And hear the others who with cymbals try To stay the feet of every passer-by: The market-men along the darkling lane Are crying up their wares.--Oh! let them cry. V Mohammed or Messiah! Hear thou me, The truth entire nor here nor there can be; How should our God who made the sun and moon Give all his light to One, I cannot see. VI Come, let us with the naked Night now rest And read in Allah's Book the sonnet best: The Pleiads--ah, the Moon from them departs,-- She draws her veil and hastens toward the west. VII The Pleiads follow; and our Ethiop Queen, Emerging from behind her starry screen, Will steep her tresses in the saffron dye Of dawn, and vanish in the morning sheen. VIII The secret of the day and night is in The constellations, which forever spin Around each other in the comet-dust;-- The comet-dust and humankind are kin. IX But whether of dust or fire or foam, the glaive Of Allah cleaves the planet and the wave Of this mysterious Heaven-Sea of life, And lo! we have the Cradle of the Grave. X The Grave and Cradle, the untiring twain, Who in the markets of this narrow lane Bordered of darkness, ever give and take In equal measure--what's the loss or gain? XI Ay, like the circles which the sun doth spin Of gossamer, we end as we begin; Our feet are on the heads of those that pass, But ever their Graves around our Cradles grin. XII And what avails it then that Man be born To joy or sorrow?--why rejoice or mourn? The doling doves are calling to the rose; The dying rose is bleeding o'er the thorn. XIII And he the Messenger, who takes away The faded garments, purple, white, and gray Of all our dreams unto the Dyer, will Bring back new robes to-morrow--so they say. XIV But now the funeral is passing by, And in its trail, beneath this moaning sky, The howdaj comes,--both vanish into night; To me are one, the sob, the joyous cry. XV With tombs and ruined temples groans the land In which our forbears in the drifting sand Arise as dunes upon the track of Time To mark the cycles of the moving hand XVI Of Fate. Alas! and we shall follow soon Into the night eternal or the noon; The wayward daughters of the spheres return Unto the bosom of their sun or moon. XVII And from the last days of Thamud and 'Ad Up to the first of Hashem's fearless lad, Who smashed the idols of his mighty tribe, What idols and what heroes Death has had! XVIII Tread lightly, for the mighty that have been Might now be breathing in the dust unseen; Lightly, the violets beneath thy feet Spring from the mole of some Arabian queen. XIX Many a grave embraces friend and foe Behind the curtain of this sorry show Of love and hate inscrutable; alas! The Fates will always reap the while they sow. XX The silken fibre of the fell Zakkum, As warp and woof, is woven on the loom Of life into a tapestry of dreams To decorate the chariot-seat of Doom. XXI