V. THE LESSON OF THE CAMEL 22 VI. THE BOASTING OF YOUTH 28 VII. THE HEART OF THE SLAVE 33 VIII. THE TALE OF THE CHEAPJACK 37 IX. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DOOR 39 X. THE SONG OF THE SELVES 49 XI. THE STORY OF THE SUTLER 57 XII. THE LEGEND OF THE PEASANT 62 XIII. THE PROMOTION OF THE SOLDIER 66 XIV. THE MORAL OF THE SCHOLAR 78 XV. THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE SHEIKH 81 XVI. THE ARGUMENT OF THE SCEPTIC 90 XVII. THE PRIDE OF THE TAILOR 100 XVIII. THE HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURER 103 XIX. FUSION 161 XX. LONG LEAVE 167 EPILOGUE 169 PRELUDE The sun smote Elburz like a gong. Slow down the mountain's molten face Zigzagged the caravan of song. Time was its slave and went its pace. It bore a white Transcaspian Queen Whose barque had touched at Enzelí. Splendid in jewelled palanquin She cleft Iran from sea to sea, Bound for the Persian Gulf of Pearls, Where demons sail for drifting isles With bodyguards of dancing girls And four tamed winds for music, smiles For passports. Thus the caravan, Singing from chief to _charvadar_, Reached the great gate of screened Tehran. The burrows of the dim bazaar Swarmed thick to see the vision pass On broidered camels like a fleet Of swaying silence. One there was Who joined the strangers in the street. They called him Dreamer-of-the-Age, The least of Allah's _Muslimeen_ Who knew the joys of pilgrimage And wore the sign of sacred green, A poet, poor and wistful-eyed. Him all the beauty and the song Drew by swift magic to her side, And in a trance he went along Past friends who questioned of his goal: "The Brazen Cliffs? The Realms of Musk? Goes he to Mecca for his soul?..." The town-light dwindled in the dusk Behind. Ahead Misr? El Katíf? The moon far up a brine-green sky Made Demavend a huge pale reef Set in an ocean long gone dry. Bleached mosques like dwarf cave-stalagmites, Smooth silver-bouldered _biyaban_ And sevenfold velvet of white nights Vied with the singing caravan To make her pathway plain. Then one Beside the poet murmured low: "I plod behind, sun after sun, O master, whither do we go? "Are we for some palmed port of Fars, Or tombed Kerbela, or Baghdad The Town-of-Knowledge-of-the-Stars? Is worship wise or are we mad?"