I shall reproduce the "Kasîdah" in its entirety, with its fifteen pages of copious annotations, in the Uniform Library of Sir Richard's works which I am editing. I give the annotations in the Appendix.
It is a poem of extraordinary power on the nature and destiny of Man, anti-Christian and Pantheistic. So much wealth of Oriental learning has rarely been compressed into so small a compass.
"Let his page
Which charms the chosen spirits of the age,
Fold itself for a serener clime
Of years to come, and find its recompense
In that just expectation."
——Shelley.
"Let them laugh at me for speaking of things which they do not understand; and I must pity them while they laugh at me."——St. Augustine.
To The Reader.
The Translator has ventured to entitle a "Lay of the Higher Law" the following Composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and he has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as the "Higher Culture." The principles which justify the name are as follows:—
The Author asserts that Happiness and Misery are equally divided and distributed in the world.
He makes Self-cultivation, with due regard to others, the sole and sufficient object of human life.