of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi – Sir Richard Burton
admin The most important change that has been made to appearance of the poem is the restoration of the stanzas to two line couplets. When Burton privately published the original in 1880 it was on quarto sized pages which allowed great width than the usual octavo. You won’t be able to see this format on a … Read more
The Kasîdah I — • — 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-tail1 sweeps the paling East to leave a deeper gloom behind, And Dawn uprears her shining head, sighing with semblance … Read more
THE KASÎDAH IX — • — 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. שׁלם
THE KASÎDAH IX — • — 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH IX — • — 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH IX — • — Survey thy kind as One whose wants in the great Human Whole unite*; 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH IX — • — 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH IX — • — 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH IX — • — 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 … Read more