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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala, by Henry Baerlein
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala
+
+Author: Henry Baerlein
+
+Release Date: August 2, 2004 [EBook #13086]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Wisdom of the East Series
+
+Edited by
+L. CRANMER-BYNG
+Dr. S. A. KAPADIA
+
+
+
+THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA
+
+By
+HENRY BAERLEIN
+
+Author of "In Pursuit of Dulcinea," "The Shade of the Balkans,"
+"Yrivand," etc.
+
+  The stars have sunk from the celestial bowers,
+  And in the garden have been turned to flowers.
+                             MUTAMID, _in captivity_.
+
+Second Edition
+
+LONDON: John Murray, 1909.
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+TO DR. E. J. DILLON
+
+Now the book is finished, so far as I shall finish it. There is,
+my friend, but this one page to write. And, more than probably,
+this is the page of all the book that I shall never wish to blot.
+Increasing wisdom or, at any rate, experience will make me frown,
+I promise you, some time or other at a large proportion of the
+pages of this volume. But when I look upon your name I hear a
+troop of memories, and in their singing is my happiness.
+
+When you receive this book, presuming that the Russian Censor
+does not shield you from it, I have some idea what you will do.
+The string, of course, must not be cut, and you will seriously
+set about the disentangling of it. One hand assists by holding
+up, now near the nose now farther off, your glasses; the other
+hand pecks at the string. After, say, twenty minutes there will
+enter the admirable Miss Fox--oh! the tea she used to make for us
+when we were freezing on the mountains of Bulgaria, what time our
+Chicagoan millionaire was ruffled and Milyukov, the adventurous
+professor, standing now not far from Russia's helm, would always
+drive ahead of us and say, with princely gesture, that if we
+suffered from the dust it was advisable that he should be the one
+to meet the fury of the local lions. But do not let us lose the
+scent: Miss Fox, that woman of resource, will cut the string. And
+later on, while to her you are dictating things political and
+while your other secretary is discoursing music, mournful Russian
+music, then with many wrinkles on your brow you will hold the
+book at arm's length.
+
+"The Serbonian Bog," says Miss Fox, repeating the last lines of
+the dictation.
+
+Your face is held sideways with what is called, I believe, a
+quizzical expression.
+
+"Morocco," says she, "viewed from the banks of the Seine, is
+becoming more and more like the Serbonian Bog." Then she waits,
+discreet as always, while you think. Miss Fox, his thoughts are
+on the Adriatic!
+
+There his boat, eleven years ago, was sailing underneath a net of
+stars and he was talking to a fellow-traveller. They had been
+joined at first by common suffering,--and how shall mortals find
+a stronger link? On board that boat there was an elderly
+American, the widow of a senator's brother-in-law, whose mission
+was, she took it, to convert those two. What specially attracted
+her to them was not, perhaps, that they excelled the other
+passengers in luridness, but that they had the privilege of
+understanding, more or less, her language.
+
+"Feci quod potui," said Dr. Dillon, "faciant meliora potentes."
+
+She said, and let us hope with truth, that recently a Chinaman,
+another object of her ministrations, had addressed her as "Your
+honour, the foreign devil." And this caused her to discuss the
+details of our final journey--in the meantime we have taken many
+others of a more delightful sort--and she assured us that we
+should be joined by Chinamen and all those Easterners. She had
+extremely little hope for any of them, and Abu'l-Ala, the Syrian
+poet, whom Dr. Dillon had been putting into English prose,--
+Abu'l-Ala she steadily refused to read. Nor did the prospect of
+beholding him in English verse evoke a sign of joy upon her
+countenance. "Oh," she exclaimed, "what good is it?" And there is
+naught for me to say but "Feci quod potui, faciant meliora
+potentes."
+
+H. B.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ INTRODUCTION TO THE DIWAN
+
+ THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA
+
+ APPENDIX
+
+
+
+EDITORIAL NOTE
+
+The object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one.
+They desire above all things that, in their humble way, these
+books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding
+between East and West--the old world of Thought and the new of
+Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but
+followers of the highest example in the land. They are confident
+that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy
+of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of
+Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another
+creed and colour. Finally, in thanking press and public for the
+very cordial reception given to the "Wisdom of the East" Series,
+they wish to state that no pains have been spared to secure the
+best specialists for the treatment of the various subjects at
+hand.
+
+L. CRANMER-BYNG.
+S. A. KAPADIA.
+
+NORTHBROOK SOCIETY,
+158, PICCADILLY, W.
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE DIWAN
+
+  God help him who has no nails wherewith to scratch himself.
+                                        _Arabian proverb_.
+
+An effort has been made to render in this book some of the poems
+of Abu'l-Ala the Syrian, who was born 973 years after Jesus
+Christ and some forty-four before Omar Khayyam. But the life of
+such a man--his triumph over circumstance, the wisdom he
+achieved, his unconventionality, his opposition to revealed
+religion, the sincerity of his religion, his interesting friends
+at Baghdad and Ma'arri, the multitude of his disciples, his
+kindliness and cynic pessimism and the reverence which he
+enjoyed, the glory of his meditations, the renown of his
+prodigious memory, the fair renown of bending to the toil of
+public life, not to the laureateship they pressed upon him, but
+the post of being spokesman at Aleppo for the troubles of his
+native villagers,--the life of such a one could not be told
+within the space at our command; it will, with other of his
+poems, form the subject of a separate volume. What appears
+advisable is that we should devote this introduction to a
+commentary on the poems here translated; which we call a "diwan,"
+by the way, because they are selected out of all his works. A
+commentary on the writings of a modern poet is supposed to be
+superfluous, but in the days of Abu'l-Ala of Ma'arri you were
+held to pay the highest compliment if, and you were yourself a
+poet, you composed a commentary on some other poet's work.
+Likewise you were held to be a thoughtful person if you gave the
+world a commentary on your own productions; and Abu'l-Ala did not
+neglect to write upon his _Sikt al-Zand_ ("The Falling Spark of
+Tinder") and his _Lozum ma la Yalzam_ ("The Necessity of what is
+Unnecessary"), out of which our diwan has been chiefly made. But
+his elucidations have been lost. And we--this nobody will
+contradict--have lost the old facility. For instance, Hasan ibn
+Malik ibn Abi Obaidah was one day attending on Mansur the
+Chamberlain, and he displayed a collection of proverbs which Ibn
+Sirri had made for the Caliph's delectation. "It is very fine,"
+quoth Mansur, "but it wants a commentary." And Hasan in a week
+returned with a commentary, very well written, of three hundred
+couplets. One other observation: we shall not be able to present
+upon these pages a connected narrative, a dark companion of the
+poem, which is to the poem as a shadow to the bird. A mediæval
+Arab would have no desire to see this theory of connection put in
+practice--no, not even with a poem; for the lines, to win his
+admiration, would be as a company of stars much more than as a
+flying bird. Suppose that he produced a poem of a hundred lines,
+he would perchance make fifty leaps across the universe. But if
+we frown on such discursiveness, he proudly shows us that the
+hundred lines are all in rhyme. This Arab and ourselves--we
+differ so profoundly. "Yet," says he, "if there existed no
+diversity of sight then would inferior merchandise be left
+unsold." And when we put his poem into English, we are careless
+of the hundred rhymes; we paraphrase--"Behold the townsmen," so
+cried one of the Bedawi, "they have for the desert but a single
+word, we have a dozen!"--and we reject, as I have done, the
+quantitative metre, thinking it far preferable if the metre sings
+itself into an English ear, as much as possible with that effect
+the poet wants to give; and we oppose ourselves, however
+unsuccessfully, to his discursiveness by making alterations in
+the order of the poem. But in this commentary we shall be obliged
+to leap, like Arabs, from one subject to another. And so let us
+begin.
+
+With regard to prayer (_quatrain_ 1), the Moslem is indifferent
+as to whether he perform this function in his chamber or the
+street, considering that every spot is equally pure for the
+service of God. And yet the Prophet thought that public worship
+was to be encouraged; it was not a vague opinion, because he knew
+it was exactly five-and-twenty times more valuable than private
+prayer. It is related of al-Muzani that when he missed being
+present in the mosque he repeated his prayers twenty-five times.
+"He was a diver for subtle ideas," said the biographer Ibn
+Khallikan. And although our poet, quoting the Carmathians, here
+deprecates the common worship, he remarks in one of his letters
+that he would have gone to mosque on Fridays if he had not fallen
+victim to an unmentionable complaint. . . . The pre-Islamic Arabs
+were accustomed to sacrifice sheep (_quatrain_ 1) and other
+animals in Mecca and elsewhere, at various stones which were
+regarded as idols or as altars of the gods.[1] Sometimes they
+killed a human being, such as the four hundred captive nuns of
+whom we read that they were sacrificed by al-Mundhir to the
+goddess Aphrodite. Sheep are offered up to-day in Palestine: for
+instance, if the first wife of a man is barren and the second
+wife has children, then the former vows that in return for a son
+she will give a lamb. Apparently when it was thought desirable to
+be particularly solemn a horse was sacrificed, and this we hear
+of with the Persians, Indians, and more western people. White was
+held to be the favourable colour, so we read in Herodotus (i.
+189) that the Persians sacrificed white horses. In Sweden it was
+thought that a black lamb must be dedicated to the water sprite
+before he would teach any one to play the harp. As for the
+subsequent fate of the victim, Burton tells us that the Moslems
+do not look with favour on its being eaten. Unlike them, Siberian
+Buriats will sacrifice a sheep and boil the mutton and hoist it
+on a scaffold for the gods, and chant a song and then consume the
+meat. So, too, the zealous devil-worshippers of Travancore, whose
+diet is the putrid flesh of cattle and tigers, together with
+arrak and toddy and rice, which they have previously offered to
+their deities.
+
+The words of Abu'l-Ala concerning day and night (_quatrain_ 2)
+may be compared with what he says elsewhere:
+
+  These two, young for ever,
+    Speed into the West--
+  Our life in their clutches--
+    And give us no rest.
+
+"Generation goeth and generation cometh," says Ecclesiastes,
+"while for ever the earth abideth. The sun riseth also and the
+sun goeth down and cometh panting back to his place where he
+riseth." . . . The early dawn, the time of scarlet eyes, was also
+when the caravan would be attacked. However, to this day the
+rising sun is worshipped by the Bedawi, despite the prohibition
+of Mahomet and despite the Moslem dictum that the sun rises
+between the devil's horns. Now the divinity of the stars
+(_quatrain_ 4) had been affirmed by Plato and Aristotle; it was
+said that in the heavenly bodies dwelt a ruling intelligence
+superior to man's, and more lasting.[2] And in Islam, whose holy
+house, the Kaaba, had traditionally been a temple of Saturn, we
+notice that the rationalists invariably connect their faith with
+the worship of Venus and other heavenly bodies. We are told by
+ash-Shahrastani, in his _Book of Religious and Philosophical
+Sects_, that the Indians hold Saturn for the greatest luck, on
+account of his height and the size of his body. But such was not
+Abu'l-Ala's opinion. "As numb as Saturn," he writes in one of his
+letters,[3] "and as dumb as a crab has every one been struck by
+you." Elsewhere he says in verse:
+
+  If dark the night, old Saturn is a flash
+  Of eyes which threaten from a face of ash.
+
+And the worship of Saturn, with other deities, is about a hundred
+years later resented by Clotilda, says Gregory of Tours, when she
+is moving Chlodovich her husband to have their son baptized. When
+the little boy dies soon after baptism, the husband does not fail
+to draw a moral. But misfortunes, in the language of an Arab
+poet, cling about the wretched even as a coat of mail (_quatrain_
+6) is on the warrior. This image was a favourite among the Arabs,
+and when Ibn Khallikan wants to praise the verses of one As Suli,
+he informs us that they have the reputation of delivering from
+sudden evil any person who recites them frequently. When this
+evil is complete, with rings strongly riven, it passes away while
+he thinks that nothing can dispel it. . . . We have mention in
+this quatrain of a winding-sheet, and that could be of linen or
+of damask. The Caliph Solaiman was so fond of damask that every
+one, even the cook, was forced to wear it in his presence, and it
+clothed him in the grave. Yet he, like other Moslems (_quatrain_
+10), would believe that he must undergo the fate recorded in a
+book. The expression that a man's destiny is written on his
+forehead, had its origin without a doubt, says Goldziher, in
+India. We have remarked upon the Indian ideas which had been
+gathered by Abu'l-Ala at Baghdad. There it was that he enjoyed
+the opportunity of seeing ships (_quatrain_ 11). He spent a
+portion of his youth beside the sea, at Tripoli. But in the
+capital were many boats whose fascination he would not resist,--
+the Chinese junks laboriously dragged up from Bassora, and dainty
+gondolas of basket-work covered with asphalt.[4] However, though
+in this place and in others, very frequently, in fact, Abu'l-Ala
+makes mention of the sea, his fondness of it was, one thinks, for
+literary purposes. He writes a letter to explain how grieved he
+is to hear about a friend who purposes to risk himself upon the
+sea, and he recalls a certain verse: "Surely it is better to
+drink among the sand-heaps foul water mixed with pure than to
+venture on the sea." From Baghdad also he would carry home the
+Zoroastrian view (_quatrain_ 14) that night was primordial and
+the light created. As a contrast with these foreign importations,
+we have reference (_quatrain_ 15) to the lute, which was the
+finest of Arabian instruments. They said themselves that it was
+invented by a man who flourished in the year 500 B.C. and added
+an eighth string to the lyre. Certainly the Arab lute was popular
+among the Greeks: [Greek: arabion ar' egô kekinêka aulon], says
+Menander. It was carried to the rest of Europe by crusaders at
+the beginning of the twelfth century, about which time it first
+appears in paintings, and its form persisted till about a hundred
+years ago.[5] But with regard to travels (_quatrain_ 18), in the
+twenty-seventh letter of Abu'l-Ala, "I observe," says he, "that
+you find fault with travelling. Why so? Ought not a man to be
+satisfied with following the precedent set by Moses, who, when he
+turned towards Midyan, said, Maybe the Lord will guide me?"
