{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/daa/daa05.htm","path":"isl/daa/daa05.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/daa/daa05.htm","text":"The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala, by Henry Baerlein, [1909]\nTHE DIWAN OF ABU\u2019L-ALA\nI\nAbandon worship in the mosque and shrink\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From idle prayer, from sacrificial sheep,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For Destiny will bring the bowl of sleep\n Or bowl of tribulation\u2014\u2014you shall drink.\nII\nThe scarlet eyes of Morning are pursued\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By Night, who growls along the narrow lane;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But as they crash upon our world the twain\n Devour us and are strengthened for the feud.\nIII\nVain are your dreams of marvellous emprise,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Vainly you sail among uncharted spaces,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Vainly seek harbour in this world of faces\n If it has been determined otherwise.\nIV\nBehold, my friends, there is reserved for me\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The splendour of our traffic with the sky:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0You pay your court to Saturn, whereas I\n Am slain by One far mightier than he.\nV\nYou that must travel with a weary load\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Along this darkling, labyrinthine street\u2014\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Have men with torches at your head and feet\n If you would pass the dangers of the road.\nVI\nSo shall you find all armour incomplete\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And open to the whips of circumstance,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That so shall you be girdled of mischance\n Till you be folded in the winding-sheet.\nVII\nHave conversation with the wind that goes\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bearing a pack of loveliness and pain:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The golden exultation of the grain\n And the last, sacred whisper of the rose\nVIII\nBut if in some enchanted garden bloom\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The rose imperial that will not fade,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ah! shall I go with desecrating spade\n And underneath her glories build a tomb?\nIX\nShall I that am as dust upon the plain\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Think with unloosened hurricanes to fight?\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Or shall I that was ravished from the night\n Fall on the bosom of the night again?\nX\nEndure! and if you rashly would unfold\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That manuscript whereon our lives are traced,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Recall the stream which carols thro\u2019 the waste\n And in the dark is rich with alien gold.\nXI\nMyself did linger by the ragged beach,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whereat wave after wave did rise and curl;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And as they fell, they fell\u2014I saw them hurl\n A message far more eloquent than speech:\nXII\nWe that with song our pilgrimage beguile,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With purple islands which a sunset bore,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We, sunk upon the sacrilegious shore,\n May parley with oblivion awhile.\nXIII\nI would not have you keep nor idly flaunt\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What may be gathered from the gracious land,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But I would have you sow with sleepless hand\n The virtues that will balance your account.\nXIV\nThe days are dressing all of us in white,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For him who will suspend us in a row.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But for the sun there is no death. I know\n The centuries are morsels of the night.\nXV\nA deed magnanimous, a noble thought\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are as the music singing thro\u2019 the years\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When surly Time the tyrant domineers\n Against the lute whereoutof it was wrought.\nXVI\nNow to the Master of the World resign\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whatever touches you, what is prepared,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For many sons of wisdom are ensnared\n And many fools in happiness recline.\nXVII\nLong have I tarried where the waters roll\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From undeciphered caverns of the main,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And I have searched, and I have searched in vain,\n Where I could drown the sorrows of my soul.\nXVIII\nIf I have harboured love within my breast,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u2019Twas for my comrades of the dusty day,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who with me watched the loitering stars at play,\n Who bore the burden of the same unrest,\nXIX\nFor once the witcheries a maiden flung\u2014\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Then afterwards I knew she was the bride\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of Death; and as he came, so tender-eyed,\n I\u2014I rebuked him roundly, being young.\nXX\nYet if all things that vanish in their noon\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are but the part of some eternal scheme,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of what the nightingale may chance to dream\n Or what the lotus murmurs to the moon !\nXXI\nHave I not heard sagacious ones repeat\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0An irresistibly grim argument:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That we for all our blustering content\n Are as the silent shadows at our feet.