Answered the poet: "Do we ask Allah to buy each Friday's throng? None to whom worship is a task Should join the caravan of song. "With heart and eyes unquestioning, friend, We follow love from sea to sea, And Love and Prayer have common end: 'May God be merciful to me!'" So fared they, camped from noon to even, Till dawn, quick-groping through the gloom, Pounced on gilt planets low in heaven. Thus they beheld the domes of Kum. And onward nightly. Though the dust Swirled in dread shapes of desert _Jinn_, Ever the footsore poet's trust Soared to the jewelled palanquin, Parched, but still singing: "God, being great, Lent me a star from sea to sea, The drop in his hand-hollow, Fate. He holds it high, and signs to me "Although She--She may not ..." "For thirst My songs and dreams like mirage fail. Yea, mad "--his fellow pilgrim cursed-- "I was. The Queen lifts not her veil." "Put no conditions to her glance, O happy desert, where the guide Is Love's own self, Life's only chance ..." He saw not where the other died, But pressed on strongly, loth to halt At Persia's pride, Rose-Ispahan, Whose hawks are bathed in pure cobalt. To meet the singing caravan Came henna-bearded prince and sage With henna-fingered _houris_, who Strove to retard the pilgrimage, Saying: "Our streets are fair and you "A poet. Sing of us instead. God may be good, but life is short. Yon are the mountains of the dead. Here are clean robes to wear at court." He said: "I seek a bliss beyond The range of your _muezzin_-call. Do birds cease song till heaven respond? The road is naught. The Hope is all." "You know not this Transcaspian Queen, Or what the journey's end may be. Fool among Allah's _Muslimeen_, You chase a myth from sea to sea." "Because I bargain not nor guess If Waste or Garden wait for me, Love gives me inner loveliness. I hold to her from sea to sea." So he was gone, nor seemed to care For beckoning shade, or boasting brook, Or human alabaster-ware Flaunted before him in the _suk_, Nor paused at sunburnt far Shiraz, The home of sinful yellow wine, Where morning mists, like violet gauze, Deck the bare hills, and blossoms twine In seething coloured foam around The lighthouse minarets. And sheer-- A thin cascade bereft of sound-- The track falls down to dank Bushír. The caravan slipped to the plain. Its song rose through the rising damp, Till, through the grey stockade of rain, The Gulf of Pearls shone like a lamp.