+(Koran 28, 21). Should a man be satisfied with what he hears from
+the philosopher al-Kindi? "In any single existing thing, if it is
+thoroughly known, we possess," he said, "a mirror in which we may
+behold the entire scheme of things" (_quatrain_ 20). The same
+philosopher has laid it down that, "Verily there is nothing
+constant in this world of coming and going (_quatrain_ 24), in
+which we may be deprived at any moment of what we love. Only in
+the world of reason is stability to be found. If then we desire
+to see our wishes fulfilled and would not be robbed of what is
+dear to us, we must turn to the eternal blessings of reason, to
+the fear of God, to science and to good works. But if we follow
+merely after material possessions in the belief that we can
+retain them, we are pursuing an object which does not really
+exist." . . . And this idea of transitoriness prevails so
+generally among the Arabs that the salad-seller recommends his
+transitory wares to pious folk by calling, "God is that which
+does not pass away!" So, too, the Arab pictures as a bird, a
+thing of transience, the human soul. In Syria the dove is often
+carved upon their ancient tombstones. And the Longobards among
+their graves erected poles in memory of kinsfolk who had died
+abroad or had been slain in battle; on the summit of the pole was
+a wooden image of a dove, whose head was pointed in the direction
+where the loved one lay buried. With us, as with Abu'l-Ala
+(_quatrain_ 26), the soul may metaphorically be imagined as a
+bird, but for the European's ancestor it was a thing of sober
+earnest, as it is to-day to many peoples. Thus the soul of
+Aristeas was seen to issue from his mouth in the shape of a
+raven.[6] In Southern Celebes they think that a bridegroom's soul
+is apt to fly away at marriage, wherefore coloured rice is
+scattered over him to induce it to remain. And, as a rule, at
+festivals in South Celebes rice is strewed on the head of the
+person in whose honour the festival is held, with the object of
+detaining his soul, which at such times is in especial danger of
+being lured away by envious demons.[7] . . . This metaphor was
+used by Abu'l-Ala in the letter which he wrote on the death of
+his mother: "I say to my soul, 'This is not your nest, fly
+away.'" And elsewhere (_quatrain_ 34) Death is represented as a
+reaper. Says Francis Thompson:
+
+  The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper
+  The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.
+
+It is interesting to find Death also called a sower, who
+disseminates weeds among men: "Dô der Tôt sînen Sâmen under si
+gesœte."
+
+It was an ancient custom of the Arabs when they took an oath of
+special significance to plunge their hands into a bowl of perfume
+and distribute it among those who took part in the ceremony. Of
+the perfumes, musk (_quatrain_ 38) was one which they affected
+most. Brought commonly from Turkistan, it was, with certain
+quantities of sandalwood and ambra, made into a perfume. And "the
+wounds of him who falls in battle and of the martyrs," said
+Mahomet, "shall on the Day of Judgment be resplendent with
+vermilion and odorous as musk." This was repeated by Ibnol
+Faradhi, who in the Kaaba entreated God for martyrdom and, when
+this prayer was heard, repented having asked. . . . This quatrain
+goes on to allude to things which can improve by being struck.
+There is in the third book of a work on cookery (so rare a thing,
+they tell us, that no MS. of it exists in England or in any other
+country that can be heard of) an observation by the eighteenth-
+century editor to the effect that it is a vulgar error to suppose
+that walnut-trees, like Russian wives, are all the better for a
+beating; the long poles and stones which are used by boys and
+others to get the fruit down, for the trees are very high, are
+used rather out of kindness to themselves than with any regard to
+the tree that bears it. This valued treatise, we may mention, is
+ascribed to Cœlius Apicius; its science, learning, and
+discipline were extremely condemned, and even abhorred by Seneca
+and the Stoics. . . . Aloes-wood does not emit a perfume until it
+is burned:
+
+       Lo! of hundreds who aspire
+       Eighties perish--nineties tire!
+  They who bear up, in spite of wrecks and wracks,
+  Were season'd by celestial hail of thwacks.
+
+       Fortune in this mortal race
+       Builds on thwackings for its base;
+  Thus the All-Wise doth make a flail a staff,
+  And separates his heavenly corn from chaff.[8]
+
+Reward may follow on such absolute obedience (_quatrain_ 40). We
+remember what is said by Fra Giovanni in the prison of
+Viterbo[9]: "Endurez, souffrez, acceptez, veuillez ce que Dieu
+veut, et votre volonté sera faite sur la terre comme au ciel."
+And perhaps the dawn for you may be your camel's dawn (_quatrain_
+41); it was usual for Arabs on the point of death to say to their
+sons: "Bury my steed with me, so that when I rise from the grave
+I will not have to go on foot." The camel was tied with its head
+towards its hind legs, a saddle-cloth was wrapped about its neck,
+and it was left beside the grave until it died. Meanwhile, if the
+master is a true believer, says Mahomet, his soul has been
+divided from the body by Azrael, the angel of death. Afterwards
+the body is commanded to sit upright in the grave, there to be
+examined by the two black angels, Monkar and Nakyr (_quatrain_
+42), with regard to his faith, the unity of God and the mission
+of Mahomet. If the answers be correct, the body stays in peace
+and is refreshed by the air of paradise; if incorrect, these
+angels beat the corpse upon his temples with iron maces, until he
+roars out for anguish so loudly that he is heard by all from east
+to west, except by men and jinn. Abu'l-Ala had little confidence
+in these two angels; he reminds one of St. Catherine of Sienna, a
+visionary with uncommon sense, who at the age of eight ran off
+one afternoon to be a hermit. She was careful to provide herself
+with bread and water, fearing that the angels would forget to
+bring her food, and at nightfall she ran home again because she
+was afraid her parents would be anxious. With regard to the angel
+of death, Avicenna has related that the soul, like a bird,
+escapes with much trouble from the snares of earth (_quatrain_
+43), until this angel delivers it from the last of its fetters.
+We think of the goddess Rân with her net. Death is imagined
+(_quatrain_ 44) as a fowler or fisher of men, thus: "Dô kam der
+Tôt als ein diep, und stal dem reinen wîbe daz leben ûz ir
+lîbe."[10]
+
+On account of its brilliance a weapon's edge (_quatrain_ 46) has
+been compared in Arab poetry with sunlit glass, with the torch of
+a monk, with the stars and with the flame in a dark night. Nor
+would an Arab turn to picturesque comparisons in poetry alone.
+Speaking of a certain letter, Abu'l-Ala assures the man who wrote
+it that "it proceeds from the residence of the great doctor who
+holds the reins of prose and verse" (_quatrain_ 50). Now with
+regard to glass, it was a very ancient industry among the Arabs.
+In the second century of the Hegira it was so far advanced that
+they could make enamelled glass and unite in one glass different
+colours. A certain skilled chemist of the period was not only
+expert in these processes (_quatrain_ 52), but even tried to make
+of glass false pearls, whereon he published a pamphlet.
+
+Death, from being a silent messenger who punctually fulfilled his
+duty, became a grasping, greedy foe (_quatrain_ 56). In the
+Psalms (xci. 3-6) he comes as a hunter with snares and arrows.
+Also "der Tôt wil mit mir ringen."[11] In ancient times Death was
+not a being that slew, but simply one that fetched away to the
+underworld, a messenger. So was the soul of the beggar fetched
+away by angels and carried into Abraham's bosom. An older view
+was the death-goddess, who receives the dead men in her house and
+does not fetch them. They are left alone to begin the long and
+gloomy journey, provided with various things.[12] "Chacun remonte
+à son tour le calvaire des siècles. Chacun retrouve les peines,
+chacun retrouve l'espoir désespéré et la folie des siècles.
+Chacun remet ses pas dans les pas de ceux qui furent, de ceux qui
+luttèrent avant lui contre la mort, nièrant la mort,--sont
+morts"[13] (_quatrain_ 57). It is the same for men and trees
+(_quatrain_ 59). This vision of Abu'l-Ala's is to be compared
+with Milton's "men as trees walking," a kind of second sight, a
+blind man's pageant. In reference to haughty folk, an Arab
+proverb says that "There is not a poplar which has reached its
+Lord." But on the other hand, "There are some virtues which dig
+their own graves,"[14] and with regard to excessive polishing of
+swords (_quatrain_ 60) we have the story of the poet Abu Tammam,
+related by Ibn Khallikan. He tells us how the poet once recited
+verses in the presence of some people, and how one of them was a
+philosopher who said, "This man will not live long, for I have
+seen in him a sharpness of wit and penetration and intelligence.
+From this I know that the mind will consume the body, even as a
+sword of Indian steel eats through its scabbard." Still, in
+Arabia, where swords were so generally used that a priest would
+strap one to his belt before he went into the pulpit, there was
+no unanimous opinion as to the polishing,--which, by the way, was
+done with wood. A poet boasted that his sword was often or was
+rarely polished, according as he wished to emphasise the large
+amount of work accomplished or the excellence of the polishing.
+Imru'al-Kais says that his sword does not recall the day when it
+was polished. Another poet says his sword is polished every day
+and "with a fresh tooth bites off the people's heads."[15] This
+vigour of expression was not only used for concrete subjects.
+There exists a poem, dating from a little time before Mahomet,
+which says that cares (_quatrain_ 62) are like the camels,
+roaming in the daytime on the distant pastures and at night
+returning to the camp. They would collect as warriors round the
+flag. It was the custom for each family to have a flag
+(_quatrain_ 65), a cloth fastened to a lance, round which it
+gathered. Mahomet's big standard was called the Eagle,--and, by
+the bye, his seven swords had names, such as "possessor of the
+spine."
+
+With _quatrain_ 68 we may compare the verses of a Christian poet,
+quoted by Tabari:
+
+ And where is now the lord of Hadr, he that built it and laid
+     taxes on the land of Tigris?
+ A house of marble he established, whereof the covering was
+     made of plaster; in the galbes were nests of birds.
+ He feared no sorry fate. See, the dominion of him has departed.
+     Loneliness is on his threshold.
+
+"Consider how you treat the poor," said Dshafer ben Mahomet, who
+pilgrimaged from Mecca to Baghdad between fifty and sixty times;
+"they are the treasures of this world, the keys of the other."
+Take care lest it befall you as the prince (_quatrain_ 69) within
+whose palace now the wind is reigning. "If a prince would be
+successful," says Machiavelli, "it is requisite that he should
+have a spirit capable of turns and variations, in accordance with
+the variations of the wind." Says an Arab mystic, "The sighing of
+a poor man for that which he can never reach has more of value
+than the praying of a rich man through a thousand years." And in
+connection with this quatrain we may quote Blunt's rendering of
+Zohair:
+
+  I have learned that he who giveth nothing, deaf to his
+                                        friends' begging,
+     loosed shall be to the world's tooth-strokes: fools'
+                                 feet shall tread on him.
+
+As for the power of the weak, we have some instances from
+Abbaside history. One of the caliphs wanted to do deeds of
+violence in Baghdad. Scornfully he asked of his opponents if they
+could prevent him. "Yes," they answered, "we will fight you with
+the arrows of the night." And he desisted from his plans.
+Prayers, complaints, and execrations which the guiltless,
+fighting his oppressor, sends up to heaven are called the arrows
+of the night and are, the Arabs tell us, invariably successful.
+This belief may solace you for the foundation of suffering
+(_quatrain_ 71), which, by the way, is also in the philosophic
+system of Zeno the Stoic. Taking the four elements of Empedocles,
+he says that three of them are passive, or suffering, elements
+while only fire is active, and that not wholly. It was Zeno's
+opinion that everything must be active or must suffer. . . . An
+explanation for our suffering is given by Soame Jenyns, who
+flourished in the days when, as his editor could write, referring
+to his father Sir Roger Jenyns, "the order of knighthood was
+received by gentlemen with the profoundest gratitude." Soame's
+thesis is his "Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil,"
+that human sufferings are compensated by the enjoyment possibly
+experienced by some higher order of beings which inflict them, is
+ridiculed by Samuel Johnson. We have Jenyns's assurance that
+
+    To all inferior animals 'tis given
+    To enjoy the state allotted them by Heav'n.
+
+And (_quatrain_ 75) we may profitably turn to Coleridge:
+
+  Oh, what a wonder seems the fear of death!
+  Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;
+  Babes, children, youths and men,
+  Night following night, for threescore years and ten.
+
+We should be reconciled, says Abu'l-Ala (_quatrain_ 76), even to
+the Christian kings of Ghassan, in the Hauran. These were the
+hereditary enemies of the kings of Hirah. On behalf of the Greek
+emperors of Constantinople they controlled the Syrian Arabs. But
+they disappeared before the triumphant Moslems, the last of their
+kings being Jabalah II., who was dethroned in the year 637. His
+capital was Bosra, on the road between the Persian Gulf and the
+Mediterranean. Nowadays the district is chiefly occupied by
+nomads; to the Hebrews it was known as Bashan, famous for its
+flocks and oak plantations. We can still discern the traces of
+troglodyte dwellings of this epoch. The afore-mentioned Jabalah
+was a convert to Islam, but, being insulted by a Mahometan, he
+returned to Christianity and betook himself to Constantinople,
+where he died. But in the time of Abu'l-Ala, the Ghassanites were
+again in the exercise of authority. "These were the kings of
+Ghassan," says Abu'l-Ala, "who followed the course of the dead;
+each of them is now but a tale that is told, and God knows who is
+good." A poet is a liar, say the Arabs, and the greatest poet is
+the greatest liar. But in this case Abu'l-Ala in prose was not so
+truthful as in poetry; for if Jabalah's house had vanished, the
+Ghassanites were still a power. The poet, for our consolation,
+has a simile (_quatrain_ 77) that may be put against a passage of
+Homer:
+
+  As with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er,
+  And thick bestrown, lies Ceres' sacred floor,
+  When round and round, with never-weary'd pain
+  The trampling steers beat out th' unnumber'd grain:
+  So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls,
+  Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes' souls.[16]
+
+For everything there is decay, and (_quatrain_ 78) for the
+striped garment of a long cut which now we are unable to
+identify.
