's smile,33 in joys of pain, in lights of shade, He breaks the Law, he burns the Book, he sends the Moolah back to school; Laughs at the beards of Saintly men; and dubs the Prophet dolt and fool. Embraces Cypress' taper-waist; cools feet on wavy breast of rill; Smiles in the Nargis' love-lorn eyes, and 'joys the dance of Daffodil; Melts in the saffron light of Dawn to hear the moaning of the Dove; Delights in Sundown's purpling hues when Bulbul woos the Rose's love. Finds mirth and joy in Jamshid-bowl; toys with the Daughter of the vine; And bids the beauteous cup-boy say, "Master I bring thee ruby wine!"34 Sips from the maiden's lips the dew; brushes the bloom from virgin brow:— Such is his fleshly bliss that strives the Maker through the Made to know. I've tried them all, I find them all so same and tame, so drear, so dry; My gorge ariseth at the thought; I commune with myself and cry:— Better the myriad toils and pains that make the man to manhood true, This be the rule that guideth life; these be the laws for me and you: With Ignor'ance wage eternal war, to know thy self for ever strain, Thine ignorance of thine ignorance is thy fiercest foe, thy deadliest bane; That blunts thy sense, and dulls thy taste; that deafs thine ears, and blinds thine eyes; Creates the thing that never was, the Thing that ever is defies. The finite Atom infinite that forms thy circle's centre-dot, So full-sufficient for itself, for other selves existing not, Finds the world mighty as 'tis small; yet must be fought the unequal fray; A myriad giants here; and there a pinch of dust, a clod of clay. Yes! maugre all thy dreams of peace still must the fight unfair be fought; Where thou may'st learn the noblest law, to know that all we know is nought. True to thy Nature, to Thyself, Fame and Disfame nor hope nor fear: Enough to thee the small still voice aye thund'ering in thine inner ear. From self-approval seek applause: What ken not men thou kennest, thou! Spurn ev'ry idol others raise: Before thine own Ideal bow: Be thine own Deus: Make self free, liberal as the circling air: Thy Thought to thee an Empire be; break every prison'ing lock and bar: Do Thou the Ought to self aye owed; here all the duties meet and blend, In widest sense, withouten care of what began, for what shall end. Thus, as thou view the Phantom-forms which in the misty Past were thine, To be again the thing thou wast with honest pride thou may'st decline; And, glancing down the range of years, fear not thy future self to see; Resign'd to life, to death resign'd, as though the choice were nought to thee. On Thought itself feed not thy thought; nor turn from Sun and Light to gaze, At darkling cloisters paved with tombs, where rot the bones of bygone days: "Eat not thy heart," the Sages said; "nor mourn the Past, the buried Past;" Do what thou dost, be strong, be brave; and, like the Star, nor rest nor haste. Pluck the old woman from thy breast: Be stout in woe, be stark in weal; Do good for Good is good to do: Spurn bribe of Heav'en and threat of Hell. To seek the True, to glad the heart, such is of life the HIGHER LAW, Whose difference is the Man's degree, the Man of gold, the Man of straw. See not that something in Mankind that rouses hate or scorn or strife, Better the worm of Izrâil35 than Death that walks in form of life. Survey thy kind as One whose wants in the great Human Whole unite;36 The Homo rising high from earth to seek the Heav'ens of Life-in-Light; And hold Humanity one man, whose universal agony Still strains and strives to gain the goal, where agonies shall cease to be. Believe in all things; none believe; judge not nor warp by "Facts" the thought; See clear, hear clear, tho' life may seem Mâyâ and Mirage, Dream and Naught. Abjure the Why and seek the How: the God and gods enthroned on high, Are silent all, are silent still; nor hear thy voice, nor deign reply. The Now, that indivis'ible point which studs the length of infinite line Whose ends are nowhere, is thine all, the puny all thou callest thine. Perchance the law some Giver hath: Let be! let be! what canst thou know? A myriad races came and went; this Sphinx hath seen them come and go. Haply the Law that rules the world allows to man the widest range; And haply Fate's a Theist-word, subject to human chance and change. This "I" may find a future Life, a nobler copy of our own. Where every riddle shall be ree'd, where every knowledge shall be known; Where 'twill be man's to see the whole of what on Earth he sees in part; Where change shall ne'er surcharge the thought; nor hope deferr'd shall hurt the heart. But!—faded flow'er and fallen leaf no more shall deck the parent tree; And man once dropt by Tree of Life what hope of other life has he? The shatter'd bowl shall know repair; the riven lute shall sound once more; But who shall mend the clay of man, the stolen breath to man restore? The shiver'd clock again shall strike; the broken reed shall pipe again: But we, we die, and Death is one, the doom of brutes, the doom of men. Then, if Nirwânâ37 round our life with nothingness, 'tis haply best; Thy toils and troubles, want and woe at length have won their guerdon—Rest. Cease, Abdû, Cease! Thy song is sung, nor think the gain the singer's prize; Till men hold Ignor'ance deadly sin, till man deserves his title "Wise:"38 In Days to come, Days slow to dawn, when Wisdom deigns to dwell with men, These echoes of a voice long stilled haply shall wake responsive strain; Wend now thy way with brow serene, fear not thy humble tale to tell;— The whispers of the Desert-wind; the Tinkling of the Camel's bell. טלם

