Part 2

"Yet ran my thoughts on her, though cedar rafters Were laid on me, or mottled silk and plush, Although the tinkling scales of varied laughters Rode me from Bandar Abbas to Barfrush, Or broken hearts from Astara to Gwetter. All ironies have made their moving house Of me. I smile to think how many a letter Has passed from loved to lover thanks to Tous

"The loveless. Think you men alone are lonely, My masters? I have also worshipped one, Have built my days of faith and service only, And while I worshipped all my life was gone. I spent the funds of life in growing older, In heaping fuel on a smothered fire. See how my tale is rounded! On my shoulder I bear the burden of _your_ world's desire.

"Yet keep that inner smile; and never show it Though the Account be nothing--shorn of her. Be wise, O Sheikh. Pray God to be a poet Lest life should make you a philosopher, Or lest the dreams of which you had the making Should prove to be such stuff as still I trail, And bring your heart, my withers, nigh to breaking When at the last the Bearer eyes the Bale,

"As you shall penetrate this day or morrow The miracle of willing servitude, And yet believe therein. It is the sorrow And not the love that asks to be subdued; It is the mirage not the truth that trammels The travelling feet. Ah, if men only knew How their brief frenzies move the mirth of camels, Our rests were longer and our journeys few.

"Old Tous is up. The camp is struck and ready For fresh emprise. Dawn sifts the clay-blue sky For gold. Now see how dominant and steady I prose along that have no mind to fly. This is my lesson: over sand or shingle, Blow hot, blow cold, by mountain, plain and khor, Coming and going, I must set a-jingle My own deep bell.... And you must ask for more!"

He ceased. White on the mirror of the air His breath made patterns. In a ruined farm Red cocks blared out and shouted down the owls. The drivers rubbed their eyes. Another day Among the days was starting on its march.... Above the pilgrims fallen to their prayers Old Tous stood upright, blinking at the sun.

VI

THE BOASTING OF YOUTH

The soldier-lad from Kerman, The sailor-lad from Jask Knew naught that should deter man From finishing the cask. "Wine sets the Faithful jibbing Like mules before an inn, But we sit bravely bibbing, And hold our own with sin."

Said the stout-hearted wonder Of Jask: "Wine frights not me. I fear no foe but thunder And winds that sting the sea." "And I," said he of Kerman, "Fear nothing but the night, Or some imperious _firman_ That bids the Faithful fight."

"They say some lads fear ladies And truckle to them." "Who Could be so weak? The _Cadis_ Rise up for me and you." "But doctors, nay and princes, Have troubles of their own, Save those whom fire convinces.... I leave the stuff alone."

"And I...." Then both bethought them That, howso strong and wise, Their principles had caught them On this mad enterprise. "'Tis time to act with daring, And rest," said he of Jask, And swore a mighty swearing, (And drained another flask).

"If I go on, attendant Upon this woman's way, May I become dependant On your arrears of pay!" "If I," said Captain Kerman, "Should knuckle to my mate, May I become a merman And live on maggot-bait!"

"Then since we have discovered That women need our strength"-- (The tavern-houris hovered) "To hold them at arm's length, Sit down in this rest-house, and Tell me a tale among The tales, one in your thousand!" This was the story sung:

"I threw my love about you like fine raiment; I let you kill my pride. You passed me by, but smiled at me in payment, And I was satisfied.

"I made my mind a plaything for your leisure, Content to be ignored. Body and soul I waited on your pleasure, Waited--without reward.

"I have no faint repinings that we met, dear, Or that I left you cold. I rub my hands. You will be colder yet, dear, Some day when you are old."

"Forbidden wine is mellow. The sun has set. Of whom Sing you this song, Brave Fellow? Night is the ante-room Breeze-sprinkled to keep cooler The feasting-halls behind." "She might have been my ruler But for my _Strength of Mind_."