+
+We read in the Wisdom of Solomon: "As when an arrow is shot at a
+mark, it parteth the air which immediately cometh together again,
+so that a man cannot know where it went through." In this place
+(_quatrain_ 84), if the weapon's road of air is not in vain it
+will discover justice in the sky. How much the Arabs were averse
+from frigid justice is to be observed in the matter of recompense
+for slaying. There existed a regular tariff--so many camels or
+dates--but they looked askance upon the person who was willing to
+accept this and forgo his vengeance. If a man was anxious to
+accept a gift as satisfaction and at the same time to escape
+reproach, he shot an arrow into the air. Should it come down
+unspotted, he was able to accept the gift; if it was bloody, then
+he was obliged to seek for blood. The Arabs, by the way, had been
+addicted to an ancient game, but Islam tried to stamp this out,
+like other joys of life. The players had ten arrows, which they
+shot into the air; seven of them bestowed a right to the portion
+of a camel, the other three did not. Abu'l-Ala was fond of using
+arrows metaphorically. "And if one child," he writes to a
+distinguished sheikh, "were to ask another in the dead of night
+in a discussion: 'Who is rewarded for staying at home many times
+what he would be rewarded for going on either pilgrimage?' and
+the second lad answered: 'Mahomet, son of Sa'id,' his arrow would
+have fallen near the mark; for your protection of your subjects
+(_quatrain_ 86) is a greater duty than either pilgrimage." And
+our poet calls to mind some benefits attached to slavery
+(_quatrain_ 88): for an offence against morals a slave could
+receive fifty blows, whereas the punishment of a freeman was
+double. A married person who did not discharge his vows was
+liable to be stoned to death, whereas a slave in similar
+circumstances was merely struck a certain number of blows. It was
+and still is customary, says von Kremer, if anything is broken by
+a slave, forthwith to curse Satan, who is supposed to concern
+himself in very trifling matters. The sympathy Abu'l-Ala displays
+for men of small possessions may be put beside the modicum
+(_quatrain_ 92) he wanted for himself. And these necessaries of
+Abu'l-Ala, the ascetic, must appeal to us as more sincerely felt
+than those of Ibn at-Ta'awizi, who was of opinion that when seven
+things are collected together in the drinking-room it is not
+reasonable to stay away. The list is as follows: a melon, honey,
+roast meat, a young girl, wax lights, a singer, and wine. But Ibn
+at-Ta'awizi was a literary person, and in Arabic the names of all
+these objects begin with the same letter. Abu'l-Ala was more
+inclined to celebrate the wilderness. He has portrayed
+(_quatrain_ 93) a journey in the desert where a caravan, in order
+to secure itself against surprises, is accustomed to send on a
+spy, who scours the country from the summit of a hill or rock.
+Should he perceive a sign of danger, he will wave his hand in
+warning. From Lebid's picture of another journey--which the
+pre-Islamic poet undertook to the coast lands of Hajar on the
+Persian Gulf--we learn that when they entered a village he and
+his party were greeted by the crowing of cocks and the shaking of
+wooden rattles (_quatrain_ 95), which in the Eastern Christian
+Churches are substituted for bells. . . . And the mediæval
+leper, in his grey gown, was obliged to hold a similar object,
+waving it about and crying as he went: "Unclean! unclean!"
+
+An ambitious man desired, regardless of expense, to hand down his
+name to posterity (_quatrain_ 99). "Write your name in a prayer,"
+said Epictetus, "and it will remain after you." "But I would have
+a crown of gold," was the reply. "If you have quite made up your
+mind to have a crown," said Epictetus, "take a crown of roses,
+for it is more beautiful." In the words of Heredia:
+
+  Déjà le Temps brandit l'arme fatale. As-tu
+  L'espoir d'éterniser le bruit de ta vertu?
+  Un vil lierre suffit à disjoindre un trophée;
+
+  Et seul, aux blocs épars des marbres triomphaux
+  Où ta gloire en ruine est par l'herbe étouffée,
+  Quelque faucheur Samnite ébréchera sa faulx.
+
+Would we write our names so that they endure for ever? There was
+in certain Arab circles a heresy which held that the letters of
+the alphabet (_quatrain_ 101) are metamorphoses of men. And
+Magaira, who founded a sect, maintained that the letters of the
+alphabet are like limbs of God. According to him, when God wished
+to create the world, He wrote with His own hands the deeds of
+men, both the good and the bad; but, at sight of the sins which
+men were going to commit, He entered into such a fury that He
+sweated, and from His sweat two seas were formed, the one of salt
+water and the other of sweet water. From the first one the
+infidels were formed, and from the second the Shi'ites. But to
+this view of the everlasting question you may possibly prefer
+what is advanced (_quatrains_ 103-7) and paraphrased as an
+episode: Whatever be the wisdom of the worms, we bow before the
+silence of the rose. As for Abu'l-Ala, we leave him now
+prostrated (_quatrain_ 108) before the silence of the rolling
+world. It is a splendour that was seen by Alfred de Vigny:
+
+  Je roule avec dédain, sans voir et sans entendre,
+  A côté des fourmis les populations;
+  Je ne distingue pas leur terrier de leur cendre.
+  J'ignore en les portant les noms des nations.
+  On me dit une mère et je suis une tombe.
+  Mon hiver prend vos morts comme son hécatombe,
+  Mon printemps n'entend pas vos adorations.
+
+  Avant vous j'étais belle et toujours parfumée,
+  J'abandonnais au vent mes cheveux tout entiers. . . .
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+[1] _Cf_. Lyall, _Ancient Arabian Poets_.
+
+[2] _Cf_. Whittaker, _The Neo-Platonists_.
+
+[3] Of course I use Professor Margoliouth's superb edition of the
+letters.
+
+[4] _Cf_. Thielmann, _Streifzüge im Kaukasus, etc_.
+
+[5] _Cf_. Ambros, _Geschichte der Musik_, 1862.
+
+[6] _Cf_. Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, vii. 174.
+
+[7] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, vol. i., p. 254.
+
+[8] Meredith, _The Shaving of Shagpat_.
+
+[9] Anatole France, _Le Puits de Sainte Claire_.
+
+[10] Quoted by Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, vol. 2, p. 845.
+
+[11] Stoufenb., 1126.
+
+[12] _Cf_. in Scandinavia the death-goddess Hel.
+
+[13] Romain Rolland, _Jean Christophe_.
+
+[14] Ella d'Arcy, _Modern Instances_.
+
+[15] Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Schwarzlose, _Die Waffen der alten
+Araber, aus ihren Dichtern dargestellt_.
+
+[16] Pope, _Iliad_, xx. 577.
+
+
+
+THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA
+
+I
+
+Abandon worship in the mosque and shrink
+  From idle prayer, from sacrificial sheep,
+  For Destiny will bring the bowl of sleep
+Or bowl of tribulation--you shall drink.
+
+
+II
+
+The scarlet eyes of Morning are pursued
+  By Night, who growls along the narrow lane;
+  But as they crash upon our world the twain
+Devour us and are strengthened for the feud.
+
+
+III
+
+Vain are your dreams of marvellous emprise,
+  Vainly you sail among uncharted spaces,
+  Vainly seek harbour in this world of faces
+If it has been determined otherwise.
+
+
+IV
+
+Behold, my friends, there is reserved for me
+  The splendour of our traffic with the sky:
+  You pay your court to Saturn, whereas I
+Am slain by One far mightier than he.
+
+
+V
+
+You that must travel with a weary load
+  Along this darkling, labyrinthine street--
+  Have men with torches at your head and feet
+If you would pass the dangers of the road.
+
+
+VI
+
+So shall you find all armour incomplete
+  And open to the whips of circumstance,
+  That so shall you be girdled of mischance
+Till you be folded in the winding-sheet.
+
+
+VII
+
+Have conversation with the wind that goes
+  Bearing a pack of loveliness and pain:
+  The golden exultation of the grain
+And the last, sacred whisper of the rose
+
+
+VIII
+
+But if in some enchanted garden bloom
+  The rose imperial that will not fade,
+  Ah! shall I go with desecrating spade
+And underneath her glories build a tomb?
+
+
+IX
+
+Shall I that am as dust upon the plain
+  Think with unloosened hurricanes to fight?
+  Or shall I that was ravished from the night
+Fall on the bosom of the night again?
+
+
+X
+
+Endure! and if you rashly would unfold
+  That manuscript whereon our lives are traced,
+  Recall the stream which carols thro' the waste
+And in the dark is rich with alien gold.
+
+
+XI
+
+Myself did linger by the ragged beach,
+  Whereat wave after wave did rise and curl;
+  And as they fell, they fell--I saw them hurl
+A message far more eloquent than speech:
+
+
+XII
+
+_We that with song our pilgrimage beguile,
+  With purple islands which a sunset bore,
+  We, sunk upon the sacrilegious shore,
+May parley with oblivion awhile_.
+
+
+XIII
+
+I would not have you keep nor idly flaunt
+  What may be gathered from the gracious land,
+  But I would have you sow with sleepless hand
+The virtues that will balance your account.
+
+
+XIV
+
+The days are dressing all of us in white,
+  For him who will suspend us in a row.
+  But for the sun there is no death. I know
+The centuries are morsels of the night.
+
+
+XV
+
+A deed magnanimous, a noble thought
+  Are as the music singing thro' the years
+  When surly Time the tyrant domineers
+Against the lute whereoutof it was wrought.
+
+
+XVI
+
+Now to the Master of the World resign
+  Whatever touches you, what is prepared,
+  For many sons of wisdom are ensnared
+And many fools in happiness recline.
+
+
+XVII
+
+Long have I tarried where the waters roll
+  From undeciphered caverns of the main,
+  And I have searched, and I have searched in vain,
+Where I could drown the sorrows of my soul.
+
+
+XVIII
+
+If I have harboured love within my breast,
+  'Twas for my comrades of the dusty day,
+  Who with me watched the loitering stars at play,
+Who bore the burden of the same unrest.
+
+
+XIX
+
+For once the witcheries a maiden flung--
+  Then afterwards I knew she was the bride
+  Of Death; and as he came, so tender-eyed,
+I--I rebuked him roundly, being young.
+
+
+XX
+
+Yet if all things that vanish in their noon
+  Are but the part of some eternal scheme,
+  Of what the nightingale may chance to dream
+Or what the lotus murmurs to the moon!
+
+
+XXI
+
+Have I not heard sagacious ones repeat
+  An irresistibly grim argument:
+  That we for all our blustering content
+Are as the silent shadows at our feet.
+
+
+XXII
+
+Aye, when the torch is low and we prepare
+  Beyond the notes of revelry to pass--
+  Old Silence will keep watch upon the grass,
+The solemn shadows will assemble there.
+
+
+XXIII
+
+No Sultan at his pleasure shall erect
+  A dwelling less obedient to decay
+  Than I, whom all the mysteries obey,
+Build with the twilight for an architect.
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Dark leans to dark! the passions of a man
+  Are twined about all transitory things,
+  For verily the child of wisdom clings
+More unto dreamland than Arabistan.
+
+
+XXV
+
+Death leans to death! nor shall your vigilance
+  Prevent him from whate'er he would possess,
+  Nor, brother, shall unfilial peevishness
+Prevent you from the grand inheritance.
+
+
+XXVI
+
+Farewell, my soul!--bird in the narrow jail
+  Who cannot sing. The door is opened! Fly!
+  Ah, soon you stop, and looking down you cry
+The saddest song of all, poor nightingale.
+
+
+XXVII
+
+Our fortune is like mariners to float
+  Amid the perils of dim waterways;
+  Shall then our seamanship have aught of praise
+If the great anchor drags behind the boat?
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+Ah! let the burial of yesterday,
+  Of yesterday be ruthlessly decreed,
+  And, if you will, refuse the mourner's reed,
+And, if you will, plant cypress in the way.
+
+
+XXIX
+
+As little shall it serve you in the fight
+  If you remonstrate with the storming seas,
+  As if you querulously sigh to these
+Of some imagined haven of delight.
+
+
+XXX
+
+Steed of my soul! when you and I were young
+  We lived to cleave as arrows thro' the night,--
+  Now there is ta'en from me the last of light,
+And wheresoe'er I gaze a veil is hung.
+
+
+XXXI
+
+No longer as a wreck shall I be hurled
+  Where beacons lure the fascinated helm,
+  For I have been admitted to the realm
+Of darkness that encompasses the world.
+
+
+XXXII
+
+Man has been thought superior to the swarm
+  Of ruminating cows, of witless foals
+  Who, crouching when the voice of thunder rolls,
+Are banqueted upon a thunderstorm.
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+But shall the fearing eyes of humankind
+  Have peeped beyond the curtain and excel
+  The boldness of a wondering gazelle
+Or of a bird imprisoned in the wind?
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+Ah! never may we hope to win release
+  Before we that unripeness overthrow,--
+  So must the corn in agitation grow
+Before the sickle sings the songs of peace.
+
+
+XXXV
+
+Lo! there are many ways and many traps
+  And many guides, and which of them is lord?
+  For verily Mahomet has the sword,
+And he may have the truth--perhaps! _perhaps!_
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+Now this religion happens to prevail
+  Until by that religion overthrown,--
+  Because men dare not live with men alone,
+But always with another fairy-tale.
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+Religion is a charming girl, I say;
+  But over this poor threshold will not pass,
+  For I may not unveil her, and alas!
+The bridal gift I can't afford to pay.
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+I have imagined that our welfare is
+  Required to rise triumphant from defeat;
+  And so the musk, which as the more you beat,
+Gives ever more delightful fragrancies.
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+For as a gate of sorrow-land unbars
+  The region of unfaltering delight,
+  So may you gather from the fields of night
+That harvest of diviner thought, the stars.
+
+
+XL
+
+Send into banishment whatever blows
+  Across the waves of your tempestuous heart;
+  Let every wish save Allah's wish depart,
+And you will have ineffable repose.
+
+
+XLI
+
+My faith it is that all the wanton pack
+  Of living shall be--hush, poor heart!--withdrawn,
+  As even to the camel comes a dawn
+Without a burden for his wounded back.
+
+
+XLII
+
+If there should be some truth in what they teach
+  Of unrelenting Monkar and Nakyr,
+  Before whose throne all buried men appear--
+Then give me to the vultures, I beseech.
+
+
+XLIII
+
+Some yellow sand all hunger shall assuage
+  And for my thirst no cloud have need to roll,
+  And ah! the drooping bird which is my soul
+No longer shall be prisoned in the cage.
+
+
+XLIV
+
+Life is a flame that flickers in the wind,
+  A bird that crouches in the fowler's net--
+  Nor may between her flutterings forget
+That hour the dreams of youth were unconfined.
+
+
+XLV
+
+There was a time when I was fain to guess
+  The riddles of our life, when I would soar
+  Against the cruel secrets of the door,
+So that I fell to deeper loneliness.
+
+
+XLVI
+
+One is behind the draperies of life,
+  One who will tear these tanglements away--
+  No dark assassin, for the dawn of day
+Leaps out, as leapeth laughter, from the knife.
+
+
+XLVII
+
+If you will do some deed before you die,
+  Remember not this caravan of death,
+  But have belief that every little breath
+Will stay with you for an eternity.
+
+
+XLVIII
+
+Astrologers!--give ear to what they say!
+  "The stars be words; they float on heaven's breath
+  And faithfully reveal the days of death,
+And surely will reveal that longer day."
+
+
+XLIX
+
+I shook the trees of knowledge. Ah! the fruit
+  Was fair upon the bleakness of the soil.
+  I filled a hundred vessels with my spoil,
+And then I rested from the grand pursuit.
+
+
+L
+
+Alas! I took me servants: I was proud
+  Of prose and of the neat, the cunning rhyme,
+  But all their inclination was the crime
+Of scattering my treasure to the crowd.
