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قراءة كتاب The Singing Caravan A Sufi Tale
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اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 4
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.
Here waiting rode a giant dhow,
Each hand a captive Roumi lord,
Who rose despite his chains to bow
As straight her beauty went aboard,
Sailed. For the Tableland of Rhyme?
The Crystal Archipelago?
Who knows! This happened on a time
Among the times of long ago.
He only, Dreamer-of-the-Age,
Was left alone upon the sands,
The goal of his long pilgrimage,
The soil of all the promised lands,
Watching the dhow cut like a sword
The leaden waves. Yet, ere she sailed,
God poured on broken eyes reward
Out of Heaven's heart.
The Queen unveiled.
There for a space fulfilment shone,
While worship had his soul for priest
And altar. Then the light was gone,
And on the sea the singing ceased.
And is this all my story? Yes,
Save that the Sufi's dream is true.
Dearest, in its deep lowliness
This tale is told of me and you.
O love of mine, while I have breath,
Whatever my last fate shall be,
I seek you, you alone, till death
With all my life—from sea to sea.
And God be merciful to me.
I
THE VIEW OF THE WATCHMEN
The pilgrims from the north
Beat on the southern gate
All eager to set forth,
In little mood to wait
While watchman Abdelal
Expounded the Koran
To that wise seneschal,
His mate, Ghaffír Sultan.
At length Ghaffír: "Enough!"
Even watchmen's heads may nod.
"Asräil is not rough
If we have faith in God."
His fellow tapped the book:
The Darawish discuss
The point you overlook:
Has Allah faith in us?
Know, then, that Allah, fresh
And splendid as a boy
Who thinks no ill of flesh,
Had one desire: a toy.
And so he took for site
To build his perfect plan
The Earth, where His delight
Was manufactured: Man.
Ah, had we ever seen
The draft, our Maker's spit,
I think we must have been
Drawn to live up to it.
God was so pure and kind
He showed Shaitan the lease
Of earth that He had signed
For us, His masterpiece.
The pilgrims cried: "You flout
Our calm. Beware. It flags.
Unbar and let us out,
Sons of a thousand rags."
And Abdelal said: "Hark!
Methought I heard a din."
Said Ghaffír: "After dark
I let no devils in.
"Proceed." He sucked his pipe:
God in His happiest mood
Laid down our prototype,
And saw that man was good.
Aglow with generous pride:
"Shaitan the son of Jann,
This is my crown," He cried.
"Bow down and worship man."
Said Evil with a smirk—
He was too sly to hiss—
"I cannot praise your work.
I could have bettered this."
God said: "I could have sown
The soil my puppet delves,
Yet rather gave my own
Power to perfect themselves."
Still the fiend stiffened. "I
Bow not." Our prophet saith
That he