Mansûr* was wise, but wiser they who smote him with the hurlèd stones; And, though his blood a witness bore, no wisdom-might could mend his bones. * A famous Mystic stoned for blasphemy. “Eat, drink, and sport; the rest of life’s not worth a fillip,” quoth the King; Methinks the saying saith too much: the swine would say the selfsame thing! Two-footed beasts that browse through life, by Death to serve as soil design’d, Bow prone to Earth whereof they be, and there the proper pleasures find: But you of finer, nobler, stuff, ye, whom to Higher leads the High, What binds your hearts in common bond with creatures of the stall and sty? “In certain hope of Life-to-come I journey through this shifting scene” The Zâhid* snarls and saunters down his Vale of Tears with confi’dent mien. * The “Philister” of “respectable” belief. Wiser than Amrân’s Son* art thou, who ken’st so well the world-to-be, The Future when the Past is not, the Present merest dreamery; * Moses in the Koran. What know’st thou, man, of Life? and yet, forever twixt the womb, the grave, Thou pratest of the Coming Life, of Heav’n and Hell thou fain must rave. The world is old and thou art young; the world is large and thou art small; Cease, atom of a moment’s span, To hold thyself an All-in-All! III. Fie, fie! you visionary things, ye motes that dance in sunny glow, Who base and build Eternities on briefest moment here below; Who pass through Life liked cagèd birds, the captives of a despot will; Still wond’ring How and When and Why, and Whence and Whither, wond’ring still; Still wond’ring how the Marvel came because two coupling mammals chose To slake the thirst of fleshly love, and thus the “Immortal Being” rose; Wond’ring the Babe with staring eyes, perforce compel’d from night to day, Gript in the giant grasp of Life like gale-born dust or wind-wrung spray; Who comes imbecile to the world ’mid double danger, groans, and tears; The toy, the sport, the waif and stray of passions, error, wrath and fears; Who knows not Whence he came nor Why, who kens not Whither bound and When, Yet such is Allah’s choicest gift, the blessing dreamt by foolish men; Who step by step perforce returns to couthless youth, wan, white and cold, Lisping again his broken words till all the tale be fully told: Wond’ring the Babe with quenchèd orbs, an oldster bow’d by burthening years, How ’scaped the skiff an hundred storms; how ’scaped the thread a thousand shears; How coming to the Feast unbid, he found the gorgeous table spread With the fair-seeming Sodom-fruit, with stones that bear the shape of bread: How Life was nought but ray of sun that clove the darkness thick and blind, The ravings of the reckless storm, the shrieking of the rav’ening wind;