_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ _FICTION_ THE GATES JOHN STUART _VERSE_ SONGS AND SATIRES _THEATRE_ LES PARIAHS THE CAP AND BELLS PEOPLE LIKE OURSELVES CLASS _THEATRE IN VERSE_ FOOLERY DUSK THE SINGING CARAVAN _RECENT POETRY_ THE HEART OF PEACE By LAURENCE HOUSMAN. 5s. net ESCAPE AND FANTASY By GEORGE ROSTREVOR. 3s. 6d. net THE SAILING SHIPS By ENID BAGNOLD. 5s. net COUNTER-ATTACK By SIEGFRIED SASSOON. 2s. 6d. net POEMS By GEOFFREY DEARMER. 2s. 6d. net THE SINGING CARAVAN A SUFI TALE BY ROBERT VANSITTART Each man is many as a caravan; His straggling selves collect in tales like these. Only the love of one can make him one. Who takes the Sufi Way--the Way of Peace? NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 1919 _Printed in Great Britain_ _IN MEMORIAM_ MY BROTHER ARNOLD 2ND LIEUTENANT, 11TH HUSSARS KILLED IN ACTION NEAR YPRES MAY 1915 _In twenty years of lands and seas and cities I had small joy and sought for it the more, Thinking: "If ever I am polymêtis, 'Tis yours to draw upon the hard-won store."_ _I had some bouts from Samarkand to Paris, And took some falls 'twixt Sweden and Sudan. If I was slow and patient learning parries, I hoped to teach you when you were a man._ _I cannot fall to whining round the threshold Where Death awaited you. I lack the skill Of hands for ever working out a fresh hold On life. In mystic ways I serve you still._ _The age of miracles is not yet ended. As on the humble feast of Galilee Surely a touch of heaven has descended On the cheap earthen vessel, even on me,_ _Whose weak content--the soul I travail under-- Unstable as water, to myself untrue, God's mercy makes an everlasting wonder, Stronger than life or death, my love of you._ I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Humphreys, Mr. John Murray, and the Editor of the _Spectator_ for kind permission to reproduce a few of the shorter poems in this tale of Persian mystics. I have included them, firstly, because I wished otherwise new work, being a memorial, to include such fragments of the past as might be worth preserving; secondly, because decreasing leisure inspires a diffidence in the future that may justify me in asking a reader or a friend to judge or remember me only by "Foolery" and "The Singing Caravan." R. V. CONTENTS PAGE IN MEMORIAM vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii PRELUDE 1 I. THE VIEW OF THE WATCHMEN 9 II. THE JOY OF THE WORDS 15 III. THE DEPTH OF THE NIGHT 17 IV. THE INWARDNESS OF THE MERCHANT 20