"That was the tune to whistle! How have I longed to learn The deeds of men of gristle Like mine!..." "Tell me in turn Some of your lore of women, Whose wiles are deep as _bhang_. Your strength shall teach to swim men Who fall in love...." He sang:

"You came to me, and well you chose your quarry. You told your tale, and well you played your rôle. You spoke of suffering, and I was sorry With all my heart, with all my soul. 'Out of the deep,' you said. I thought to save you, And stunned myself upon the covered shoal. Yet, poor deceptive shallows, I forgave you With all my heart, with all my soul. You sought whatever evil had not sought you. In vain I strove to make your nature whole. I did not know the market that had bought you With all your heart, with all your soul. If man had one pure impulse you would smudge it. You had one gift, my pity, which you stole. Now I will only tell you that I grudge it With all my heart, with all my soul."

"Of whom this song, Brave Fellow? The stars in heaven's black soil Fold up their petalled yellow That pays the angels' toil." The lamp had burned its wick dim, The pair had drunk their fill.... "I might have been her victim But for my _Strength of Will_."

Then one said to the other: "Such strength as yours and mine Must put its foot down, brother, And stay here--pass the wine-- Till, for the world's salvation, Shall radiate from this den The Great Confederation Of Independent Men."

* * * * *

The last sour mule was saddled, On went the caravan. These twain turned on the raddled Handmaidens of the _han_, Blinked, cast them forth with loathing Because the queen was fair, And lest their lack of clothing Should lay man's weakness bare.

White as a cloud in summer, Slender as sun-shot rain-- Earth knows what moods become her-- The queen passed.... In her train The Great Confederation Trod with such wealth of _Will_ That, in its trepidation, It never paid its bill.

VII

THE HEART OF THE SLAVE

But as they fared slave Obeidullah failed. Devouring fever shook him like a rat, And ere they reached Kashan his course was run. Then freedom came towards him, and he spoke: "Here is an eye of water, mulberry-trees, A rest-house, and to me a stranger thing, Rest. Caravan be strong, fare on with blessings Whence you must forge your happiness--but I, Possessed of peace, shall never see the end. The heart within me has been fire so long That now my body is smoke. I watch it drift Life leaves me gently as a mistress goes Before her time to meet the uncoloured days, Saying: 'I have lived. Plead not. 'Twill be in vain. You were the end of summer. I have passed Out of the garden with fresh scents and dews Upon me, out ere sunset with cool hands, The supple tread of youth and glorying limbs Firm as resolve, unblemished as my pride; Passed ere a leaf be fallen, or losing fights Begin, that smirch the memory of love....' Sweet is the shade, and death's cool lips are welcome After the burning kisses of the sun, The strained embraces of my owner, Toil. I shall remember her with gratitude But no regret, as I lie here. The dawn Biting the desert-edge shall not disturb me, Nor green oases zigzagged through the heat Like stepping-stones. The many-coloured hills, Heaven's mutable emotions, these are past. Beyond them I shall find security Of tenure in the outstretched hands of God." Thereat his fellows made lament, and urged: "Sleep on and take your rest, but not for ever. Time adds to strength, and you shall rise with us Who wait. Already we foresee the coast. A little while...." Slave Obeidullah raised Himself and looked ahead with shining eyes:

"The moon is faint. A dust-cloud swirls. Therein I see dim marching hosts: Strange embassies and dancing girls, Spice-caravans and pilgrims. Ghosts Rise thick from this else fruitless plain, A waste that every season chars. Yet teeming centuries lie slain And trodden in the road to Fars.

"The still, white, creeping road slips on, Marked by the bones of man and beast. What comeliness and might have gone To pad the highway of the East! Long dynasties of fallen rose, The glories of a thousand wars, A million lovers' hearts compose The dust upon the road to Fars.

"No tears have ever served to hold This shifting velvet, fathom-deep, Though vain and ceaseless winds have rolled Its pile wherein the ages sleep. Between your fingers you may sift Kings, poets, priests and _charvadars_. Heaven knows how many make a drift Of dust upon the road to Fars.

