{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/saab/saab04.htm","path":"isl/saab/saab04.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/saab/saab04.htm","text":"Salaman and Absal, by Jami, tr. Edward Fitzgerald, [1904]\nAnd yet how long, J\u00e1mi, in this Old House\n Stringing thy Pearls upon a Harp of Song?\n Year after Year striking up some new Song,\n The Breath of some Old Story? Life is gone,\n And yet the Song is not the Last; my Soul\n Is spent\u2014and still a Story to be told!\n And I, whose Back is crook\u00e9d as the Harp\n I still keep tuning through the Night till Day!\n That Harp untun\u2019d by Time\u2014the Harper's hand\n Shaking with Age\u2014how shall the Harper's hand\n Repair its cunning, and the sweet old Harp\n Be modulated as of old? Methinks\n \u2019Tis time to break and cast it in the Fire;\n Yea, sweet the Harp that can be sweet no more,\n To cast it in the Fire\u2014the vain old Harp\n That can no more sound Sweetness to the Ear,\n But burn\u2019d may breathe sweet Attar to the Soul,\n And comfort so the Faith and Intellect,\n Now that the Body looks to Dissolution.\n My Teeth fall out\u2014my two Eyes see no more\n Till by Feringhi Glasses turn\u2019d to Four;\n Pain sits with me sitting behind my knees,\nFrom which I hardly rise unhelpt of hand;\n I bow down to my Root, and like a Child\n Yearn, as is likely, to my Mother Earth,\n With whom I soon shall cease to moan and weep,\n And on my Mother's Bosom fall asleep.\nThe House in Ruin, and its Music heard\n No more within, nor at the Door of Speech,\n Better in Silence and Oblivion\n To fold me Head and Foot, remembering\n What that Beloved to the Master whisper\u2019d:\u2014\n \"No longer think of Rhyme, but think of Me!\"\u2014\n Of Whom?\u2014of Him whose Palace The Soul is,\n And Treasure-House\u2014who notices and knows\n Its Income and Out-going, and then comes\n To fill it when the Stranger is departed.\n Whose Shadow being Kings\u2014whose Attributes\n The Type of Theirs\u2014their Wrath and Favour His\n Lo! in the Celebration of His Glory.\n The King Himself come on me unaware,\n And suddenly arrests me for his own.\n Wherefore once more I take\u2014best quitted else\n The Field of Verse, to chaunt that double Praise,\n And in that Memory refresh my Soul\n Until I grasp the Skirt of Living Presence.","title":"Salaman and Absal: Sal\u00e1m\u00e1n and Abs\u00e1l...","type":"page"}