+
+
+LI
+
+And yet--and yet this very seed I throw
+  May rise aloft, a brother of the bird,
+  Uncaring if his melodies are heard--
+Or shall I not hear anything below?
+
+
+LII
+
+The glazier out of sounding Erzerûm,
+  Frequented us and softly would conspire
+  Upon our broken glass with blue-red fire,
+As one might lift a pale thing from the tomb.
+
+
+LIII
+
+He was the glazier out of Erzerûm,
+  Whose wizardry would make the children cry--
+  There will be no such wizardry when I
+Am broken by the chariot-wheels of Doom.
+
+
+LIV
+
+The chariot-wheels of Doom! Now, hear them roll
+  Across the desert and the noisy mart,
+  Across the silent places of your heart--
+Smile on the driver you will not cajole.
+
+
+LV
+
+I never look upon the placid plain
+  But I must think of those who lived before
+  And gave their quantities of sweat and gore,
+And went and will not travel back again.
+
+
+LVI
+
+Aye! verily, the fields of blandishment
+  Where shepherds meditate among their cattle,
+  Those are the direst of the fields of battle,
+For in the victor's train there is no tent.
+
+
+LVII
+
+Where are the doctors who were nobly fired
+  And loved their toil because we ventured not,
+  Who spent their lives in searching for the spot
+To which the generations have retired?
+
+
+LVIII
+
+"Great is your soul,"--these are the words they preach,--
+  "It passes from your framework to the frame
+  Of others, and upon this road of shame
+Turns purer and more pure."--Oh, let them teach!
+
+
+LIX
+
+I look on men as I would look on trees,
+  That may be writing in the purple dome
+  Romantic lines of black, and are at home
+Where lie the little garden hostelries.
+
+
+LX
+
+Live well! Be wary of this life, I say;
+  Do not o'erload yourself with righteousness.
+  Behold! the sword we polish in excess,
+We gradually polish it away.
+
+
+LXI
+
+God who created metal is the same
+  Who will devour it. As the warriors ride
+  With iron horses and with iron pride--
+Come, let us laugh into the merry flame.
+
+
+LXII
+
+But for the grandest flame our God prepares
+  The breast of man, which is the grandest urn;
+  Yet is that flame so powerless to burn
+Those butterflies, the swarm of little cares.
+
+
+LXIII
+
+And if you find a solitary sage
+  Who teaches what is truth--ah, then you find
+  The lord of men, the guardian of the wind,
+The victor of all armies and of age.
+
+
+LXIV
+
+See that procession passing down the street,
+  The black and white procession of the days--
+  Far better dance along and bawl your praise
+Than if you follow with unwilling feet.
+
+
+LXV
+
+But in the noisy ranks you will forget
+  What is the flag. Oh, comrade, fall aside
+  And think a little moment of the pride
+Of yonder sun, think of the twilight's net.
+
+
+LXVI
+
+The songs we fashion from our new delight
+  Are echoes. When the first of men sang out,
+  He shuddered, hearing not alone the shout
+Of hills but of the peoples in the night.
+
+
+LXVII
+
+And all the marvels that our eyes behold
+  Are pictures. There has happened some event
+  For each of them, and this they represent--
+Our lives are like a tale that has been told.
+
+
+LXVIII
+
+There is a palace, and the ruined wall
+  Divides the sand, a very home of tears,
+  And where love whispered of a thousand years
+The silken-footed caterpillars crawl.
+
+
+LXIX
+
+And where the Prince commanded, now the shriek
+  Of wind is flying through the court of state:
+  "Here," it proclaims, "there dwelt a potentate
+Who could not hear the sobbing of the weak."
+
+
+LXX
+
+Beneath our palaces the corner-stone
+  Is quaking. What of noble we possess,
+  In love or courage or in tenderness,
+Can rise from our infirmities alone.
+
+
+LXXI
+
+We suffer--that we know, and that is all
+  Our knowledge. If we recklessly should strain
+  To sweep aside the solid rocks of pain,
+Then would the domes of love and courage fall.
+
+
+LXXII
+
+But there is one who trembles at the touch
+  Of sorrow less than all of you, for he
+  Has got the care of no big treasury,
+And with regard to wits not overmuch.
+
+
+LXXIII
+
+I think our world is not a place of rest,
+  But where a man may take his little ease,
+  Until the landlord whom he never sees
+Gives that apartment to another guest.
+
+
+LXXIV
+
+Say that you come to life as 'twere a feast,
+  Prepared to pay whatever is the bill
+  Of death or tears or--surely, friend, you will
+Not shrink at death, which is among the least?
+
+
+LXXV
+
+Rise up against your troubles, cast away
+  What is too great for mortal man to bear.
+  But seize no foolish arms against the share
+Which you the piteous mortal have to pay.
+
+
+LXXVI
+
+Be gracious to the King. You cannot feign
+  That nobody was tyrant, that the sword
+  Of justice always gave the just award
+Before these Ghassanites began to reign.
+
+
+LXXVII
+
+You cultivate the ranks of golden grain,
+  He cultivates the cavaliers. They go
+  With him careering on some other foe,
+And your battalions will be staunch again.
+
+
+LXXVIII
+
+The good law and the bad law disappear
+  Below the flood of custom, or they float
+  And, like the wonderful Sar'aby coat,
+They captivate us for a little year.
+
+
+LXXIX
+
+God pities him who pities. Ah, pursue
+  No longer now the children of the wood;
+  Or have you not, poor huntsman, understood
+That somebody is overtaking you?
+
+
+LXXX
+
+God is above. We never shall attain
+  Our liberty from hands that overshroud;
+  Or can we shake aside this heavy cloud
+More than a slave can shake aside the chain?
+
+
+LXXXI
+
+"There is no God save Allah!"--that is true,
+  Nor is there any prophet save the mind
+  Of man who wanders through the dark to find
+The Paradise that is in me and you.
+
+
+LXXXII
+
+The rolling, ever-rolling years of time
+  Are as a diwan of Arabian song;
+  The poet, headstrong and supremely strong,
+Refuses to repeat a single rhyme.
+
+
+LXXXIII
+
+An archer took an arrow in his hand;
+  So fair he sent it singing to the sky
+  That he brought justice down from--ah, so high!
+He was an archer in the morning land.
+
+
+LXXXIV
+
+The man who shot his arrow from the west
+  Made empty roads of air; yet have I thought
+  Our life was happier until we brought
+This cold one of the skies to rule the nest.
+
+
+LXXXV
+
+Run! follow, follow happiness, the maid
+  Whose laughter is the laughing waterfall;
+  Run! call to her--but if no maiden call,
+'Tis something to have loved the flying shade.
+
+
+LXXXVI
+
+You strut in piety the while you take
+  That pilgrimage to Mecca. Now beware,
+  For starving relatives befoul the air,
+And curse, O fool, the threshold you forsake.
+
+
+LXXXVII
+
+How man is made! He staggers at the voice,
+  The little voice that leads you to the land
+  Of virtue; but, on hearing the command
+To lead a giant army, will rejoice.
+
+
+LXXXVIII
+
+Behold the cup whereon your slave has trod;
+  That is what every cup is falling to.
+  Your slave--remember that he lives by you,
+While in the form of him we bow to God.
+
+
+LXXXIX
+
+The lowliest of the people is the lord
+  Who knows not where each day to make his bed,
+  Whose crown is kept upon the royal head
+By that poor naked minister, the sword.
+
+
+XC
+
+Which is the tyrant? say you. Well, 'tis he
+  That has the vine-leaf strewn among his hair
+  And will deliver countries to the care
+Of courtesans--but I am vague, you see.
+
+
+XCI
+
+The dwellers of the city will oppress
+  Your days: the lion, a fight-thirsty fool,
+  The fox who wears the robe of men that rule--
+So run with me towards the wilderness.
+
+
+XCII
+
+Our wilderness will be the laughing land,
+  Where nuts are hung for us, where nodding peas
+  Are wild enough to press about our knees,
+And water fills the hollow of our hand.
+
+
+XCIII
+
+My village is the loneliness, and I
+  Am as the travellers through the Syrian sand,
+  That for a moment see the warning hand
+Of one who breasted up the rock, their spy.
+
+
+XCIV
+
+Where is the valiance of the folk who sing
+  These valiant stories of the world to come?
+  Which they describe, forsooth! as if it swum
+In air and anchored with a yard of string.
+
+
+XCV
+
+Two merchantmen decided they would battle,
+  To prove at last who sold the finest wares;
+  And while Mahomet shrieked his call to prayers,
+The true Messiah waved his wooden rattle.
+
+
+XCVI
+
+Perchance the world is nothing, is a dream,
+  And every noise the dreamland people say
+  We sedulously note, and we and they
+May be the shadows flung by what we seem.
+
+
+XCVII
+
+Zohair the poet sang of loveliness
+  Which is the flight of things. Oh, meditate
+  Upon the sorrows of our earthly state,
+For what is lovely we may not possess.
+
+
+XCVIII
+
+Heigho! the splendid air is full of wings,
+  And they will take us to the--friend, be wise
+  For if you navigate among the skies
+You too may reach the subterranean kings.
+
+
+XCIX
+
+Now fear the rose! You travel to the gloom
+  Of which the roses sing and sing so fair,
+  And, but for them, you'd have a certain share
+In life: your name be read upon the tomb.
+
+
+C
+
+There is a tower of silence, and the bell
+  Moves up--another man is made to be.
+  For certain years they move in company,
+But you, when fails your song do fail as well.
+
+
+CI
+
+No sword will summon Death, and he will stay
+  For neither helm nor shield his falling rod.
+  We are the crooked alphabet of God,
+And He will read us ere he wipes away.
+
+
+CII
+
+How strange that we, perambulating dust,
+  Should be the vessels of eternal fire,
+  That such unfading passion of desire
+Should be within our fading bodies thrust.
+
+
+CIII
+
+_Deep in a silent chamber of the rose
+There was a fattened worm. He looked around,
+Espied a relative and spoke at him:
+It seems to me this world is very good_.
+
+
+CIV
+
+_A most unlovely world, said brother worm,
+For all of us are piteous prisoners.
+And if, declared the first, your thought is true,
+And this a prison be, melikes it well_.
+
+
+CV
+
+_So well that I shall weave a song of praise
+And thankfulness because the world was wrought
+For us and with such providential care--
+My brother, I will shame you into singing_.
+
+
+CVI
+
+_Then, cried the second, I shall raise a voice
+And see what poor apologies are made.
+And so they sang, these two, for many days,
+And while they sang the rose was beautiful_.
+
+
+CVII
+
+_But this affected not the songful ones,
+And evermore in beauty lived the rose.
+And when the worms were old and wiser too,
+They fell to silence and humility_.
+
+
+CVIII
+
+A night of silence! 'Twas the swinging sea
+  And this our world of darkness. And the twain
+  Rolled on below the stars; they flung a chain
+Around the silences which are in me.
+
+
+CIX
+
+The shadows come, and they will come to bless
+  Their brother and his dwelling and his fame,
+  When I shall soil no more with any blame
+Or any praise the silence I possess.
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+ON THE NAME ABU'L-ALA
+
+Arab names have always been a stumbling-block, and centuries ago
+there was a treatise written which was called "The Tearing of the
+Veil from before Names and Patronymics." Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Jarit
+al-Misri is a fair example of the nomenclature; here we have the
+patronymic (Abu Bakr--father of Bakr), the personal name (Ahmad),
+the surname (ibn Jarit--son of Jarit), and the ethnic name
+(al-Misri--native of Egypt). In addition, they made use of fancy
+names if they were poets (such as Ssorrdorr, the sack of pearls,
+who died in the year 1072), names connoting kindred, habitation
+(such as Ahmad al-Maidani, the great collector of proverbs, who
+lived near the Maidan, the race-course of Naisapur), faith or
+trade or personal defects (such as a caliph who was called the
+father of flies, since on account of his offensive breath no fly
+would rest upon his lip), and finally they gave each other names
+of honour (such as sword of the empire, helper of the empire,
+etc.). Then the caliph gave, as a distinction, double titles and,
+when these became too common, triple titles. ("In this way," says
+al-Biruni, "the matter is opposed to sense and clumsy to the last
+degree, so that a man who says the titles is fatigued when he has
+scarcely started and he runs the risk of being late for prayer.")
+. . . The patronymic was, of all of these, the most in favour. At
+first it was assumed when the eldest son was born; when Bakr came
+into the world his father took the name of Abu Bakr, and acquired
+a new importance. This was not by any means peculiar to the
+Arabs: "O Queen," says Das, a king of Indian folk-song, "O Queen,
+the name of childless has departed from me." When the Arab had no
+son, he used an honorific patronymic (such as Abu'l-Ala, father
+of excellence, or Abu'l-Feda, father of redemption). At times
+this manufactured patronymic was a thing of mockery, more or less
+gentle (such as a companion of the Prophet who was fond of cats,
+and was entitled "father of the cat"). The prevalence among the
+Arabs of the patronymic is immediately noticed, (a camel is the
+father of Job; a strongly built person is the father of the
+locust; a licentious person is the father of the night; and there
+are multitudes of such formations). . . . With regard to
+surnames, it was not the custom always for them to denote that
+so-and-so was the son of his father's family. "Who is your
+father?" says an Arab to the mule, and he replies, "The horse is
+my maternal uncle." So there are some people who, for shame,
+prefer that we should think of them as members of their mother's
+family. . . .
+
+The following additional quatrains may be quoted:
+
+  Unasking have we come,--too late, too soon
+    Unasking from this plot of earth are sent.
+    But we, the sons of noble discontent,
+  Use half our lives in asking for the moon.
+
+("We all sorely complain," says Seneca, "of the shortness of
+time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our
+lives are either spent in doing nothing at all or in doing
+nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do.
+We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as
+though there would be no end of them.")
+
+  So then your hand has guarded me! Be blessed,
+    And, if you like such reading, read, I pray,
+    Through Moses' book, or credit them who say
+  That old Isaiah's hand is far the best.
+
+  Some day, some day the potter shall return
+    Into the dust. O potter, will you make
+    An earth which I would not refuse to take,
+  Or such unpleasant earth as you would spurn?
+
+  Then out of that--men swear with godly skill--
+    Perchance another potter may devise
+    Another pot, a piece of merchandise
+  Which they can love and break, if so they will.