\nXXII\nAye, when the torch is low and we prepare\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Beyond the notes of revelry to pass\u2014\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Old Silence will keep watch upon the grass,\n The solemn shadows will assemble there.\nXXIII\nNo Sultan at his pleasure shall erect\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A dwelling less obedient to decay\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Than I, whom all the mysteries obey,\n Build with the twilight for an architect,\nXXIV\nDark leans to dark! the passions of a man\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are twined about all transitory things,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For verily the child of wisdom clings\n More unto dreamland than Arabistan.\nXXV\nDeath leans to death! nor shall your vigilance\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Prevent him from whate\u2019er he would possess,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nor, brother, shall unfilial peevishness\n Prevent you from the grand inheritance.\nXXVI\nFarewell, my soul!\u2014bird in the narrow jail\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who cannot sing. The door is opened! Fly!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ah, soon you stop, and looking down you cry\n The saddest song of all, poor nightingale.\nXXVII\nOur fortune is like mariners to float\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Amid the perils of dim waterways;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Shall then our seamanship have aught of praise\n If the great anchor drags behind the boat?\nXXVIII\nAh! let the burial of yesterday,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of yesterday be ruthlessly decreed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And, if you will, refuse the mourner\u2019s reed,\n And, if you will, plant cypress in the way.\nXXIX\nAs little shall it serve you in the fight\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If you remonstrate with the storming seas,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As if you querulously sigh to these\n Of some imagined haven of delight.\nXXX\nSteed of my soul! when you and I were young\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We lived to cleave as arrows thro\u2019 the night,\u2014\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Now there is ta\u2019en from me the last of light,\n And wheresoe\u2019er I gaze a veil is hung.\nXXXI\nNo longer as a wreck shall I be hurled\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Where beacons lure the fascinated helm,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For I have been admitted to the realm\n Of darkness that encompasses the world.\nXXXII\nMan has been thought superior to the swarm\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of ruminating cows, of witless foals\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who, crouching when the voice of thunder rolls,\n Are banqueted upon a thunderstorm.\nXXXIII\nBut shall the fearing eyes of humankind\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Have peeped beyond the curtain and excel\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The boldness of a wondering gazelle\n Or of a bird imprisoned in the wind?\nXXXIV\nAh! never may we hope to win release\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Before we that unripeness overthrow,\u2014\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So must the corn in agitation grow\n Before the sickle sings the songs of peace.\nXXXV\nLo! there are many ways and many traps\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And many guides, and which of them is lord?\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For verily Mahomet has the sword,\n And he may have the truth\u2014perhaps! perhaps!\nXXXVI\nNow this religion happens to prevail\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Until by that religion overthrown,\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Because men dare not live with men alone,\n But always with another fairy-tale.\nXXXVII\nReligion is a charming girl, I say;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But over this poor threshold will not pass,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For I may not unveil her, and alas!\n The bridal gift I can\u2019t afford to pay.\nXXXVIII\nI have imagined that our welfare is\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Required to rise triumphant from defeat;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And so the musk, which as the more you beat,\n Gives ever more delightful fragrancies.\nXXXIX\nFor as a gate of sorrow-land unbars\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The region of unfaltering delight,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So may you gather from the fields of night\n That harvest of diviner thought, the stars.\nXL\nSend into banishment whatever blows\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Across the waves of your tempestuous heart;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Let every wish save Allah\u2019s wish depart,\n And you will have ineffable repose.\nXLI\nMy faith it is that all the wanton pack\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of living shall be\u2014hush, poor heart!\u2014withdrawn,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As even to the camel comes a dawn\n Without a burden for his wounded back.\nXLII\nIf there should be some truth in what they teach\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of unrelenting Monkar and Nakyr,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Before whose throne all buried men appear\u2014\u2014\n Then give me to the vultures, I beseech.\nXLIII\nSome yellow sand all hunger shall assuage\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And for my thirst no cloud have need to roll,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And ah! the drooping bird which is my soul\n No longer shall be prisoned in the cage.