The End of the Kasîdah--Christian Poetry.

But then, again, a year later I find amongst his writings:—

"Man wendeth to his long, long home,

About the streets the mourners go;

Behold the tomb, and hereby mete

The length and depth of mortal woe.

Thou hast nor lover, kin, nor friend!

The deepest grief hath shallows.

"Ah yes, thou hast; but close thine eyes

Upon this world and gaze above.

There, and there only, shalt thou find

Unchanging and unmeasured love.

Then dare the way, and meekly bend

Thy footsteps t'ward the heavenly Friend.

"Dies Iræ!

Lord, Saviour, God, my only stay,

Desert me not that dreadful day."

Richard's idea was that every man, by doing all the good he could in this life, always working for others, for the human race, always acting "Excelsior," should leave a track of light behind him on this World as he passes through. His idea of God was so immeasurably grander than anything people are usually taught to think about God. It always seemed to him that we dwindled God down to our own mean imaginations; that we made something like ourselves, only bigger, and far crueller. There is some truth in this; we are always talking about God just as if we understood Him. His idea of a Divine Being was so infinite, so great, that to pray to Him was an impertinence; that it was monstrous that we should expect Him to alter one of His decrees, because we prayed for it; that He was a God of big universal love, but so far off, as to be far above anything we can understand. These were the utmost extent of his own Agnostic fits.

Almost contemporary with these sentiments, I find the following verses:—

1.

"Bright imaged in the glassy lake below,

Crisped by the zephyrs' nimble run,

I saw two sister stars appear.

I looked above, there shone but one;

Then fled the zephyrs, and my eye

The sole reflection could descry.

2.

"Then rising high, the crescent skiff

Thro' the deep azure rolled its way;

On earth a misty shadow lay,

While all of heaven was bright and gay.

Then waxed the night cloud thin and rare,

And died within its home, the air.

3.

"Thus senses that improve the soul

To deadliest error oft give birth;

Dust-born, they grovel and apply

To highest heaven low rubs of earth,

Fell fatal masters where they sway,

Obedient slaves when taught t' obey.

4.

"Nor let th' immortal "I" depend

On Reason, blind and faithless guide,

Who knowing nothing knoweth all

Of mortal folly—human pride;

Not thus may truth be wooed and won—

A reasonable creed is none. 5. "Who then thy falt'ring steps may lead O'er the wild waste of doubt and fear, Where sense and reason shed no ray? The marks and glooms what light may clear? Shall nature tread a law-girt course, While man walks earth a living corpse? 6. "Ah, no! there is a heavenly guide That leads, directs this fragile clay; We call it spirit, soul, and life, Let mortal call it as he may; Man, go not far, seek not elsewhere; Search that within—Truth dwelleth there."

He was always in one of the two extremes, meaning All or Nothing. It is what we Catholics call "resisting of Divine grace;" it is what Agnostics would call "resisting a temptation," or the correct shibboleth, I believe, is "upholding his integrity," i.e. disbelieving in God and another world, which he never did at any time of his life.

1. He was so broad and muscular that he did not look more than five feet nine—but he really was two inches taller, and the one complaint of his life was not to be able to grow another inch to make six feet.