+
+  And from a resting-place you may be hurled
+    And from a score of countries may be thrust--
+    Poor brother, you the freeman of the dust,
+  Like any slave are flung about the world.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala, by Henry Baerlein
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala, by Henry Baerlein
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala
+
+Author: Henry Baerlein
+
+Release Date: August 2, 2004 [EBook #13086]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Wisdom of the East Series
+
+Edited by
+L. CRANMER-BYNG
+Dr. S. A. KAPADIA
+
+
+
+THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA
+
+By
+HENRY BAERLEIN
+
+Author of "In Pursuit of Dulcinea," "The Shade of the Balkans,"
+"Yrivand," etc.
+
+  The stars have sunk from the celestial bowers,
+  And in the garden have been turned to flowers.
+                             MUTAMID, _in captivity_.
+
+Second Edition
+
+LONDON: John Murray, 1909.
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+TO DR. E. J. DILLON
+
+Now the book is finished, so far as I shall finish it. There is,
+my friend, but this one page to write. And, more than probably,
+this is the page of all the book that I shall never wish to blot.
+Increasing wisdom or, at any rate, experience will make me frown,
+I promise you, some time or other at a large proportion of the
+pages of this volume. But when I look upon your name I hear a
+troop of memories, and in their singing is my happiness.
+
+When you receive this book, presuming that the Russian Censor
+does not shield you from it, I have some idea what you will do.
+The string, of course, must not be cut, and you will seriously
+set about the disentangling of it. One hand assists by holding
+up, now near the nose now farther off, your glasses; the other
+hand pecks at the string. After, say, twenty minutes there will
+enter the admirable Miss Fox--oh! the tea she used to make for us
+when we were freezing on the mountains of Bulgaria, what time our
+Chicagoan millionaire was ruffled and Milyukov, the adventurous
+professor, standing now not far from Russia's helm, would always
+drive ahead of us and say, with princely gesture, that if we
+suffered from the dust it was advisable that he should be the one
+to meet the fury of the local lions. But do not let us lose the
+scent: Miss Fox, that woman of resource, will cut the string. And
+later on, while to her you are dictating things political and
+while your other secretary is discoursing music, mournful Russian
+music, then with many wrinkles on your brow you will hold the
+book at arm's length.
+
+"The Serbonian Bog," says Miss Fox, repeating the last lines of
+the dictation.
+
+Your face is held sideways with what is called, I believe, a
+quizzical expression.
+
+"Morocco," says she, "viewed from the banks of the Seine, is
+becoming more and more like the Serbonian Bog." Then she waits,
+discreet as always, while you think. Miss Fox, his thoughts are
+on the Adriatic!
+
+There his boat, eleven years ago, was sailing underneath a net of
+stars and he was talking to a fellow-traveller. They had been
+joined at first by common suffering,--and how shall mortals find
+a stronger link? On board that boat there was an elderly
+American, the widow of a senator's brother-in-law, whose mission
+was, she took it, to convert those two. What specially attracted
+her to them was not, perhaps, that they excelled the other
+passengers in luridness, but that they had the privilege of
+understanding, more or less, her language.
+
+"Feci quod potui," said Dr. Dillon, "faciant meliora potentes."
+
+She said, and let us hope with truth, that recently a Chinaman,
+another object of her ministrations, had addressed her as "Your
+honour, the foreign devil." And this caused her to discuss the
+details of our final journey--in the meantime we have taken many
+others of a more delightful sort--and she assured us that we
+should be joined by Chinamen and all those Easterners. She had
+extremely little hope for any of them, and Abu'l-Ala, the Syrian
+poet, whom Dr. Dillon had been putting into English prose,--
+Abu'l-Ala she steadily refused to read. Nor did the prospect of
+beholding him in English verse evoke a sign of joy upon her
+countenance. "Oh," she exclaimed, "what good is it?" And there is
+naught for me to say but "Feci quod potui, faciant meliora
+potentes."
+
+H. B.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ INTRODUCTION TO THE DIWAN
+
+ THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA
+
+ APPENDIX
+
+
+
+EDITORIAL NOTE
+
+The object of the Editors of this series is a very definite one.
+They desire above all things that, in their humble way, these
+books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding
+between East and West--the old world of Thought and the new of
+Action. In this endeavour, and in their own sphere, they are but
+followers of the highest example in the land. They are confident
+that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philosophy
+of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of
+Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another
+creed and colour. Finally, in thanking press and public for the
+very cordial reception given to the "Wisdom of the East" Series,
+they wish to state that no pains have been spared to secure the
+best specialists for the treatment of the various subjects at
+hand.
+
+L. CRANMER-BYNG.
+S. A. KAPADIA.
+
+NORTHBROOK SOCIETY,
+158, PICCADILLY, W.
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE DIWAN
+
+  God help him who has no nails wherewith to scratch himself.
+                                        _Arabian proverb_.
+
+An effort has been made to render in this book some of the poems
+of Abu'l-Ala the Syrian, who was born 973 years after Jesus
+Christ and some forty-four before Omar Khayyam. But the life of
+such a man--his triumph over circumstance, the wisdom he
+achieved, his unconventionality, his opposition to revealed
+religion, the sincerity of his religion, his interesting friends
+at Baghdad and Ma'arri, the multitude of his disciples, his
+kindliness and cynic pessimism and the reverence which he
+enjoyed, the glory of his meditations, the renown of his
+prodigious memory, the fair renown of bending to the toil of
+public life, not to the laureateship they pressed upon him, but
+the post of being spokesman at Aleppo for the troubles of his
+native villagers,--the life of such a one could not be told
+within the space at our command; it will, with other of his
+poems, form the subject of a separate volume. What appears
+advisable is that we should devote this introduction to a
+commentary on the poems here translated; which we call a "diwan,"
+by the way, because they are selected out of all his works. A
+commentary on the writings of a modern poet is supposed to be
+superfluous, but in the days of Abu'l-Ala of Ma'arri you were
+held to pay the highest compliment if, and you were yourself a
+poet, you composed a commentary on some other poet's work.
+Likewise you were held to be a thoughtful person if you gave the
+world a commentary on your own productions; and Abu'l-Ala did not
+neglect to write upon his _Sikt al-Zand_ ("The Falling Spark of
+Tinder") and his _Lozum ma la Yalzam_ ("The Necessity of what is
+Unnecessary"), out of which our diwan has been chiefly made. But
+his elucidations have been lost. And we--this nobody will
+contradict--have lost the old facility. For instance, Hasan ibn
+Malik ibn Abi Obaidah was one day attending on Mansur the
+Chamberlain, and he displayed a collection of proverbs which Ibn
+Sirri had made for the Caliph's delectation. "It is very fine,"
+quoth Mansur, "but it wants a commentary." And Hasan in a week
+returned with a commentary, very well written, of three hundred
+couplets. One other observation: we shall not be able to present
+upon these pages a connected narrative, a dark companion of the
+poem, which is to the poem as a shadow to the bird. A mediaeval
+Arab would have no desire to see this theory of connection put in
+practice--no, not even with a poem; for the lines, to win his
+admiration, would be as a company of stars much more than as a
+flying bird. Suppose that he produced a poem of a hundred lines,
+he would perchance make fifty leaps across the universe. But if
+we frown on such discursiveness, he proudly shows us that the
+hundred lines are all in rhyme. This Arab and ourselves--we
+differ so profoundly. "Yet," says he, "if there existed no
+diversity of sight then would inferior merchandise be left
+unsold." And when we put his poem into English, we are careless
+of the hundred rhymes; we paraphrase--"Behold the townsmen," so
+cried one of the Bedawi, "they have for the desert but a single
+word, we have a dozen!"--and we reject, as I have done, the
+quantitative metre, thinking it far preferable if the metre sings
+itself into an English ear, as much as possible with that effect
+the poet wants to give; and we oppose ourselves, however
+unsuccessfully, to his discursiveness by making alterations in
+the order of the poem. But in this commentary we shall be obliged
+to leap, like Arabs, from one subject to another. And so let us
+begin.
+
+With regard to prayer (_quatrain_ 1), the Moslem is indifferent
+as to whether he perform this function in his chamber or the
+street, considering that every spot is equally pure for the
+service of God. And yet the Prophet thought that public worship
+was to be encouraged; it was not a vague opinion, because he knew
+it was exactly five-and-twenty times more valuable than private
+prayer. It is related of al-Muzani that when he missed being
+present in the mosque he repeated his prayers twenty-five times.
+"He was a diver for subtle ideas," said the biographer Ibn
+Khallikan. And although our poet, quoting the Carmathians, here
+deprecates the common worship, he remarks in one of his letters
+that he would have gone to mosque on Fridays if he had not fallen
+victim to an unmentionable complaint. . . . The pre-Islamic Arabs
+were accustomed to sacrifice sheep (_quatrain_ 1) and other
+animals in Mecca and elsewhere, at various stones which were
+regarded as idols or as altars of the gods.[1] Sometimes they
+killed a human being, such as the four hundred captive nuns of
+whom we read that they were sacrificed by al-Mundhir to the
+goddess Aphrodite. Sheep are offered up to-day in Palestine: for
+instance, if the first wife of a man is barren and the second
+wife has children, then the former vows that in return for a son
+she will give a lamb. Apparently when it was thought desirable to
+be particularly solemn a horse was sacrificed, and this we hear
+of with the Persians, Indians, and more western people. White was
+held to be the favourable colour, so we read in Herodotus (i.
+189) that the Persians sacrificed white horses. In Sweden it was
+thought that a black lamb must be dedicated to the water sprite
+before he would teach any one to play the harp. As for the
+subsequent fate of the victim, Burton tells us that the Moslems
+do not look with favour on its being eaten. Unlike them, Siberian
+Buriats will sacrifice a sheep and boil the mutton and hoist it
+on a scaffold for the gods, and chant a song and then consume the
+meat. So, too, the zealous devil-worshippers of Travancore, whose
+diet is the putrid flesh of cattle and tigers, together with
+arrak and toddy and rice, which they have previously offered to
+their deities.
+
+The words of Abu'l-Ala concerning day and night (_quatrain_ 2)
+may be compared with what he says elsewhere:
+
+  These two, young for ever,
+    Speed into the West--
+  Our life in their clutches--
+    And give us no rest.
+
+"Generation goeth and generation cometh," says Ecclesiastes,
+"while for ever the earth abideth. The sun riseth also and the
+sun goeth down and cometh panting back to his place where he
+riseth." . . . The early dawn, the time of scarlet eyes, was also
+when the caravan would be attacked. However, to this day the
+rising sun is worshipped by the Bedawi, despite the prohibition
+of Mahomet and despite the Moslem dictum that the sun rises
+between the devil's horns. Now the divinity of the stars
+(_quatrain_ 4) had been affirmed by Plato and Aristotle; it was
+said that in the heavenly bodies dwelt a ruling intelligence
+superior to man's, and more lasting.[2] And in Islam, whose holy
+house, the Kaaba, had traditionally been a temple of Saturn, we
+notice that the rationalists invariably connect their faith with
+the worship of Venus and other heavenly bodies. We are told by
+ash-Shahrastani, in his _Book of Religious and Philosophical
+Sects_, that the Indians hold Saturn for the greatest luck, on
+account of his height and the size of his body. But such was not
+Abu'l-Ala's opinion. "As numb as Saturn," he writes in one of his
+letters,[3] "and as dumb as a crab has every one been struck by
+you." Elsewhere he says in verse:
+
+  If dark the night, old Saturn is a flash
+  Of eyes which threaten from a face of ash.
+
+And the worship of Saturn, with other deities, is about a hundred
+years later resented by Clotilda, says Gregory of Tours, when she
+is moving Chlodovich her husband to have their son baptized. When
+the little boy dies soon after baptism, the husband does not fail
+to draw a moral. But misfortunes, in the language of an Arab
+poet, cling about the wretched even as a coat of mail (_quatrain_
+6) is on the warrior. This image was a favourite among the Arabs,
+and when Ibn Khallikan wants to praise the verses of one As Suli,
+he informs us that they have the reputation of delivering from
+sudden evil any person who recites them frequently. When this
+evil is complete, with rings strongly riven, it passes away while
+he thinks that nothing can dispel it. . . . We have mention in
+this quatrain of a winding-sheet, and that could be of linen or
+of damask. The Caliph Solaiman was so fond of damask that every
+one, even the cook, was forced to wear it in his presence, and it
+clothed him in the grave. Yet he, like other Moslems (_quatrain_
+10), would believe that he must undergo the fate recorded in a
+book. The expression that a man's destiny is written on his
+forehead, had its origin without a doubt, says Goldziher, in
+India. We have remarked upon the Indian ideas which had been
+gathered by Abu'l-Ala at Baghdad. There it was that he enjoyed
+the opportunity of seeing ships (_quatrain_ 11). He spent a
+portion of his youth beside the sea, at Tripoli. But in the
+capital were many boats whose fascination he would not resist,--
+the Chinese junks laboriously dragged up from Bassora, and dainty
+gondolas of basket-work covered with asphalt.[4] However, though
+in this place and in others, very frequently, in fact, Abu'l-Ala
+makes mention of the sea, his fondness of it was, one thinks, for
+literary purposes. He writes a letter to explain how grieved he
+is to hear about a friend who purposes to risk himself upon the
+sea, and he recalls a certain verse: "Surely it is better to
+drink among the sand-heaps foul water mixed with pure than to
+venture on the sea." From Baghdad also he would carry home the
+Zoroastrian view (_quatrain_ 14) that night was primordial and
+the light created. As a contrast with these foreign importations,
+we have reference (_quatrain_ 15) to the lute, which was the
+finest of Arabian instruments. They said themselves that it was
+invented by a man who flourished in the year 500 B.C. and added
+an eighth string to the lyre. Certainly the Arab lute was popular
+among the Greeks: [Greek: arabion ar ego kekineka aulon], says
+Menander. It was carried to the rest of Europe by crusaders at
+the beginning of the twelfth century, about which time it first
+appears in paintings, and its form persisted till about a hundred
+years ago.[5] But with regard to travels (_quatrain_ 18), in the
+twenty-seventh letter of Abu'l-Ala, "I observe," says he, "that
+you find fault with travelling. Why so? Ought not a man to be
+satisfied with following the precedent set by Moses, who, when he
+turned towards Midyan, said, Maybe the Lord will guide me?"
