{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/kas/kas11.htm","path":"isl/kas/kas11.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/kas/kas11.htm","text":"How then shall man so order life\n that when his tale of years is told,\n Like sated guest he wend his way;\n how shall his even tenour hold?\nDespite the Writ that stores the skull;\n despite the Table and the Pen;[1]\n Maugre the Fate that plays us down,\n her board the world, her pieces men?\nHow when the light and glow of life\n wax dim in thickly gath'ering gloom,\n Shall mortal scoff at sting of Death,\n shall scorn the victory of the Tomb?\nOne way, two paths, one end the grave.\n This runs athwart the flowery plain,\n That breasts the bush, the steep, the crag,\n in sun and wind and snow and rain:\n[1. Emblems of Kismet, or Destiny.]\n{p. 59}\nWho treads the first must look adown,\n must deem his life an all in all;\n Must see no heights where man may rise,\n must sight no depths where man may fall.\nAllah in Adam form must view;\n adore the Maker in the made.\n Content to bask in M\u00e2y\u00e2's smile,[1]\n in joys of pain, in lights of shade.\nHe breaks the Law, he burns the Book,\n he sends the Moolah back to school;\n Laughs at the beards of Saintly men;\n and dubs the prophet dolt and fool,\nEmbraces Cypress' taper-waist;\n cools feet on wavy breast of rill;\n Smiles in the Nargis' love-lorn eyes,\n and 'joys the dance of Daffodil;\nMelts in the saffron light of Dawn\n to hear the moaning of the Dove;\n Delights in Sundown's purpling hues\n when Bulbul woos the Rose's love.\n[1. Illusion.]\n{p. 60}\nFinds mirth and joy in Jamshid-bowl;\n toys with the Daughter of the vine;\n And bids the beauteous cup-boy say,\n \"Master I bring thee ruby wine!\"[1]\nSips from the maiden's lips the dew;\n brushes the bloom from virgin brow:--\n Such is his fleshly bliss that strives\n the Maker through the Made to know.\nI've tried them all, I find them all\n so same and tame, so drear, so dry;\n My gorge ariseth at the thought;\n I commune with myself and cry:--\nBetter the myriad toils and pains\n that make the man to manhood true,\n This be the rule that guideth life;\n these be the laws for me and you:\nWith Ignor'ance wage eternal war,\n to know thy self forever strain,\n Thine ignorance of thine ignorance\n is thy fiercest foe, thy deadliest bane;\n[1. That all the senses, even the ear, may enjoy.]\n{p. 61}\nThat blunts thy sense, and dulls thy taste;\n that deafs thine ears, and blinds thine eyes;\n Creates the thing that never was,\n the Thing that ever is defies.\nThe finite Atom infinite\n that forms thy circle's centre-dot,\n So full-sufficient for itself,\n for other selves existing not,\nFinds the world mighty as 'tis small;\n yet must be fought the unequal fray;\n A myriad giants here; and there\n a pinch of dust, a clod of clay.\nYes! maugre all thy dreams of peace\n still must the fight unfair be fought;\n Where thou mayst learn the noblest lore,\n to know that all we know is nought.\nTrue to thy Nature, to Thy self,\n Fame and Disfame nor hope nor fear:\n Enough to thee the small still voice\n aye thund'ering in thine inner ear.\n{p. 62}\nFrom self-approval seek applause:\n What ken not men thou kennest, thou!\n Spurn ev'ry idol others raise:\n Before thine own Ideal bow:\nBe thine own Deus: Make self free,\n liberal as the circling air:\n Thy Thought to thee an Empire be;\n break every prison'ing lock and bar:\nDo thou the Ought to self aye owed;\n here all the duties meet and blend,\n In widest sense, withouten care\n of what began, for what shall end.