\nXLIV\nLife is a flame that flickers in the wind,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A bird that crouches in the fowler\u2019s net\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nor may between her flutterings forget\n That hour the dreams of youth were unconfined.\nXLV\nThere was a time when I was fain to guess\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The riddles of our life, when I would soar\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Against the cruel secrets of the door,\n So that I fell to deeper loneliness.\nXLVI\nOne is behind the draperies of life,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One who will tear these tanglements away\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No dark assassin, for the dawn of day\n Leaps out, as leapeth laughter, from the knife.\nXLVII\nIf you will do some deed before you die,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Remember not this caravan of death,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But have belief that every little breath\n Will stay with you for an eternity.\nXLVIII\nAstrologers!\u2014give ear to what they say!\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"The stars be words; they float on heaven\u2019s breath\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And faithfully reveal the days of death,\n And surely will reveal that longer day.\"\nXLIX\nI shook the trees of knowledge. Ah! the fruit\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Was fair upon the bleakness of the soil.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I filled a hundred vessels with my spoil,\n And then I rested from the grand pursuit.\nL\nAlas! I took me servants: I was proud\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of prose and of the neat, the cunning rhyme,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But all their inclination was the crime\n Of scattering my treasure to the crowd.\nLI\nAnd yet\u2014and yet this very seed I throw\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0May rise aloft, a brother of the bird,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Uncaring if his melodies are heard\u2014\u2014\n Or shall I not hear anything below?\nLII\nThe glazier out of sounding Erzer\u00fbm,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frequented us and softly would conspire\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Upon our broken glass with blue-red fire,\n As one might lift a pale thing from the tomb.\nLIII\nHe was the glazier out of Erzer\u00fbm,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whose wizardry would make the children cry\u2014\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There will be no such wizardry when I\n Am broken by the chariot-wheels of Doom.\nLIV\nThe chariot-wheels of Doom! Now, hear them roll\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Across the desert and the noisy mart,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Across the silent places of your heart\u2014\u2014\n Smile on the driver you will not cajole.\nLV\nI never look upon the placid plain\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But I must think of those who lived before\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And gave their quantities of sweat and gore,\n And went and will not travel back again.\nLVI\nAye! verily, the fields of blandishment\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Where shepherds meditate among their cattle,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Those are the direst of the fields of battle,\n For in the victor\u2019s train there is no tent.\nLVII\nWhere are the doctors who were nobly fired\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And loved their toil because we ventured not,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who spent their lives in searching for the spot\n To which the generations have retired?\nLVIII\n\"Great is your soul,\"\u2014these are the words they preach,\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\"It passes from your framework to the frame\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of others, and upon this road of shame\n Turns purer and more pure.\"\u2014Oh, let them teach!\nLIX\nI look on men as I would look on trees,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That may be writing in the purple dome\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Romantic lines of black, and are at home\n Where lie the little garden hostelries.\nLX\nLive well! Be wary of this life, I say;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Do not o\u2019erload yourself with righteousness.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Behold! the sword we polish in excess,\n We gradually polish it away.\nLXI\nGod who created metal is the same\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who will devour it. As the warriors ride\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With iron horses and with iron pride\u2014\u2014\n Come, let us laugh into the merry flame.\nLXII\nBut for the grandest flame our God prepares\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The breast of man, which is the grandest urn;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Yet is that flame so powerless to burn\n Those butterflies, the swarm of little cares.\nLXIII\nAnd if you find a solitary sage\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who teaches what is truth\u2014ah, then you find\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The lord of men, the guardian of the wind,\n The victor of all armies and of age.\nLXIV\nSee that procession passing down the street,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The black and white procession of the days\u2014\u2014\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Far better dance along and bawl your praise\n Than if you follow with unwilling feet.