Ferishtah's Fancies

Front matter

FERISHTAH'S FANCIES

'His genius was jocular, but, when disposed, he could be very serious'—Article 'Shakespear,' Jeremy Collier's Historical &c. Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1701

'You, Sir, I entertain you for one of my Hundred; only, I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say, they are Persian; but let them be changed'

Prologue

PROLOGUE.

Pray, Reader, have you eaten ortolans Ever in Italy? Recall how cooks there cook them: for my plan 's To—Lyre with Spit ally. They pluck the birds,—some dozen luscious lumps, Or more or fewer,— Then roast them, heads by heads and rumps by rumps, Stuck on a skewer.

But first,—and here's the point I fain would press,— Don't think I'm tattling!— They interpose, to curb its lusciousness, —What, 'twixt each fatling? First comes plain bread, crisp, brown, a toasted square: Then, a strong sage-leaf: (So we find books with flowers dried here and there Lest leaf engage leaf.) First, food—then, piquancy—and last of all Follows the thirdling: Through wholesome hard, sharp soft, your tooth must bite Ere reach the birdling. Now, were there only crust to crunch, you'd wince: Unpalatable!

Sage-leaf is bitter-pungent—so's a quince: Eat each who's able! But through all three bite boldly—lo, the gust! Flavour—no fixture— Flies permeating flesh and leaf and crust In fine admixture. So with your meal, my poem: masticate Sense, sight and song there! Digest these, and I praise your peptics' state, Nothing found wong there. Whence springs my illustration who can tell? —The more surprising That here eggs, milk, cheese, fruit suffice so well For gormandizing.

A fancy-freak by contrast born of thee, Delightful Gressoney! Monadhockp54Who laughest "Take what is, trust what may be!" That's Life's true lesson,—eh?

Maison Delapierre,

Gressoney St. Jean, Val d' Aosta.

September 12, '83.

The Eagle

FERISHTAH'S FANCIES.

1. THE EAGLE.

Dervish—(though yet un-dervished, call him so No less beforehand: while he drudged our way, Other his worldly name was: when he wrote Those versicles we Persians praise him for, —True fairy-work—Ferishtah grew his style)— Dervish Ferishtah walked the woods one eve, And noted on a bough a raven's nest Whereof each youngling gaped with callow beak

Widened by want; for why? beneath the tree Dead lay the mother-bird. "A piteous chance! "How shall they 'scape destruction?" sighed the sage —Or sage about to be, though simple still. Responsive to which doubt, sudden there swooped An eagle downward, and behold he bore (Great-hearted) in his talons flesh wherewith He stayed their craving, then resought the sky. "Ah, foolish, faithless me!" the observer smiled, "Who toil and moil to eke out life, when lo Providence cares for every hungry mouth!" To profit by which lesson, home went he, And certain days sat musing,—neither meat Nor drink would purchase by his handiwork. Then,―for his head swam and his limbs grew faint,—

Sleep overtook the unwise one, whom in dream God thus admonished: "Hast thou marked my deed? Which part assigned by providence dost judge Was meant for man's example? Should he play The helpless weakling, or the helpful strength That captures prey and saves the perishing? Sluggard, arise: work, eat, then feed who lack!"

Waking, "I have arisen, work I will, Eat, and so following. Which lacks food the more, Body or soul in me? I starve in soul: So may mankind and since men congregate In towns, not woods,—to Ispahan forthwith!"

Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees, Underfoot the moss-tracks,—life and love with these! I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers: All the long lone Summer-day, that greenwood life of ours!

Rich-pavilioned, rather,—still the world without,— Inside—gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about! Queen it thou on purple,—I, at watch and ward Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard!

So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me! Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we! Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face! God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have place.

The Melon-Seller

2. THE MELON-SELLER.

Going his rounds one day in Ispahan,— Half-way on Dervishhood, not wholly there,— Ferishtah, as he crossed a certain bridge, Came startled on a well-remembered face. "Can it be? What, turned melon-seller—thou? Clad in such sordid garb, thy seat yon step Where dogs brush by thee and express contempt? Methinks, thy head-gear is some scooped-out gourd! Nay, sunk to slicing up, for readier sale,

One fruit whereof the whole scarce feeds a swine? Wast thou the Shah's Prime Minister, men saw Ride on his right-hand while a trumpet blew And Persia hailed the Favorite? Yea, twelve years Are past, I judge, since that transcendency, And thou didst peculate and art abased; No less, twelve years since, thou didst hold in hand Persia, couldst halve and quarter, mince its pulp As pleased thee, and distribute—melon-like— Portions to whoso played the parasite, Or suck—thyself—each juicy morsel. How Enormous thy abjection,—hell from heaven, Made tenfold hell by contrast! Whisper me! Dost thou curse God for granting twelve years' bliss Only to prove this day 's the direr lot?"