+(Koran 28, 21). Should a man be satisfied with what he hears from
+the philosopher al-Kindi? "In any single existing thing, if it is
+thoroughly known, we possess," he said, "a mirror in which we may
+behold the entire scheme of things" (_quatrain_ 20). The same
+philosopher has laid it down that, "Verily there is nothing
+constant in this world of coming and going (_quatrain_ 24), in
+which we may be deprived at any moment of what we love. Only in
+the world of reason is stability to be found. If then we desire
+to see our wishes fulfilled and would not be robbed of what is
+dear to us, we must turn to the eternal blessings of reason, to
+the fear of God, to science and to good works. But if we follow
+merely after material possessions in the belief that we can
+retain them, we are pursuing an object which does not really
+exist." . . . And this idea of transitoriness prevails so
+generally among the Arabs that the salad-seller recommends his
+transitory wares to pious folk by calling, "God is that which
+does not pass away!" So, too, the Arab pictures as a bird, a
+thing of transience, the human soul. In Syria the dove is often
+carved upon their ancient tombstones. And the Longobards among
+their graves erected poles in memory of kinsfolk who had died
+abroad or had been slain in battle; on the summit of the pole was
+a wooden image of a dove, whose head was pointed in the direction
+where the loved one lay buried. With us, as with Abu'l-Ala
+(_quatrain_ 26), the soul may metaphorically be imagined as a
+bird, but for the European's ancestor it was a thing of sober
+earnest, as it is to-day to many peoples. Thus the soul of
+Aristeas was seen to issue from his mouth in the shape of a
+raven.[6] In Southern Celebes they think that a bridegroom's soul
+is apt to fly away at marriage, wherefore coloured rice is
+scattered over him to induce it to remain. And, as a rule, at
+festivals in South Celebes rice is strewed on the head of the
+person in whose honour the festival is held, with the object of
+detaining his soul, which at such times is in especial danger of
+being lured away by envious demons.[7] . . . This metaphor was
+used by Abu'l-Ala in the letter which he wrote on the death of
+his mother: "I say to my soul, 'This is not your nest, fly
+away.'" And elsewhere (_quatrain_ 34) Death is represented as a
+reaper. Says Francis Thompson:
+
+  The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper
+  The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.
+
+It is interesting to find Death also called a sower, who
+disseminates weeds among men: "Do der Tot sinen Samen under si
+gesoete."
+
+It was an ancient custom of the Arabs when they took an oath of
+special significance to plunge their hands into a bowl of perfume
+and distribute it among those who took part in the ceremony. Of
+the perfumes, musk (_quatrain_ 38) was one which they affected
+most. Brought commonly from Turkistan, it was, with certain
+quantities of sandalwood and ambra, made into a perfume. And "the
+wounds of him who falls in battle and of the martyrs," said
+Mahomet, "shall on the Day of Judgment be resplendent with
+vermilion and odorous as musk." This was repeated by Ibnol
+Faradhi, who in the Kaaba entreated God for martyrdom and, when
+this prayer was heard, repented having asked. . . . This quatrain
+goes on to allude to things which can improve by being struck.
+There is in the third book of a work on cookery (so rare a thing,
+they tell us, that no MS. of it exists in England or in any other
+country that can be heard of) an observation by the eighteenth-
+century editor to the effect that it is a vulgar error to suppose
+that walnut-trees, like Russian wives, are all the better for a
+beating; the long poles and stones which are used by boys and
+others to get the fruit down, for the trees are very high, are
+used rather out of kindness to themselves than with any regard to
+the tree that bears it. This valued treatise, we may mention, is
+ascribed to Coelius Apicius; its science, learning, and
+discipline were extremely condemned, and even abhorred by Seneca
+and the Stoics. . . . Aloes-wood does not emit a perfume until it
+is burned:
+
+       Lo! of hundreds who aspire
+       Eighties perish--nineties tire!
+  They who bear up, in spite of wrecks and wracks,
+  Were season'd by celestial hail of thwacks.
+
+       Fortune in this mortal race
+       Builds on thwackings for its base;
+  Thus the All-Wise doth make a flail a staff,
+  And separates his heavenly corn from chaff.[8]
+
+Reward may follow on such absolute obedience (_quatrain_ 40). We
+remember what is said by Fra Giovanni in the prison of
+Viterbo[9]: "Endurez, souffrez, acceptez, veuillez ce que Dieu
+veut, et votre volonte sera faite sur la terre comme au ciel."
+And perhaps the dawn for you may be your camel's dawn (_quatrain_
+41); it was usual for Arabs on the point of death to say to their
+sons: "Bury my steed with me, so that when I rise from the grave
+I will not have to go on foot." The camel was tied with its head
+towards its hind legs, a saddle-cloth was wrapped about its neck,
+and it was left beside the grave until it died. Meanwhile, if the
+master is a true believer, says Mahomet, his soul has been
+divided from the body by Azrael, the angel of death. Afterwards
+the body is commanded to sit upright in the grave, there to be
+examined by the two black angels, Monkar and Nakyr (_quatrain_
+42), with regard to his faith, the unity of God and the mission
+of Mahomet. If the answers be correct, the body stays in peace
+and is refreshed by the air of paradise; if incorrect, these
+angels beat the corpse upon his temples with iron maces, until he
+roars out for anguish so loudly that he is heard by all from east
+to west, except by men and jinn. Abu'l-Ala had little confidence
+in these two angels; he reminds one of St. Catherine of Sienna, a
+visionary with uncommon sense, who at the age of eight ran off
+one afternoon to be a hermit. She was careful to provide herself
+with bread and water, fearing that the angels would forget to
+bring her food, and at nightfall she ran home again because she
+was afraid her parents would be anxious. With regard to the angel
+of death, Avicenna has related that the soul, like a bird,
+escapes with much trouble from the snares of earth (_quatrain_
+43), until this angel delivers it from the last of its fetters.
+We think of the goddess Ran with her net. Death is imagined
+(_quatrain_ 44) as a fowler or fisher of men, thus: "Do kam der
+Tot als ein diep, und stal dem reinen wibe daz leben uz ir
+libe."[10]
+
+On account of its brilliance a weapon's edge (_quatrain_ 46) has
+been compared in Arab poetry with sunlit glass, with the torch of
+a monk, with the stars and with the flame in a dark night. Nor
+would an Arab turn to picturesque comparisons in poetry alone.
+Speaking of a certain letter, Abu'l-Ala assures the man who wrote
+it that "it proceeds from the residence of the great doctor who
+holds the reins of prose and verse" (_quatrain_ 50). Now with
+regard to glass, it was a very ancient industry among the Arabs.
+In the second century of the Hegira it was so far advanced that
+they could make enamelled glass and unite in one glass different
+colours. A certain skilled chemist of the period was not only
+expert in these processes (_quatrain_ 52), but even tried to make
+of glass false pearls, whereon he published a pamphlet.
+
+Death, from being a silent messenger who punctually fulfilled his
+duty, became a grasping, greedy foe (_quatrain_ 56). In the
+Psalms (xci. 3-6) he comes as a hunter with snares and arrows.
+Also "der Tot wil mit mir ringen."[11] In ancient times Death was
+not a being that slew, but simply one that fetched away to the
+underworld, a messenger. So was the soul of the beggar fetched
+away by angels and carried into Abraham's bosom. An older view
+was the death-goddess, who receives the dead men in her house and
+does not fetch them. They are left alone to begin the long and
+gloomy journey, provided with various things.[12] "Chacun remonte
+a son tour le calvaire des siecles. Chacun retrouve les peines,
+chacun retrouve l'espoir desespere et la folie des siecles.
+Chacun remet ses pas dans les pas de ceux qui furent, de ceux qui
+lutterent avant lui contre la mort, nierant la mort,--sont
+morts"[13] (_quatrain_ 57). It is the same for men and trees
+(_quatrain_ 59). This vision of Abu'l-Ala's is to be compared
+with Milton's "men as trees walking," a kind of second sight, a
+blind man's pageant. In reference to haughty folk, an Arab
+proverb says that "There is not a poplar which has reached its
+Lord." But on the other hand, "There are some virtues which dig
+their own graves,"[14] and with regard to excessive polishing of
+swords (_quatrain_ 60) we have the story of the poet Abu Tammam,
+related by Ibn Khallikan. He tells us how the poet once recited
+verses in the presence of some people, and how one of them was a
+philosopher who said, "This man will not live long, for I have
+seen in him a sharpness of wit and penetration and intelligence.
+From this I know that the mind will consume the body, even as a
+sword of Indian steel eats through its scabbard." Still, in
+Arabia, where swords were so generally used that a priest would
+strap one to his belt before he went into the pulpit, there was
+no unanimous opinion as to the polishing,--which, by the way, was
+done with wood. A poet boasted that his sword was often or was
+rarely polished, according as he wished to emphasise the large
+amount of work accomplished or the excellence of the polishing.
+Imru'al-Kais says that his sword does not recall the day when it
+was polished. Another poet says his sword is polished every day
+and "with a fresh tooth bites off the people's heads."[15] This
+vigour of expression was not only used for concrete subjects.
+There exists a poem, dating from a little time before Mahomet,
+which says that cares (_quatrain_ 62) are like the camels,
+roaming in the daytime on the distant pastures and at night
+returning to the camp. They would collect as warriors round the
+flag. It was the custom for each family to have a flag
+(_quatrain_ 65), a cloth fastened to a lance, round which it
+gathered. Mahomet's big standard was called the Eagle,--and, by
+the bye, his seven swords had names, such as "possessor of the
+spine."
+
+With _quatrain_ 68 we may compare the verses of a Christian poet,
+quoted by Tabari:
+
+ And where is now the lord of Hadr, he that built it and laid
+     taxes on the land of Tigris?
+ A house of marble he established, whereof the covering was
+     made of plaster; in the galbes were nests of birds.
+ He feared no sorry fate. See, the dominion of him has departed.
+     Loneliness is on his threshold.
+
+"Consider how you treat the poor," said Dshafer ben Mahomet, who
+pilgrimaged from Mecca to Baghdad between fifty and sixty times;
+"they are the treasures of this world, the keys of the other."
+Take care lest it befall you as the prince (_quatrain_ 69) within
+whose palace now the wind is reigning. "If a prince would be
+successful," says Machiavelli, "it is requisite that he should
+have a spirit capable of turns and variations, in accordance with
+the variations of the wind." Says an Arab mystic, "The sighing of
+a poor man for that which he can never reach has more of value
+than the praying of a rich man through a thousand years." And in
+connection with this quatrain we may quote Blunt's rendering of
+Zohair:
+
+  I have learned that he who giveth nothing, deaf to his
+                                        friends' begging,
+     loosed shall be to the world's tooth-strokes: fools'
+                                 feet shall tread on him.
+
+As for the power of the weak, we have some instances from
+Abbaside history. One of the caliphs wanted to do deeds of
+violence in Baghdad. Scornfully he asked of his opponents if they
+could prevent him. "Yes," they answered, "we will fight you with
+the arrows of the night." And he desisted from his plans.
+Prayers, complaints, and execrations which the guiltless,
+fighting his oppressor, sends up to heaven are called the arrows
+of the night and are, the Arabs tell us, invariably successful.
+This belief may solace you for the foundation of suffering
+(_quatrain_ 71), which, by the way, is also in the philosophic
+system of Zeno the Stoic. Taking the four elements of Empedocles,
+he says that three of them are passive, or suffering, elements
+while only fire is active, and that not wholly. It was Zeno's
+opinion that everything must be active or must suffer. . . . An
+explanation for our suffering is given by Soame Jenyns, who
+flourished in the days when, as his editor could write, referring
+to his father Sir Roger Jenyns, "the order of knighthood was
+received by gentlemen with the profoundest gratitude." Soame's
+thesis is his "Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil,"
+that human sufferings are compensated by the enjoyment possibly
+experienced by some higher order of beings which inflict them, is
+ridiculed by Samuel Johnson. We have Jenyns's assurance that
+
+    To all inferior animals 'tis given
+    To enjoy the state allotted them by Heav'n.
+
+And (_quatrain_ 75) we may profitably turn to Coleridge:
+
+  Oh, what a wonder seems the fear of death!
+  Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;
+  Babes, children, youths and men,
+  Night following night, for threescore years and ten.
+
+We should be reconciled, says Abu'l-Ala (_quatrain_ 76), even to
+the Christian kings of Ghassan, in the Hauran. These were the
+hereditary enemies of the kings of Hirah. On behalf of the Greek
+emperors of Constantinople they controlled the Syrian Arabs. But
+they disappeared before the triumphant Moslems, the last of their
+kings being Jabalah II., who was dethroned in the year 637. His
+capital was Bosra, on the road between the Persian Gulf and the
+Mediterranean. Nowadays the district is chiefly occupied by
+nomads; to the Hebrews it was known as Bashan, famous for its
+flocks and oak plantations. We can still discern the traces of
+troglodyte dwellings of this epoch. The afore-mentioned Jabalah
+was a convert to Islam, but, being insulted by a Mahometan, he
+returned to Christianity and betook himself to Constantinople,
+where he died. But in the time of Abu'l-Ala, the Ghassanites were
+again in the exercise of authority. "These were the kings of
+Ghassan," says Abu'l-Ala, "who followed the course of the dead;
+each of them is now but a tale that is told, and God knows who is
+good." A poet is a liar, say the Arabs, and the greatest poet is
+the greatest liar. But in this case Abu'l-Ala in prose was not so
+truthful as in poetry; for if Jabalah's house had vanished, the
+Ghassanites were still a power. The poet, for our consolation,
+has a simile (_quatrain_ 77) that may be put against a passage of
+Homer:
+
+  As with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er,
+  And thick bestrown, lies Ceres' sacred floor,
+  When round and round, with never-weary'd pain
+  The trampling steers beat out th' unnumber'd grain:
+  So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls,
+  Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes' souls.[16]
+
+For everything there is decay, and (_quatrain_ 78) for the
+striped garment of a long cut which now we are unable to
+identify.
