{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/kas/kas07.htm","path":"isl/kas/kas07.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/kas/kas07.htm","text":"THERE is no Good, there is no Bad;\n these be the whims of mortal will:\n What works me weal that call I \"good,\"\n what harms and hurts I hold as \"ill:\"\nThey change with place, they shift with race;\n and, in the veriest span of Time,\n Each Vice has won a Virtue's crown;\n all Good was banned as Sin or Crime:\nLike ravelled skeins they cross and twine,\n while this with that connects and blends;\n And only Khizr[1] his eye shall see\n where one begins, where other ends:\nWhat mortal shall consort with Khizr,\n when Mus\u00e2 turned in fear to flee?\n What man foresees the flow'er or fruit\n whom Fate compels to plant the tree?\n[1. Supposed to be the Prophet Elijah.]\n{p. 36}\nFor Man's Free-will immortal Law,\n Anagk\u00ea, Kismet, Des'tiny read\n That was, that is, that aye shall be,\n Star, Fortune, Fate, Urd, Norn or Need.\n\"Man's nat'ural state is God's design;\"\n such is the silly sage's theme;\n \"Man's primal Age was Age of Gold;\"\n such is the Poet's waking dream:\nDelusion, Ign'orance! Long ere Man\n drew upon Earth his earliest breath\n The world was one contin'uous scene\n of anguish, torture, prey and Death;\nWhere hideous Theria of the wild\n rended their fellows limb by limb;\n Where horrid Saurians of the sea\n in waves of blood were wont to swim:\nThe \"fair young Earth\" was only fit\n to spawn her frightful monster-brood;\n Now fiery hot, now icy frore,\n now reeking wet with steamy flood.\n{p. 37}\nYon glorious Sun, the greater light,\n the \"Bridegroom\" of the royal Lyre,\n A flaming, boiling, bursting mine;\n a grim black orb of whirling fire:\nThat gentle Moon., the lesser light,\n the Lover's lamp, the Swain's delight,\n A ruined world, a globe burnt out,\n a corpse upon the road of night.\nWhat reckt he, say, of Good or Ill\n who in the hill-hole made his lair,\n The blood-fed rav'ening Beast of prey,\n wilder than wildest wolf or bear?\nHow long in Man's pre-Ad'amite days\n to feed and swill, to sleep and breed,\n Were the Brute-biped's only life,\n a perfect life sans Code or Creed?\nHis choicest garb a shaggy fell,\n his choicest tool a flake of stone;\n His best of orn'aments tattoo'd skin\n and holes to hang his bits of bone;\n{p. 38}\nWho fought for female as for food\n when Mays awoke to warm desire;\n And such the Lust that grew to Love\n when Fancy lent a purer fire.\nWhere then \"Th' Eternal nature-law\n by God engraved on human heart?\"\n Behold his simiad sconce and own\n the Thing could play no higher part.\nYet, as long ages rolled, he learnt\n from Beaver, Ape and Ant to build\n Shelter for sire and dam and brood,\n from blast and blaze that hurt and killed;\nAnd last came Fire; when scrap of stone\n cast on the flame that lit his den,\n Gave out the shining ore, and made\n the Lord of beasts a Lord of men.\nThe \"moral sense,\" your Z\u00e2hid-phrase,\n is but the gift of latest years;\n Conscience was born when man had shed\n his fur, his tail, his pointed ears.\n{p. 39}\nWhat conscience has the murd'erous Moor,\n who slays his guest with felon blow,\n Save sorrow he can slay no more,\n what prick of pen'itence can he know?\nYou cry the \"Cruelty of Things \"\n is myst'ery to your purblind eye,\n Which fixed upon a point in space\n the general project passes by:\nFor see! the Mammoth went his ways,\n became a mem'ory and a name;\n While the half-reasoner, with the hand[1]\n survives his rank and place to claim.\nEarthquake and plague, storm, fight and fray,\n portents and curses man must deem\n Since he regards his self alone,\n nor cares to trace the scope, the scheme;\nThe Quake that comes in eyelid's beat\n to ruin, level, 'gulf and kill,\n Builds up a world for better use,\n to general Good bends special Ill:\n[1. The Elephant.]\n{p. 40}\nThe dreadest sound man's ear can hear,\n the war and rush of stormy Wind\n Depures the stuff of human life,\n breeds health and strength for human-kind:\nWhat call ye them or Goods or Ills,\n ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain,\n When realms arise and falls a roof;\n a world is won, a man is slain?\nAnd thus the race of Being runs,\n till haply in the time to be\n Earth shifts her pole and Mushtari[1]-men\n another falling star shall see:\nShall see it fall and fade from sight,\n whence come, where gone no Thought can tell,--\n Drink of yon mirage-stream and chase\n the tinkling of the camel-bell!\n[1. The Planet Jupiter.]","title":"The Kas\u00eedah of H\u00e2j\u00ee Abd\u00fb El-Yezd\u00ee: V","type":"page"}