REASON
Reason that rights the retrograde—completes
The imperfect—reason that unites the knot;
For reason is the fountain from of old
From which the prophets drew, and none beside.
Who boasts of other inspiration lies—
There are no other prophets than the wise.
THE MOON OF LOVE
O Shah, I am the slave of thy desire,
Dust of thy throne, ascending foot am I;
Whatever thou desirest I would do,
But sicken of my own incompetence;
Not in the hand of my infirmer will
To carry into deed mine own desire.
Time upon time I torture mine own soul,
Devising liberation from the snare
I languish in. But when upon that moon
I think, my soul relapses; and when look—
I leave both worlds behind to follow her!
LOVE
Without my lover,
Were my chamber Heaven's horizon,
It were closer than an ant's eye;
And the ant's eye wider were
Than Heaven, my lover with me there!
MORTAL PARAMOUR
The Almighty hand that mix'd thy dust inscribed
The character of wisdom on thy heart;
O cleanse thy bosom of material form,
And turn the mirror of the soul to spirit,
Until it be with spirit all possest,
Crown'd in the light of intellectual truth.
O veil thine eyes from mortal paramour,
And follow not her step! For what is she?—
What is she but a vice and a reproach,
Her very garment-hem pollution!
For such pollution madden not thine eyes,
Waste not thy body's strength, nor taint thy soul,
Nor set the body and the soul in strife!
Supreme is thine original degree,
Thy star upon the top of heaven; but lust
Will fling it down even unto the dust!
THE DIVINE UNION
Whisper'd one to Wámik, "O thou
Victim of the wound of Azra,
What is it like, that a shadow
Movest thou about in silence
Meditating night and day?"
Wámik answer'd, "Even this—
To fly with Azra to the desert:
There by so remote a fountain
That, whichever way one travell'd
League on league, one yet should never,
Never meet the face of man—
There to pitch my tent—for ever
There to gaze on my Belovèd;
Gaze, till gazing out of gazing
Grew to being her I gaze on,
She and I no more, but in one
Undivided being blended.
All that is not One must ever
Suffer with the wound of absence;
And whoever in Love's city
Enters, finds but room for One,
And but in Oneness Union."
"DO WELL"
Do well, that in thy turn well may betide thee;
And turn from ill, that ill may turn beside thee.
THE MAGIC MIRROR
Then bade he bring a mirror that he had,
A mirror, like the bosom of the wise,
Reflecting all the world, and lifting up
The veil from all its secret, good and evil.
That mirror bade he bring, and, in its face
Looking, beheld the face of his Desire,
He saw those lovers in the solitude,
Turn'd from the world, and all its ways and people,
And looking only in each other's eyes,
And never finding any sorrow there.
A LAMENT
O thou whose presence so long sooth'd my soul,
Now burnt with thy remembrance! O so long
The light that fed these eyes now dark with tears!
O long, long home of love now lost for ever!
We were together—that was all enough—
We two rejoicing in each other's eyes,
Infinitely rejoicing—all the world
Nothing to us, nor we to all the world:
No road to reach us, nor an eye to watch—
All day we whisper'd in each other's ears,
All night we slept in one another's arms—
All seem'd to our desire, as if the hand
Of unjust Fortune were for once too short.
O would to God that when I lit the pyre
The flame had left thee living and me dead,
Not living worse than dead, depriv'd of thee!
O were I but with thee! at any cost
Stript of this terrible self-solitude!
O but with thee annihilation—lost,
Or in eternal intercourse renew'd!
"THE HARVEST OF ETERNITY"
My son, the kingdom of the world is not
Eternal, nor the sum of right desire!
Make thou the faith-preserving intellect
Thy counsellor; and considering to-day
To-morrow's seed-field, ere that come to bear
Sow with the harvest of eternity.