"The wraiths subside. And, One with All, Soon, in the brevity of length, Our lives shall hear the voiceless call That builds this earth of love and strength. Eternal, breathless, we shall wait, Till, last of all the Avatars, God finds us in his first estate: The dust upon the road to Fars."

So still he lay, so still the pilgrims deemed He was no longer there. The deepening shade Covered him softly. With his latest breath Slave Obeidullah looked upon the Queen:

"You whom I loved so steadfastly, If all the blest should ask to see The cause for which my spirit came Among them with so little claim To peace, this book should speak for me.

"I strove and only asked in fee Hope of your immortality Not mine--I had no other aim You whom I loved.

"The Judge will bend to hear my plea, And take my songs upon his knee. Perhaps His hand will make the lame Worthy to worship you, the same As here they vainly tried to be, You whom I loved."

Then, turned towards her, Obeidullah slept.

VIII

THE TALE OF THE CHEAPJACK

Among the fruit-trees still he slumbers. All Mourned for their brother with one heavy heart. Even Tous drooped, swaying weakly in his stride; Until Farid Bahadur, cheapjack, spoke, One bootlessly afoot whose years had brought For profit this, to see existence clear And empty as a solid ball of glass.

Erstwhile, he said, my peddling carried me Clean through two empires like a paper hoop, Setting me down upon the olive slopes Where Smyrna nestles back to mother earth, And so lures in the ocean. I filled my pack With kerchiefs, beads, dross, chaffering with a Greek, Although he vowed a much-loved partner's death Left him no heart for it. He blew his nose, Asking strange prices as a man distraught. I had no heart to bargain while he crooned:

"Our loves were woven of one splendid thread, But not our lives, though we had been, we twain, Linked as in worship at the Spartan fane Of him who brought his brother from the dead. Ah, would our God were like his gods that said: Such love as this shall not have flowered in vain, And let the younger Castor live again The space that Pollux lay with Death instead. Dear, I had lain so gladly in the grave Not for a part of time but for God's whole Eternity, had died, yea oft, to save Not half your life, but one short hour. Your soul Was all too pure; mine had no right to ask From heaven such mercy as a saviour's task.

"They say the Olympian grace was not content With housing Death, but giving Love the key. It set the troths that guided you and me Among the jewels of the firmament; And there they dwell for ever and assent To each propitious ploughing of the sea. The coasting-pilots of Infinity Well know The Brothers. So your sails were bent, Young fathomer of the blue. I linger here With following gaze that tugs my heart-strings taut All day; but every night an Argonaut Slips through the streets and darkness, seaward, far Beyond the limitations of his sphere Into the vacant place beside a star."

So crooned he desolate in his dim shop, Till I became all ears and had no eyes. The fellow cheated me of three _dinars_.

IX

THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DOOR

Slow into Kum the Glaring trailed The caravan. Its courage failed A moment. Only dust-clouds veiled The sun, that overhead From fields The Plough had turned to grain, Star-honey laden on The Wain And spices from the wind-domain, Was baking angel-bread. (Astronomers in Baghdad say That Allah gave the Milky Way To feed his guests, the dead.)

Even as the dead the pilgrims lay Until the sun received his pay-- Man counts in gold, but he in grey-- Then, whining as one daft, A voice crept to each sleeper's ear, And one by one sat up to hear It soughing like a Seistan mere Where nothing ever laughed. A blur at elbow on the floor Cried: "Sleep! 'Tis but the tavern door Amoaning in the draught."

"Ay," said the master of the inn, "A black-faced gaper that lets in The dark, my creditors, and kin! Last month it strained my wrist, did The lout, so hard it slams. This week Claims it for fuel. See the leak Of air it springs! Its hinges creak, Its wood is warped and twisted. 'Tis heavy-hearted as a man, Stark, crazy thing!... It feels uncann...." The wheezing voice persisted.