+
+We read in the Wisdom of Solomon: "As when an arrow is shot at a
+mark, it parteth the air which immediately cometh together again,
+so that a man cannot know where it went through." In this place
+(_quatrain_ 84), if the weapon's road of air is not in vain it
+will discover justice in the sky. How much the Arabs were averse
+from frigid justice is to be observed in the matter of recompense
+for slaying. There existed a regular tariff--so many camels or
+dates--but they looked askance upon the person who was willing to
+accept this and forgo his vengeance. If a man was anxious to
+accept a gift as satisfaction and at the same time to escape
+reproach, he shot an arrow into the air. Should it come down
+unspotted, he was able to accept the gift; if it was bloody, then
+he was obliged to seek for blood. The Arabs, by the way, had been
+addicted to an ancient game, but Islam tried to stamp this out,
+like other joys of life. The players had ten arrows, which they
+shot into the air; seven of them bestowed a right to the portion
+of a camel, the other three did not. Abu'l-Ala was fond of using
+arrows metaphorically. "And if one child," he writes to a
+distinguished sheikh, "were to ask another in the dead of night
+in a discussion: 'Who is rewarded for staying at home many times
+what he would be rewarded for going on either pilgrimage?' and
+the second lad answered: 'Mahomet, son of Sa'id,' his arrow would
+have fallen near the mark; for your protection of your subjects
+(_quatrain_ 86) is a greater duty than either pilgrimage." And
+our poet calls to mind some benefits attached to slavery
+(_quatrain_ 88): for an offence against morals a slave could
+receive fifty blows, whereas the punishment of a freeman was
+double. A married person who did not discharge his vows was
+liable to be stoned to death, whereas a slave in similar
+circumstances was merely struck a certain number of blows. It was
+and still is customary, says von Kremer, if anything is broken by
+a slave, forthwith to curse Satan, who is supposed to concern
+himself in very trifling matters. The sympathy Abu'l-Ala displays
+for men of small possessions may be put beside the modicum
+(_quatrain_ 92) he wanted for himself. And these necessaries of
+Abu'l-Ala, the ascetic, must appeal to us as more sincerely felt
+than those of Ibn at-Ta'awizi, who was of opinion that when seven
+things are collected together in the drinking-room it is not
+reasonable to stay away. The list is as follows: a melon, honey,
+roast meat, a young girl, wax lights, a singer, and wine. But Ibn
+at-Ta'awizi was a literary person, and in Arabic the names of all
+these objects begin with the same letter. Abu'l-Ala was more
+inclined to celebrate the wilderness. He has portrayed
+(_quatrain_ 93) a journey in the desert where a caravan, in order
+to secure itself against surprises, is accustomed to send on a
+spy, who scours the country from the summit of a hill or rock.
+Should he perceive a sign of danger, he will wave his hand in
+warning. From Lebid's picture of another journey--which the
+pre-Islamic poet undertook to the coast lands of Hajar on the
+Persian Gulf--we learn that when they entered a village he and
+his party were greeted by the crowing of cocks and the shaking of
+wooden rattles (_quatrain_ 95), which in the Eastern Christian
+Churches are substituted for bells. . . . And the mediaeval
+leper, in his grey gown, was obliged to hold a similar object,
+waving it about and crying as he went: "Unclean! unclean!"
+
+An ambitious man desired, regardless of expense, to hand down his
+name to posterity (_quatrain_ 99). "Write your name in a prayer,"
+said Epictetus, "and it will remain after you." "But I would have
+a crown of gold," was the reply. "If you have quite made up your
+mind to have a crown," said Epictetus, "take a crown of roses,
+for it is more beautiful." In the words of Heredia:
+
+  Deja le Temps brandit l'arme fatale. As-tu
+  L'espoir d'eterniser le bruit de ta vertu?
+  Un vil lierre suffit a disjoindre un trophee;
+
+  Et seul, aux blocs epars des marbres triomphaux
+  Ou ta gloire en ruine est par l'herbe etouffee,
+  Quelque faucheur Samnite ebrechera sa faulx.
+
+Would we write our names so that they endure for ever? There was
+in certain Arab circles a heresy which held that the letters of
+the alphabet (_quatrain_ 101) are metamorphoses of men. And
+Magaira, who founded a sect, maintained that the letters of the
+alphabet are like limbs of God. According to him, when God wished
+to create the world, He wrote with His own hands the deeds of
+men, both the good and the bad; but, at sight of the sins which
+men were going to commit, He entered into such a fury that He
+sweated, and from His sweat two seas were formed, the one of salt
+water and the other of sweet water. From the first one the
+infidels were formed, and from the second the Shi'ites. But to
+this view of the everlasting question you may possibly prefer
+what is advanced (_quatrains_ 103-7) and paraphrased as an
+episode: Whatever be the wisdom of the worms, we bow before the
+silence of the rose. As for Abu'l-Ala, we leave him now
+prostrated (_quatrain_ 108) before the silence of the rolling
+world. It is a splendour that was seen by Alfred de Vigny:
+
+  Je roule avec dedain, sans voir et sans entendre,
+  A cote des fourmis les populations;
+  Je ne distingue pas leur terrier de leur cendre.
+  J'ignore en les portant les noms des nations.
+  On me dit une mere et je suis une tombe.
+  Mon hiver prend vos morts comme son hecatombe,
+  Mon printemps n'entend pas vos adorations.
+
+  Avant vous j'etais belle et toujours parfumee,
+  J'abandonnais au vent mes cheveux tout entiers. . . .
+
+
+
+Footnotes
+
+[1] _Cf_. Lyall, _Ancient Arabian Poets_.
+
+[2] _Cf_. Whittaker, _The Neo-Platonists_.
+
+[3] Of course I use Professor Margoliouth's superb edition of the
+letters.
+
+[4] _Cf_. Thielmann, _Streifzuge im Kaukasus, etc_.
+
+[5] _Cf_. Ambros, _Geschichte der Musik_, 1862.
+
+[6] _Cf_. Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, vii. 174.
+
+[7] Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, vol. i., p. 254.
+
+[8] Meredith, _The Shaving of Shagpat_.
+
+[9] Anatole France, _Le Puits de Sainte Claire_.
+
+[10] Quoted by Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, vol. 2, p. 845.
+
+[11] Stoufenb., 1126.
+
+[12] _Cf_. in Scandinavia the death-goddess Hel.
+
+[13] Romain Rolland, _Jean Christophe_.
+
+[14] Ella d'Arcy, _Modern Instances_.
+
+[15] Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Schwarzlose, _Die Waffen der alten
+Araber, aus ihren Dichtern dargestellt_.
+
+[16] Pope, _Iliad_, xx. 577.
+
+
+
+THE DIWAN OF ABU'L-ALA
+
+I
+
+Abandon worship in the mosque and shrink
+  From idle prayer, from sacrificial sheep,
+  For Destiny will bring the bowl of sleep
+Or bowl of tribulation--you shall drink.
+
+
+II
+
+The scarlet eyes of Morning are pursued
+  By Night, who growls along the narrow lane;
+  But as they crash upon our world the twain
+Devour us and are strengthened for the feud.
+
+
+III
+
+Vain are your dreams of marvellous emprise,
+  Vainly you sail among uncharted spaces,
+  Vainly seek harbour in this world of faces
+If it has been determined otherwise.
+
+
+IV
+
+Behold, my friends, there is reserved for me
+  The splendour of our traffic with the sky:
+  You pay your court to Saturn, whereas I
+Am slain by One far mightier than he.
+
+
+V
+
+You that must travel with a weary load
+  Along this darkling, labyrinthine street--
+  Have men with torches at your head and feet
+If you would pass the dangers of the road.
+
+
+VI
+
+So shall you find all armour incomplete
+  And open to the whips of circumstance,
+  That so shall you be girdled of mischance
+Till you be folded in the winding-sheet.
+
+
+VII
+
+Have conversation with the wind that goes
+  Bearing a pack of loveliness and pain:
+  The golden exultation of the grain
+And the last, sacred whisper of the rose
+
+
+VIII
+
+But if in some enchanted garden bloom
+  The rose imperial that will not fade,
+  Ah! shall I go with desecrating spade
+And underneath her glories build a tomb?
+
+
+IX
+
+Shall I that am as dust upon the plain
+  Think with unloosened hurricanes to fight?
+  Or shall I that was ravished from the night
+Fall on the bosom of the night again?
+
+
+X
+
+Endure! and if you rashly would unfold
+  That manuscript whereon our lives are traced,
+  Recall the stream which carols thro' the waste
+And in the dark is rich with alien gold.
+
+
+XI
+
+Myself did linger by the ragged beach,
+  Whereat wave after wave did rise and curl;
+  And as they fell, they fell--I saw them hurl
+A message far more eloquent than speech:
+
+
+XII
+
+_We that with song our pilgrimage beguile,
+  With purple islands which a sunset bore,
+  We, sunk upon the sacrilegious shore,
+May parley with oblivion awhile_.
+
+
+XIII
+
+I would not have you keep nor idly flaunt
+  What may be gathered from the gracious land,
+  But I would have you sow with sleepless hand
+The virtues that will balance your account.
+
+
+XIV
+
+The days are dressing all of us in white,
+  For him who will suspend us in a row.
+  But for the sun there is no death. I know
+The centuries are morsels of the night.
+
+
+XV
+
+A deed magnanimous, a noble thought
+  Are as the music singing thro' the years
+  When surly Time the tyrant domineers
+Against the lute whereoutof it was wrought.
+
+
+XVI
+
+Now to the Master of the World resign
+  Whatever touches you, what is prepared,
+  For many sons of wisdom are ensnared
+And many fools in happiness recline.
+
+
+XVII
+
+Long have I tarried where the waters roll
+  From undeciphered caverns of the main,
+  And I have searched, and I have searched in vain,
+Where I could drown the sorrows of my soul.
+
+
+XVIII
+
+If I have harboured love within my breast,
+  'Twas for my comrades of the dusty day,
+  Who with me watched the loitering stars at play,
+Who bore the burden of the same unrest.
+
+
+XIX
+
+For once the witcheries a maiden flung--
+  Then afterwards I knew she was the bride
+  Of Death; and as he came, so tender-eyed,
+I--I rebuked him roundly, being young.
+
+
+XX
+
+Yet if all things that vanish in their noon
+  Are but the part of some eternal scheme,
+  Of what the nightingale may chance to dream
+Or what the lotus murmurs to the moon!
+
+
+XXI
+
+Have I not heard sagacious ones repeat
+  An irresistibly grim argument:
+  That we for all our blustering content
+Are as the silent shadows at our feet.
+
+
+XXII
+
+Aye, when the torch is low and we prepare
+  Beyond the notes of revelry to pass--
+  Old Silence will keep watch upon the grass,
+The solemn shadows will assemble there.
+
+
+XXIII
+
+No Sultan at his pleasure shall erect
+  A dwelling less obedient to decay
+  Than I, whom all the mysteries obey,
+Build with the twilight for an architect.
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Dark leans to dark! the passions of a man
+  Are twined about all transitory things,
+  For verily the child of wisdom clings
+More unto dreamland than Arabistan.
+
+
+XXV
+
+Death leans to death! nor shall your vigilance
+  Prevent him from whate'er he would possess,
+  Nor, brother, shall unfilial peevishness
+Prevent you from the grand inheritance.
+
+
+XXVI
+
+Farewell, my soul!--bird in the narrow jail
+  Who cannot sing. The door is opened! Fly!
+  Ah, soon you stop, and looking down you cry
+The saddest song of all, poor nightingale.
+
+
+XXVII
+
+Our fortune is like mariners to float
+  Amid the perils of dim waterways;
+  Shall then our seamanship have aught of praise
+If the great anchor drags behind the boat?
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+Ah! let the burial of yesterday,
+  Of yesterday be ruthlessly decreed,
+  And, if you will, refuse the mourner's reed,
+And, if you will, plant cypress in the way.
+
+
+XXIX
+
+As little shall it serve you in the fight
+  If you remonstrate with the storming seas,
+  As if you querulously sigh to these
+Of some imagined haven of delight.
+
+
+XXX
+
+Steed of my soul! when you and I were young
+  We lived to cleave as arrows thro' the night,--
+  Now there is ta'en from me the last of light,
+And wheresoe'er I gaze a veil is hung.
+
+
+XXXI
+
+No longer as a wreck shall I be hurled
+  Where beacons lure the fascinated helm,
+  For I have been admitted to the realm
+Of darkness that encompasses the world.
+
+
+XXXII
+
+Man has been thought superior to the swarm
+  Of ruminating cows, of witless foals
+  Who, crouching when the voice of thunder rolls,
+Are banqueted upon a thunderstorm.
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+But shall the fearing eyes of humankind
+  Have peeped beyond the curtain and excel
+  The boldness of a wondering gazelle
+Or of a bird imprisoned in the wind?
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+Ah! never may we hope to win release
+  Before we that unripeness overthrow,--
+  So must the corn in agitation grow
+Before the sickle sings the songs of peace.
+
+
+XXXV
+
+Lo! there are many ways and many traps
+  And many guides, and which of them is lord?
+  For verily Mahomet has the sword,
+And he may have the truth--perhaps! _perhaps!_
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+Now this religion happens to prevail
+  Until by that religion overthrown,--
+  Because men dare not live with men alone,
+But always with another fairy-tale.
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+Religion is a charming girl, I say;
+  But over this poor threshold will not pass,
+  For I may not unveil her, and alas!
+The bridal gift I can't afford to pay.
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+I have imagined that our welfare is
+  Required to rise triumphant from defeat;
+  And so the musk, which as the more you beat,
+Gives ever more delightful fragrancies.
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+For as a gate of sorrow-land unbars
+  The region of unfaltering delight,
+  So may you gather from the fields of night
+That harvest of diviner thought, the stars.
+
+
+XL
+
+Send into banishment whatever blows
+  Across the waves of your tempestuous heart;
+  Let every wish save Allah's wish depart,
+And you will have ineffable repose.
+
+
+XLI
+
+My faith it is that all the wanton pack
+  Of living shall be--hush, poor heart!--withdrawn,
+  As even to the camel comes a dawn
+Without a burden for his wounded back.
+
+
+XLII
+
+If there should be some truth in what they teach
+  Of unrelenting Monkar and Nakyr,
+  Before whose throne all buried men appear--
+Then give me to the vultures, I beseech.
+
+
+XLIII
+
+Some yellow sand all hunger shall assuage
+  And for my thirst no cloud have need to roll,
+  And ah! the drooping bird which is my soul
+No longer shall be prisoned in the cage.
+
+
+XLIV
+
+Life is a flame that flickers in the wind,
+  A bird that crouches in the fowler's net--
+  Nor may between her flutterings forget
+That hour the dreams of youth were unconfined.
+
+
+XLV
+
+There was a time when I was fain to guess
+  The riddles of our life, when I would soar
+  Against the cruel secrets of the door,
+So that I fell to deeper loneliness.
+
+
+XLVI
+
+One is behind the draperies of life,
+  One who will tear these tanglements away--
+  No dark assassin, for the dawn of day
+Leaps out, as leapeth laughter, from the knife.
+
+
+XLVII
+
+If you will do some deed before you die,
+  Remember not this caravan of death,
+  But have belief that every little breath
+Will stay with you for an eternity.
+
+
+XLVIII
+
+Astrologers!--give ear to what they say!
+  "The stars be words; they float on heaven's breath
+  And faithfully reveal the days of death,
+And surely will reveal that longer day."
+
+
+XLIX
+
+I shook the trees of knowledge. Ah! the fruit
+  Was fair upon the bleakness of the soil.
+  I filled a hundred vessels with my spoil,
+And then I rested from the grand pursuit.