\nLXV\nBut in the noisy ranks you will forget\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What is the flag. Oh, comrade, fall aside\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And think a little moment of the pride\n Of yonder sun, think of the twilight\u2019s net.\nLXVI\nThe songs we fashion from our new delight\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are echoes. When the first of men sang out,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He shuddered, hearing not alone the shout\n Of hills but of the peoples in the night.\nLXVII\nAnd all the marvels that our eyes behold\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are pictures. There has happened some event\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For each of them, and this they represent\u2014\u2014\n Our lives are like a tale that has been told.\nLXVIII\nThere is a palace, and the ruined wall\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Divides the sand, a very home of tears,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And where love whispered of a thousand years\n The silken-footed caterpillars crawl.\nLXIX\nAnd where the Prince commanded, now the shriek\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of wind is flying through the court of state:\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"Here,\" it proclaims, \"there dwelt a potentate\n Who could not hear the sobbing of the weak.\"\nLXX\nBeneath our palaces the corner-stone\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Is quaking. What of noble we possess,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In love or courage or in tenderness,\n Can rise from our infirmities alone.\nLXXI\nWe suffer\u2014that we know, and that is all\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our knowledge. If we recklessly should strain\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To sweep aside the solid rocks of pain,\n Then would the domes of love and courage fall.\nLXXII\nBut there is one who trembles at the touch\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of sorrow less than all of you, for he\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Has got the care of no big treasury,\n And with regard to wits not overmuch.\nLXXIII\nI think our world is not a place of rest,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But where a man may take his little ease,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Until the landlord whom he never sees\n Gives that apartment to another guest.\nLXXIV\nSay that you come to life as \u2019twere a feast,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Prepared to pay whatever is the bill\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of death or tears or\u2014\u2014surely, friend, you wilt\n Not shrink at death, which is among the least?\nLXXV\nRise up against your troubles, cast away\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What is too great for mortal man to bear.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But seize no foolish arms against the share\n Which you the piteous mortal have to pay.\nLXXVI\nBe gracious to the King. You canot feign\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That nobody was tyrant, that the sword\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of justice always gave the just award\n Before these Ghassanites began to reign.\nLXXVII\nYou cultivate the ranks of golden grain,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He cultivates the cavaliers. They go\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With him careering on some other foe,\n And your battalions will be staunch again.\nLXXVIII\nThe good law and the bad law disappear\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Below the flood of custom, or they float\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And, like the wonderful Sar\u2019aby coat,\n They captivate us for a little year.\nLXXIX\nGod pities him who pities. Ah, pursue\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No longer now the children of the wood;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Or have you not, poor huntsman, understood\n That somebody is overtaking you?\nLXXX\nGod is above. We never shall attain\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our liberty from hands that overshroud;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Or can we shake aside this heavy cloud\n More than a slave can shake aside the chain?\nLXXXI\n\"There is no God save Allah!\"\u2014that is true,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nor is there any prophet save the mind\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of man who wanders through the dark to find\n The Paradise that is in me and you.\nLXXXII\nThe rolling, ever-rolling years of time\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are as a diwan of Arabian song;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The poet, headstrong and supremely strong,\n Refuses to repeat a single rhyme.\nLXXXIII\nAn archer took an arrow in his hand;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So fair he sent it singing to the sky\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That he brought justice down from\u2014ah, so high!\n He was an archer in the morning land.\nLXXXIV\nThe man who shot his arrow from the west\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Made empty roads of air; yet have I thought\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our life was happier until we brought\n This cold one of the skies to rule the nest.\nLXXXV\nRun! follow, follow happiness, the maid\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whose laughter is the laughing waterfall;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Run! call to her\u2014but if no maiden call,\n \u2019Tis something to have loved the flying shade.\nLXXXVI\nYou strut in piety the while you take\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That pilgrimage to Mecca. Now beware,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For starving relatives befoul the air,\n And curse, O fool, the threshold you forsake.