"Earth bare me in Mazanderan, Where, breaking her dead level plan, Steep foliage opens like a fan To hide her virgin blush; And singing, caravan, like you Brooks dance towards the Caspian blue Past coolth wherein mauve turtles coo To panthers in the rush, That turn hill-pools to amethyst. Here bucks drink deep and tigers tryst Neck-deep in grasses lush.

"And there the stainless peaks are kissed By heaven whose crowning mercy, mist, With cloud-lands white as Allah's fist Anoints their heads with rain. We never dreamed, where nature pours, That life could run as thin as yours-- A waif thirst-stricken to all fours-- Or verdure, but a vein In sandscapes wincing from the sun That burns your flesh and visions dun, Crawl throbbing through the plain.

"I grew. My shadow weighed a ton; I held a countless garrison; My boughs were roads for apes to run Around the white owl's niche. The hum of bees, the blue jay's scream.... The forest came to love and teem In me beside the vivid stream Shot through with speckled fish; Till, weary of my sheltered glen, I craved a human denizen Fate granted me my wish.

"Yea, I had longed (if slope and fen Can love like this, the love of men Must live above our nature's ken) To see and shade the room, To shield far-leaning the abode, Wherein the souls of lovers glowed To songs that dimmed the bulbul's ode ... And man became my doom. He dragged me through the dew-drenched brake, And took the heart of me to make A tavern-door at Kum."

The pilgrims sat erect, engrossed, Or searched the crannies for a ghost. "Ah, heed it not," implored the host; "This hell-burnt father's son Moans ever like a soul oppressed, And takes the fancy of a guest, And makes my house no house of rest: I would its voice were gone. Yet be indulgent, sirs! 'Tis old. Next week it shall be burnt or sold. A new--" The voice went on:

"Here have I stood while life unrolled But not the tale my breezes told. Moonlight alone conceals the cold Drab city's lack of heart. Here have I watched an hundred years Bespatter me with blood and tears, Yet leave man ever in arrears Of where my monkeys start. No more, dog-rose and meadow-sweet! The harlot's musk and rotten meat Blow at me from the mart.

"No more, clear streams and fairy feet! But through my mouth the striving street Drains in brown spate the men who eat And drink and curse and die; And out of me the whole night long Reel revellers--O God, their song!... Are there no mortals clean and strong, Or do they pass me by? I little thought that I should leave For this the groves where turtles grieve Far closer to the sky.

"Instead of every song-bird's note I know the scales a merchant's throat Can compass. I have learned by rote The tricks of Copt and Jew; Can tell if Lur or Afghan brawls, The Armenian way of selling shawls Softly, and how an Arab bawls To rouse the raider's crew, Lest ululating strings of slaves Should take the kennel for their graves.... Raids! I have seen a few,

"Or wars, occasion dubs them--waves Of Mongol sultans, Kurdish braves. They--Find me words! the Simûn _raves_-- They worked ... 'tis called their will, Battered me in--behold the dint-- With all their hearts that felt like flint, Besmeared the city with the tint Of sunset on my hill. My leopards stalk my bucks at eve-- I shivered as I heard them heave-- At least they ate their kill.

"I followed that.... But men who weave Such flowing robes of make-believe, I think the flood was wept by Eve-- Some sportsman shot the dove-- These puzzled me, for God is good And man His image--not of wood, Thank God!--At last I understood All ... all except their love. I grew so hard that I could trace His hand's chief glory in their race. Perhaps He wore a glove."

Then one without made haste to smite The malcontent. It opened. Night Stood on the threshold dressed in white, And myriad-eyed and blind. The ostler murmured: "Some _Afrit_ Or bitter worm has entered it; Nor jamb nor lintel seems to fit. I know its frame of mind." "Air stirs the dust upon the floor," The landlord cried. "Fool! Shut that door Amoaning in the wind."