+
+
+L
+
+Alas! I took me servants: I was proud
+  Of prose and of the neat, the cunning rhyme,
+  But all their inclination was the crime
+Of scattering my treasure to the crowd.
+
+
+LI
+
+And yet--and yet this very seed I throw
+  May rise aloft, a brother of the bird,
+  Uncaring if his melodies are heard--
+Or shall I not hear anything below?
+
+
+LII
+
+The glazier out of sounding Erzerum,
+  Frequented us and softly would conspire
+  Upon our broken glass with blue-red fire,
+As one might lift a pale thing from the tomb.
+
+
+LIII
+
+He was the glazier out of Erzerum,
+  Whose wizardry would make the children cry--
+  There will be no such wizardry when I
+Am broken by the chariot-wheels of Doom.
+
+
+LIV
+
+The chariot-wheels of Doom! Now, hear them roll
+  Across the desert and the noisy mart,
+  Across the silent places of your heart--
+Smile on the driver you will not cajole.
+
+
+LV
+
+I never look upon the placid plain
+  But I must think of those who lived before
+  And gave their quantities of sweat and gore,
+And went and will not travel back again.
+
+
+LVI
+
+Aye! verily, the fields of blandishment
+  Where shepherds meditate among their cattle,
+  Those are the direst of the fields of battle,
+For in the victor's train there is no tent.
+
+
+LVII
+
+Where are the doctors who were nobly fired
+  And loved their toil because we ventured not,
+  Who spent their lives in searching for the spot
+To which the generations have retired?
+
+
+LVIII
+
+"Great is your soul,"--these are the words they preach,--
+  "It passes from your framework to the frame
+  Of others, and upon this road of shame
+Turns purer and more pure."--Oh, let them teach!
+
+
+LIX
+
+I look on men as I would look on trees,
+  That may be writing in the purple dome
+  Romantic lines of black, and are at home
+Where lie the little garden hostelries.
+
+
+LX
+
+Live well! Be wary of this life, I say;
+  Do not o'erload yourself with righteousness.
+  Behold! the sword we polish in excess,
+We gradually polish it away.
+
+
+LXI
+
+God who created metal is the same
+  Who will devour it. As the warriors ride
+  With iron horses and with iron pride--
+Come, let us laugh into the merry flame.
+
+
+LXII
+
+But for the grandest flame our God prepares
+  The breast of man, which is the grandest urn;
+  Yet is that flame so powerless to burn
+Those butterflies, the swarm of little cares.
+
+
+LXIII
+
+And if you find a solitary sage
+  Who teaches what is truth--ah, then you find
+  The lord of men, the guardian of the wind,
+The victor of all armies and of age.
+
+
+LXIV
+
+See that procession passing down the street,
+  The black and white procession of the days--
+  Far better dance along and bawl your praise
+Than if you follow with unwilling feet.
+
+
+LXV
+
+But in the noisy ranks you will forget
+  What is the flag. Oh, comrade, fall aside
+  And think a little moment of the pride
+Of yonder sun, think of the twilight's net.
+
+
+LXVI
+
+The songs we fashion from our new delight
+  Are echoes. When the first of men sang out,
+  He shuddered, hearing not alone the shout
+Of hills but of the peoples in the night.
+
+
+LXVII
+
+And all the marvels that our eyes behold
+  Are pictures. There has happened some event
+  For each of them, and this they represent--
+Our lives are like a tale that has been told.
+
+
+LXVIII
+
+There is a palace, and the ruined wall
+  Divides the sand, a very home of tears,
+  And where love whispered of a thousand years
+The silken-footed caterpillars crawl.
+
+
+LXIX
+
+And where the Prince commanded, now the shriek
+  Of wind is flying through the court of state:
+  "Here," it proclaims, "there dwelt a potentate
+Who could not hear the sobbing of the weak."
+
+
+LXX
+
+Beneath our palaces the corner-stone
+  Is quaking. What of noble we possess,
+  In love or courage or in tenderness,
+Can rise from our infirmities alone.
+
+
+LXXI
+
+We suffer--that we know, and that is all
+  Our knowledge. If we recklessly should strain
+  To sweep aside the solid rocks of pain,
+Then would the domes of love and courage fall.
+
+
+LXXII
+
+But there is one who trembles at the touch
+  Of sorrow less than all of you, for he
+  Has got the care of no big treasury,
+And with regard to wits not overmuch.
+
+
+LXXIII
+
+I think our world is not a place of rest,
+  But where a man may take his little ease,
+  Until the landlord whom he never sees
+Gives that apartment to another guest.
+
+
+LXXIV
+
+Say that you come to life as 'twere a feast,
+  Prepared to pay whatever is the bill
+  Of death or tears or--surely, friend, you will
+Not shrink at death, which is among the least?
+
+
+LXXV
+
+Rise up against your troubles, cast away
+  What is too great for mortal man to bear.
+  But seize no foolish arms against the share
+Which you the piteous mortal have to pay.
+
+
+LXXVI
+
+Be gracious to the King. You cannot feign
+  That nobody was tyrant, that the sword
+  Of justice always gave the just award
+Before these Ghassanites began to reign.
+
+
+LXXVII
+
+You cultivate the ranks of golden grain,
+  He cultivates the cavaliers. They go
+  With him careering on some other foe,
+And your battalions will be staunch again.
+
+
+LXXVIII
+
+The good law and the bad law disappear
+  Below the flood of custom, or they float
+  And, like the wonderful Sar'aby coat,
+They captivate us for a little year.
+
+
+LXXIX
+
+God pities him who pities. Ah, pursue
+  No longer now the children of the wood;
+  Or have you not, poor huntsman, understood
+That somebody is overtaking you?
+
+
+LXXX
+
+God is above. We never shall attain
+  Our liberty from hands that overshroud;
+  Or can we shake aside this heavy cloud
+More than a slave can shake aside the chain?
+
+
+LXXXI
+
+"There is no God save Allah!"--that is true,
+  Nor is there any prophet save the mind
+  Of man who wanders through the dark to find
+The Paradise that is in me and you.
+
+
+LXXXII
+
+The rolling, ever-rolling years of time
+  Are as a diwan of Arabian song;
+  The poet, headstrong and supremely strong,
+Refuses to repeat a single rhyme.
+
+
+LXXXIII
+
+An archer took an arrow in his hand;
+  So fair he sent it singing to the sky
+  That he brought justice down from--ah, so high!
+He was an archer in the morning land.
+
+
+LXXXIV
+
+The man who shot his arrow from the west
+  Made empty roads of air; yet have I thought
+  Our life was happier until we brought
+This cold one of the skies to rule the nest.
+
+
+LXXXV
+
+Run! follow, follow happiness, the maid
+  Whose laughter is the laughing waterfall;
+  Run! call to her--but if no maiden call,
+'Tis something to have loved the flying shade.
+
+
+LXXXVI
+
+You strut in piety the while you take
+  That pilgrimage to Mecca. Now beware,
+  For starving relatives befoul the air,
+And curse, O fool, the threshold you forsake.
+
+
+LXXXVII
+
+How man is made! He staggers at the voice,
+  The little voice that leads you to the land
+  Of virtue; but, on hearing the command
+To lead a giant army, will rejoice.
+
+
+LXXXVIII
+
+Behold the cup whereon your slave has trod;
+  That is what every cup is falling to.
+  Your slave--remember that he lives by you,
+While in the form of him we bow to God.
+
+
+LXXXIX
+
+The lowliest of the people is the lord
+  Who knows not where each day to make his bed,
+  Whose crown is kept upon the royal head
+By that poor naked minister, the sword.
+
+
+XC
+
+Which is the tyrant? say you. Well, 'tis he
+  That has the vine-leaf strewn among his hair
+  And will deliver countries to the care
+Of courtesans--but I am vague, you see.
+
+
+XCI
+
+The dwellers of the city will oppress
+  Your days: the lion, a fight-thirsty fool,
+  The fox who wears the robe of men that rule--
+So run with me towards the wilderness.
+
+
+XCII
+
+Our wilderness will be the laughing land,
+  Where nuts are hung for us, where nodding peas
+  Are wild enough to press about our knees,
+And water fills the hollow of our hand.
+
+
+XCIII
+
+My village is the loneliness, and I
+  Am as the travellers through the Syrian sand,
+  That for a moment see the warning hand
+Of one who breasted up the rock, their spy.
+
+
+XCIV
+
+Where is the valiance of the folk who sing
+  These valiant stories of the world to come?
+  Which they describe, forsooth! as if it swum
+In air and anchored with a yard of string.
+
+
+XCV
+
+Two merchantmen decided they would battle,
+  To prove at last who sold the finest wares;
+  And while Mahomet shrieked his call to prayers,
+The true Messiah waved his wooden rattle.
+
+
+XCVI
+
+Perchance the world is nothing, is a dream,
+  And every noise the dreamland people say
+  We sedulously note, and we and they
+May be the shadows flung by what we seem.
+
+
+XCVII
+
+Zohair the poet sang of loveliness
+  Which is the flight of things. Oh, meditate
+  Upon the sorrows of our earthly state,
+For what is lovely we may not possess.
+
+
+XCVIII
+
+Heigho! the splendid air is full of wings,
+  And they will take us to the--friend, be wise
+  For if you navigate among the skies
+You too may reach the subterranean kings.
+
+
+XCIX
+
+Now fear the rose! You travel to the gloom
+  Of which the roses sing and sing so fair,
+  And, but for them, you'd have a certain share
+In life: your name be read upon the tomb.
+
+
+C
+
+There is a tower of silence, and the bell
+  Moves up--another man is made to be.
+  For certain years they move in company,
+But you, when fails your song do fail as well.
+
+
+CI
+
+No sword will summon Death, and he will stay
+  For neither helm nor shield his falling rod.
+  We are the crooked alphabet of God,
+And He will read us ere he wipes away.
+
+
+CII
+
+How strange that we, perambulating dust,
+  Should be the vessels of eternal fire,
+  That such unfading passion of desire
+Should be within our fading bodies thrust.
+
+
+CIII
+
+_Deep in a silent chamber of the rose
+There was a fattened worm. He looked around,
+Espied a relative and spoke at him:
+It seems to me this world is very good_.
+
+
+CIV
+
+_A most unlovely world, said brother worm,
+For all of us are piteous prisoners.
+And if, declared the first, your thought is true,
+And this a prison be, melikes it well_.
+
+
+CV
+
+_So well that I shall weave a song of praise
+And thankfulness because the world was wrought
+For us and with such providential care--
+My brother, I will shame you into singing_.
+
+
+CVI
+
+_Then, cried the second, I shall raise a voice
+And see what poor apologies are made.
+And so they sang, these two, for many days,
+And while they sang the rose was beautiful_.
+
+
+CVII
+
+_But this affected not the songful ones,
+And evermore in beauty lived the rose.
+And when the worms were old and wiser too,
+They fell to silence and humility_.
+
+
+CVIII
+
+A night of silence! 'Twas the swinging sea
+  And this our world of darkness. And the twain
+  Rolled on below the stars; they flung a chain
+Around the silences which are in me.
+
+
+CIX
+
+The shadows come, and they will come to bless
+  Their brother and his dwelling and his fame,
+  When I shall soil no more with any blame
+Or any praise the silence I possess.
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+ON THE NAME ABU'L-ALA
+
+Arab names have always been a stumbling-block, and centuries ago
+there was a treatise written which was called "The Tearing of the
+Veil from before Names and Patronymics." Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Jarit
+al-Misri is a fair example of the nomenclature; here we have the
+patronymic (Abu Bakr--father of Bakr), the personal name (Ahmad),
+the surname (ibn Jarit--son of Jarit), and the ethnic name
+(al-Misri--native of Egypt). In addition, they made use of fancy
+names if they were poets (such as Ssorrdorr, the sack of pearls,
+who died in the year 1072), names connoting kindred, habitation
+(such as Ahmad al-Maidani, the great collector of proverbs, who
+lived near the Maidan, the race-course of Naisapur), faith or
+trade or personal defects (such as a caliph who was called the
+father of flies, since on account of his offensive breath no fly
+would rest upon his lip), and finally they gave each other names
+of honour (such as sword of the empire, helper of the empire,
+etc.). Then the caliph gave, as a distinction, double titles and,
+when these became too common, triple titles. ("In this way," says
+al-Biruni, "the matter is opposed to sense and clumsy to the last
+degree, so that a man who says the titles is fatigued when he has
+scarcely started and he runs the risk of being late for prayer.")
+. . . The patronymic was, of all of these, the most in favour. At
+first it was assumed when the eldest son was born; when Bakr came
+into the world his father took the name of Abu Bakr, and acquired
+a new importance. This was not by any means peculiar to the
+Arabs: "O Queen," says Das, a king of Indian folk-song, "O Queen,
+the name of childless has departed from me." When the Arab had no
+son, he used an honorific patronymic (such as Abu'l-Ala, father
+of excellence, or Abu'l-Feda, father of redemption). At times
+this manufactured patronymic was a thing of mockery, more or less
+gentle (such as a companion of the Prophet who was fond of cats,
+and was entitled "father of the cat"). The prevalence among the
+Arabs of the patronymic is immediately noticed, (a camel is the
+father of Job; a strongly built person is the father of the
+locust; a licentious person is the father of the night; and there
+are multitudes of such formations). . . . With regard to
+surnames, it was not the custom always for them to denote that
+so-and-so was the son of his father's family. "Who is your
+father?" says an Arab to the mule, and he replies, "The horse is
+my maternal uncle." So there are some people who, for shame,
+prefer that we should think of them as members of their mother's
+family. . . .
+
+The following additional quatrains may be quoted:
+
+  Unasking have we come,--too late, too soon
+    Unasking from this plot of earth are sent.
+    But we, the sons of noble discontent,
+  Use half our lives in asking for the moon.
+
+("We all sorely complain," says Seneca, "of the shortness of
+time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our
+lives are either spent in doing nothing at all or in doing
+nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do.
+We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as
+though there would be no end of them.")
+
+  So then your hand has guarded me! Be blessed,
+    And, if you like such reading, read, I pray,
+    Through Moses' book, or credit them who say
+  That old Isaiah's hand is far the best.
+
+  Some day, some day the potter shall return
+    Into the dust. O potter, will you make
+    An earth which I would not refuse to take,
+  Or such unpleasant earth as you would spurn?
+
+  Then out of that--men swear with godly skill--
+    Perchance another potter may devise
+    Another pot, a piece of merchandise
+  Which they can love and break, if so they will.
+
+  And from a resting-place you may be hurled
+    And from a score of countries may be thrust--
+    Poor brother, you the freeman of the dust,
+  Like any slave are flung about the world.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala, by Henry Baerlein
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