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قراءة كتاب The Singing Caravan A Sufi Tale
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اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 5
would not comply
Because he had no faith
In us. He only saw
The worst of Allah's toy,
The springs, some surface flaw,
The strengthening alloy.
Said God: "The faults are mine.
I gave him hope and doubt,
The mind that my design
Shall have to work Me out.
What though he fall! Is love
So faint that I should grieve?
How else, friend, should I prove
To him that I believe?
"And how else should he rise?
Lo, I, that made the night,
Have given his conscience eyes
Therein to find the Right.
I have stretched out his hand,
Oh, not to grasp but feel,
Have taught his aims to land,
But tipped the aims with steel;
"Have given him iron resolve
And one great master-key,
Courage, to bid revolve
The hinge of destiny,
And beams from heaven to build
The road to Otherwise,
With broken gloom to gild
The causeway of his sighs
"Whereby I watch him come
At last to judge of Me,
Beyond the thunder's drum,
The cymbals of the sea.
Aye, Shaitan, plumb the Space
And Time that planets buoy,
And you shall know the place
Appointed for my toy.
"I could not give him rest,
And see him satiate
At once, or make the zest
Of life an opiate.
I might have been his lord,
I had not been his friend
To sheathe his spirit's sword
And start him at the end.
"I would not make him old,
That he might see his port
Fling its nocturne of gold
And cheerfulness athwart
The dusk. I planned the wave,
And wealth of wind and star.
Could one be gay and brave
Who never saw afar
"The cause that he outlives
Only because he fought,
The peaks to which he strives,
The ranges of his thought,
Until the dawn to be
Relieve his watchfires dim,
Not by his faith in Me
But by my faith in him!
"I also have my dreams,
And through my darkest cloud
His climbing phalanx gleams
To my salute, and, proud
Of him even in defeat,
My light upon his brow,
My roughness at his feet,
I triumph. Shaitan, bow!"
But Shaitan like an ass
Jibbed and would not give ear.
Just so it came to pass,
Declares our Book, Ghaffír.
We know that in the heat
Of disputation—well,
Allah shot out his feet,
And Shaitan went to hell.
Thus Abdelal. The gate
Shook to the pilgrims' cry:
"When will you cease to prate,
Beards of calamity!"
The poet: "Allah's bliss
Fall on his watchmen! Thus
Our journey's password is
That God has faith in us."
II
THE JOY OF THE WORDS
The Sufis trembled: "Open, open wide,
Dismiss us to illuminate the East."
Old Ghaffír fumbled the reluctant bolts,
Lifting his hands and eyes as for a feast.
And this was their viaticum. His words
Were mingled with their eagerness like yeast:
Go forth, poor words!
If truly you are free,
Simple, direct, you shall be winged like birds,
Voiced like the sea.
Walk humbly clad!
Be sure those words are lame
That ride a-clatter, or that deck and pad
A puny frame.
As in your dress,
So in your speech be plain!
Be not deceived; the Mighty Meaningless
Are loud in vain.
Be not puffed up,
Nor drunk with your own sound!
Shall men drink deeply when an empty cup
Is handed round?
Shout not at heaven!
Say what I bade you say.
Simplicity is beauty dwelling even
In yea or nay.
Be this your goal.
Beauty within man's reach
Is poetry. You cannot touch man's soul
Save with man's speech.
Therefore go straight.
You shall not turn aside
To vain display; for yonder lies the gate
Where gods abide
Your coming. Go!
The way was never hard.
What would you more than common flowers or snow?
For your reward,
Be understood,
And thus shall you be sung.
Aye, you who think to show us any good,
Speak in our