2. "The Tayyárah, or 'Flying Caravan,' is lightly laden, and travels by forced marches."

3. "The Rakb is a dromedary-caravan, in which each person carries only his saddle-bags. It usually descends by the road called El Khabt, and makes Mecca on the fifth day."

4. "By the term 'fatted ass' the intellectual lady alluded to her royal husband."

5. N.B.—I have still got some of Richard's bottles of this holy water, if any one would wish to analyze it.—I. B.

6. N.B.—I found in later years he had recently copied into this part of his journal, from some paper, "The Meditations of a Hindu Prince and Sceptic," by the author of "The Old Pindaree"—

"All the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod,

Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God?

Westward across the ocean, and Northward ayont the snow,

Do they all stand gazing, as ever? and what do the wisest know?

"Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm,

Like the wild bees heard in the treetops, or the gusts of a gathering storm;

In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen,

Yet we all say, 'Whence is the message? and what may the wonders mean?'

"Shall I list to the word of the English, who came from the uttermost sea?

'The secret, hath it been told you? and what is your message to me?'

It is nought but the wide-world story how the earth and the heavens began;

How the gods are glad and angry, and a Deity once a man.

"I had thought, 'Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell,

Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell,

They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the unknown main:'

Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain.

"Is life, then, a dream and delusion? and where shall the dreamer awake?

Is the world seen like shadows on water? and what if the mirror break?

Shall it pass, as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone,

From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone?

"Is there nought in the heavens above, whence the hail and the levin are hurled,

But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world?—

The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep

With the dirge, and the sounds of lamenting, and the voices of women who weep."

7. I have only given the barest outlines of what took place, referring my readers to the original, because, as there were between fifty and fifty-five mosques, besides other places, and various interesting ceremonies to be performed in each one, there would be no room for anything else; and the same may be said of El Medinah.—I. B.

8. On the Dwárká, before he had time to go down to the cabin and change his clothes, one of his English brother officers, who was on board the ship, gave him a sly kick, and said, "Get out of the way, you dirty nigger." He often told me how he longed to hit him, but did not dare to betray himself. He was also part of the way in the Red Sea with my cousin William Strickland, a priest, and he used to tease him by sitting opposite to him, reciting his Korán out loud, while William was saying his breviary also out loud. At last one day Strickland got up, saying, "Oh, my God, I can't stand this much more," and afterwards these two became great friends.—I. B.

9. This is absolutely untrue. Since Richard's death, two Englishmen, out of jealousy, have made this remark—one only knew Syrian Christian Arabic; the other, the dialect of Suez.

10. The false dawn.

11. The Demon of the Desert.

12. Arafât, near Mecca.

13. Hâfiz of Shirâz.

14. Omar-i-Khayyâm, the tent-maker poet of Persia.

15. A famous Mystic stoned for blasphemy.

16. The "Philister" of "respectable" belief.

17. Moses in the Korán.

18. The Abana, River of Damascus.

19. Death in Arabia rides a Camel, not a pale horse.

20. Buddha.

21. Confucius.

22. The Soofi or Gnostic opposed to the Zâhid.

23. Jehovah.

24. Kayâni—of the race of Cyrus; old Guebre heroes.

25. Supposed to be the Prophet Elijah.

26. The Elephant.

27. Mushtari: the Planet Jupiter.

28. Plato and Aristotle.

29. I think he is alluding, though he has not expressed it, to the Marcionites' heresy of baptizing for the dead. The Marcionites were heretics who lived at Sinope, A.D. 150. Marcian came to Rome and believed in principles similar to the Manichæans. When a man died, one of the Marcionites sat on his coffin, and another asked him if he were willing to be baptised, and he answered, "Yes," upon which he was baptised. These heretics quoted Paul (1 Cor. xv. 29): "Else what shall they do which are baptised for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? why are they then baptised for the dead?"—Isabel Burton.

30. Egypt; Kam, Kem, Khem (hierogl.), in the Demotic Khemi.

31. Jehannum, Gehenna, Hell.

32. Emblems of Kismet, or Destiny.

33. Illusion.

34. That all the senses, even the ear may enjoy.

35. The Angel of Death.

36. The "Great Man" of the Enochites and the Mormons.

37. Comparative annihilation.

38. "Homo sapiens."