of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi – Sir Richard Burton
admin THE KASÎDAH III — • — 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 rav’ening wind; How lovely visions ’guiled his sleep, aye fading with the break of morn, Till every sweet became a sour, till every rose … Read more
THE KASÎDAH III — • — 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH III — • — 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 liked cagèd birds, the captives of a despot will; Still wond’ring How and When and Why, and Whence and Whither, wond’ring still; Still … Read more
THE KASÎDAH II — • — What know’st thou, man, of Life? and yet, forever 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH II — • — “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 selfsame thing! Two-footed beasts that browse through life, by Death to serve as soil design’d, Bow prone to Earth whereof they be, and … Read more
THE KASÎDAH II — • — “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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH II — • — “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,* whose dream of Heaven ne’er could rise Beyond the brimming Kausar-cup and Houris with the … Read more
THE KASÎDAH II — • — 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH I — • — 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 … Read more
THE KASÎDAH I — • — ’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.* But we? Another shift of scene, another pang to rack the heart; Why meet we on the bridge of Time to ’change … Read more