"My glade was deep, a lichened well Of ether, limpid as a bell Buoyed on the manifold ground-swell Whose distance changed attires As sun-stroked plush, a roundelay Of all red-blue and purple grey, And, at each rise and fall of day, Snows dyed like altar fires Licked through those loud green sheaves of copse, Bent hyphens 'twixt the mountain-tops, Mosques of my motley choirs.

"And I, who gave them bed and bower For nights enduring but an hour Mid blaring miles of trumpet-flower, Leagues of liana-wreath, I saw the rocks through leaves and lings, Could blink the fangs and feel the wings, Thrill with the elemental things Of life and love and death. The purity of air and brook And song helped me to overlook The rapine underneath.

"But you--no! one dream more: an elf, Askip on ochre mountain-shelf, Who once had seen a man himself. I used his wand to gauge The sheen of moths and peacocks' whir, To plumb the jungle-aisles, to stir The drifts of frankincense and myrrh, And amorous lithe shapes that purr.... 'Tis finished. Turn the page To where man cased his bones in fat. His mate moved like a tiger-cat Until he built her cage.

"You, I have watched you all who sat Successive round the food-stained mat, And reckoned many who lived for that Alone; have seen the mark Of that last state the Thinking Beast Peep through the foliage of the feast, And crown its poet's flight with greased Fingers that grope the dark; Have heard a cleanlier bosom catch Her breath, and fumble with my latch Irresolute. The lark

"My inmates never feared to match Bespoke the end. I belched the batch, Rolling them down the street, a patch Of dirt against the dawn. Then in its stead there came a saint, Inventor of a soul-complaint, Who gave men's faith a coat of paint Like mine, and made me yawn With furtive wenching. Here have sighed Exultant groom and weeping bride Led like a captive fawn.

"This way passed those who marry lean Girl-chattels ere their times of teen. I knew a like but milder scene: A hawk, small birds that cower. How soon the chosen was brought back dead-- Poisoned, the _hakim_ always said-- The husband groaned beside the bed, Arose, and kept the dower, But swept his conscience out with prayer. Man took the angels unaware When he became a power.

"And what of woman? On my stair The merchants spread their gaudiest ware, For which fools bought a love affair That ended in a jerk. Enough! To round the _tamasha_ A bloated thing came by, the Shah; It grinned, and viziers fawned 'Ha! ha!' Curs, brainless as a Turk. And all the women in his train Beheld him once and ne'er again, And called his love their work.

"You see, my friends, I tired of this Wild doubling in the chase of bliss. Pards miss their spring as men their kiss, And yet the quarry dies. I learned the world's least mortal god, Whose epitaph is Ichabod, May sport till noon, but if he nod Shall never more arise. Then, caravan, you passed, and I Have solved my riddle with a cry: The sad are never wise.

"Your song was all that I had heard In dreams beyond the wildest bird, That rose above my yellow-furred Basses that bell and roar. It took the heart of me in tow To heights that I had longed to know, To the great deeps where lovers go And find--and want--no shore. In these alone is man fulfilled; And gleaming in the air I build My hope of him once more.

"For all the few that see truth whole, And take its endlessness for goal, And steer by stars as if no shoal Could mar their firmament, For all the few that sing and sail Knowing their quest of small avail, Thank God who gave them strength to fail In finding what He meant...." "Poets!" the landlord groaned, "and poor! This house is cursed." He banged the door Behind them as they went.

And distance placed soft hands upon their mouths.

X

THE SONG OF THE SELVES

DREAMER-OF-THE-AGE

'Twas in old Tehran City, Hard by the old bazaar, I heard a restless ditty That pushed my door ajar;

A song nor great nor witty, It spoke of my own mind. I looked on Tehran City, And knew I had been blind,

Or else the streets were altered As by a peri's wand. "Who are you, friends?" I faltered. "The Pilgrims of Beyond,"

They said. I kissed the tatters That wiser heads contemn. I saw the Thing-that-matters, And took the road with them.