\nLXXXVII\nHow man is made! He staggers at the voice,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The little voice that leads you to the land\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of virtue; but, on hearing the command\n To lead a giant army, will rejoice.\nLXXXVIII\nBehold the cup whereon your slave has trod;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That is what every cup is falling to.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Your slave\u2014remember that he lives by you,\n While in the form of him we bow to God.\nLXXXIX\nThe lowliest of the people is the lord\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Who knows not where each day to make his bed,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whose crown is kept upon the royal head\n By that poor naked minister, the sword.\nXC\nWhich is the tyrant? say you. Well, \u2019tis he\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That has the vine-leaf strewn among his hair\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And will deliver countries to the care\n Of courtesans\u2014\u2014but I am vague, you see.\nXCI\nThe dwellers of the city will oppress\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Your days: the lion, a fight-thirsty fool,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The fox who wears the robe of men that rule\u2014\u2014\n So run with me towards the wilderness.\nXCII\nOur wilderness will be the laughing land,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Where nuts are hung for us, where nodding peas\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Are wild enough to press about our knees,\n And water fills the hollow of our hand.\nXCIII\nMy village is the loneliness, and I\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Am as the travellers through the Syrian sand,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That for a moment see the warning hand\n Of one who breasted up the rock, their spy.\nXCIV\nWhere is the valiance of the folk who sing\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0These valiant stories of the world to come?\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Which they describe, forsooth! as if it swum\n In air and anchored with a yard of string.\nXCV\nTwo merchantmen decided they would battle,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To prove at last who sold the finest wares;\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And while Mahomet shrieked his call to prayers,\n The true Messiah waved his wooden rattle.\nXCVI\nPerchance the world is nothing, is a dream,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And every noise the dreamland people say\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We sedulously note, and we and they\n May be the shadows flung by what we seem.\nXCVII\nZohair the poet sang of loveliness\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Which is the flight of things. Oh, meditate\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Upon the sorrows of our earthly state,\n For what is lovely we may not possess.\nXCVIII\nHeigho! the splendid air is full of wings,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And they will take us to the\u2014\u2014friend, be wise\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For if you navigate among the skies\n You too may reach the subterranean kings.\nXCIX\nNow fear the rose! You travel to the gloom\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of which the roses sing and sing so fair,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And, but for them, you\u2019d have a certain share\n In life: your name be read upon the tomb.\nC\nThere is a tower of silence, and the bell\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Moves up\u2014another man is made to be.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For certain years they move in company,\n But you, when fails your song do fail as well.\nCI\nNo sword will summon Death, and he will stay\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For neither helm nor shield his falling rod.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We are the crooked alphabet of God,\n And He will read us ere he wipes away.\nCII\nHow strange that we, perambulating dust,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Should be the vessels of eternal fire,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That such unfading passion of desire\n Should be within our fading bodies thrust.\nCIII\nDeep in a silent chamber of the rose\n There was a fattened worm. He looked around,\n Espied a relative and spoke at him:\n It seems to me this world is very good.\nCIV\nA most unlovely world, said brother worm,\n For all of us are piteous prisoners.\n And if, declared the first, your thought is true,\n And this a prison be, melikes it well.\nCV\nSo well that I shall weave a song of praise\n And thankfulness because the world was wrought\n For us and with such providential care\u2014\u2014\n My brother, I will shame you into singing.\nCVI\nThen, cried the second, I shall raise a voice\n And see what poor apologies are made.\n And so they sang, these two, for many days,\n And while they sang the rose was beautiful.\nCVII\nBut this affected not the songful ones,\n And evermore in beauty lived the rose.\n And when the worms were old and wiser too,\n They fell to silence and humility.\nCVIII\nA night of silence! \u2019Twas the swinging sea\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And this our world of darkness. And the twain\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Rolled on below the stars; they flung a chain\n Around the silences which are in me.\nCIX\nThe shadows come, and they will come to bless\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Their brother and his dwelling and his fame,\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When I shall soil no more with any blame\n Or any praise the silence I possess.","title":"The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala: The Diwan of Abu\u2019l-Ala","type":"page"}