\nThus, as thou view the Phantom-forms\n which in the misty Past were thine,\n To be again the thing thou wast\n with honest pride thou may'st decline;\nAnd, glancing down the range of years,\n fear not thy future self to see;\n Resign'd to life, to death resign'd,\n as though the choice were nought to thee.\n{p. 63}\nOn Thought itself feed not thy thought;\n nor turn from Sun and Light to gaze,\n At darkling cloisters paved with tombs,\n where rot the bones of bygone days:\n\"Eat not thy heart,\" the Sages said;\n \"nor mourn the Past, the buried Past;\"\n Do what thou dost, be strong, be brave;\n and, like the Star, nor rest nor haste.\nPluck the old woman from thy breast:\n Be stout in woe, be stark in weal;\n Do good for Good is good to do:\n Spurn bribe of Heav'en and threat of Hell.\nTo seek the True, to glad the heart,\n such is of life the HIGHER LAW.,\n Whose differ'ence is the Man's degree,\n the Man of gold, the Man of straw.\nSee not that something in Mankind\n that rouses hate or scorn or strife,\n Better the worm of Izr\u00e2il[1] than Death\n that walks in form of life.\n[1. The Angel of Death.]\n{p. 64}\nSurvey thy kind as One whose wants\n in the great Human Whole unite;[1]\n The Homo rising high from earth\n to seek the Heav'ens of Life-in-Light;\nAnd hold Humanity one man,\n whose universal agony\n Still strains and strives to gain the goal,\n where agonies shall cease to be.\nBelieve in all things; none believe;\n judge not nor warp by \"Facts\" the thought;\n See clear, hear clear, tho' life may seem\n M\u00e2y\u00e2 and Mirage, Dream and Naught.\nAbjure the Why and seek the How:\n the God and gods enthroned on high,\n Are silent all, are silent still;\n nor hear thy voice, nor deign reply.\nThe Now, that indivisible point\n which studs the length of infinite line\n Whose ends are nowhere, is thine all,\n the puny all thou callest thine.\n[1. The \"Great Man\" of the Enochites and the Mormons.]\nPerchance the law some Giver hath:\n Let be! let be! what canst thou know?\n A myriad races came and went;\n this Sphinx hath seen them come and go.\nHaply the Law that rules the world\n allows to man the widest range;\n And haply Fate's a Theist-word,\n subject to human chance and change.\nThis \"I\" may find a future Life,\n a nobler copy of our own,\n Where every riddle shall be ree'd,\n where every knowledge shall be known;\nWhere 'twill be man's to see the whole\n of what on Earth he sees in part;\n Where change shall ne'er surcharge the thought;\n nor hope defer'd shall hurt the heart.\nBut!--faded flow'er and fallen leaf\n no more shall deck the parent tree;\n And man once dropt by Tree of Life\n what hope of other life has he?\n{p. 66}\nThe shatter'd bowl shall know repair;\n the riven lute shall sound once more;\n But who shall mend the clay of man,\n the stolen breath to man restore?\nThe shiver'd clock again shall strike;\n the broken reed shall pipe again:\n But we, we die, and death is one,\n the doom of brutes, the doom of men.\nThen, if Nirw\u00e2na[1] round our life\n with nothingness, 'tis haply best;\n Thy toils and troubles, want and woe\n at length have won their guerdon--Rest.\nCease, Abd\u00fb, cease! Thy song is sung,\n nor think the gain the singer's prize;\n Till men bold Ignor'ance deadly sin,\n till man deserves his title \"Wise:\"[2]\nIn Days to come, Days slow to dawn,\n when Wisdom deigns to dwell with men,\n These echoes of a voice long stilled\n haply shall wake responsive strain:\n[1. Comparative annihilation.\n2. \"Homo sapiens.\"]\n{p. 67}\nWend now thy way with brow serene,\n fear not thy humble tale to tell:--\n The whispers of the Desert-wind;\n the tinkling of the camel's bell.\n{Hebrew ShLM}\n{p. 71}","title":"The Kas\u00eedah of H\u00e2j\u00ee Abd\u00fb El-Yezd\u00ee: IX","type":"page"}