II

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