Whereon the beggar raised a brow, once more Luminous and imperial, from the rags. "Fool, does thy folly think my foolishness Dwells rather on the fact that God appoints A day of woe to the unworthy one, Than that the unworthy one, by God's award. Tasted joy twelve years long? Or buy a slice, Or go to school!" To school Ferishtah went; And, schooling ended, passed from Ispahan To Nishapur, that Elburz looks above —Where they dig turquoise: there kept school himself, The melon-seller's speech, his stock in trade. Some say a certain Jew adduced the word Out of their book, it sounds so much the same,

אמ־הםוכ כקבל םאת האל האלהים ואת־הרצ לא נקםל׃ But great wits jump.

Wish no word unspoken, want no look away! What if words were but mistake, and looks—too sudden, say! Be unjust for once. Love ! Bear it—well I may!

Do me justice always? Bid my heart—their shrine— Render back its store of gifts, old looks and words of thine —Oh, so all unjust—the less deserved, the more divine?

Shah Abbas

3. SHAH ABBAS.

Anyhow, once full Dervish, youngsters came To gather up his own words, 'neath a rock Or else a palm, by pleasant Nishapur.

Said someone, as Ferishtah paused abrupt, Reading a certain passage from the roll Wherein is treated of Lord Ali's life: "Master, explain this incongruity! When I dared question 'It is beautiful, But is it true?'—thy answer was 'In truth

Lives beauty.' I persisting—'Beauty—yes, In thy mind and in my mind, every mind That apprehends: but outside—so to speak— Did beauty live in deed as well as word, Was this life lived, was this death died—not dreamed?' 'Many attested it for fact' saidst thou. 'Many!' but mark, Sir! Half as long ago As such things were,—supposing that they were,— Reigned great Shah Abbas: he too lived and died —How say they? Why, so strong of arm, of foot So swift, he stayed a lion in his leap On a stag's haunch,—with one hand grasped the stag, With one struck down the lion: yet, no less, Himself, that same day, feasting after sport, Perceived a spider drop into his wine,

Let fall the flagon, died of simple fear. So all say,—so dost thou say?" "Wherefore not?" Ferishtah smiled: "though strange, the story stands Clear-chronicled: none tells it otherwise: The fact's eye-witness bore the cup, beside."

"And dost thou credit one cup-bearer's tale, False, very like, and futile certainly, Yet hesitate to trust what many tongues Combine to testify was beautiful In deed as well as word? No fool's report Of lion, stag and spider, but immense With meaning for mankind,—thy race, thyself?"

Whereto the Dervish: "First amend, my son, Thy faulty nomenclature, call belief Belief indeed, nor grace with such a name The easy acquiescence of mankind In matters nowise worth dispute, since life Lasts merely the allotted moment. Lo— That lion-stag-and-spider tale leaves fixed The fact for us that somewhen Abbas reigned, Died, somehow slain,—a useful registry,— Which therefore we—'believe'? Stand forward, thou, My Yakub, son of Yusuf, son of Zal! I advertise thee that our liege the Shah Happily regnant, hath become assured, By opportune discovery, that thy sires, Son by the father upwards, track their line

To—whom but that same bearer of the cup Whose inadvertency was chargeable With what therefrom ensued, disgust and death To Abbas Shah, the over-nice of soul? Whence he appoints thee,—such his clemency,— Not death, thy due, but just a double tax To pay, on thy particular bed of reeds Which flower into the brush that makes a broom Fit to sweep ceilings clear of vermin. Sure, Thou dost believe the story nor dispute That punishment should signalize its truth? Down therefore with some twelve dinars! Why start, —The stag's way with the lion hard on haunch? 'Believe the story?'—how thy words throng fast!— 'Who saw this, heard this, said this, wrote down this

That and the other circumstance to prove So great a prodigy surprised the world? Needs must thou prove me fable can be fact Or ere thou coax one piece from out my pouch!

"There we agree, Sir: neither of us knows, Neither accepts that tale on evidence Worthy to warrant the large word—belief. Now I get near thee! Why didst pause abrupt, Disabled by emotion at a tale Might match—be frank!—for credibility The figment of the spider and the cup? —To wit, thy roll's concerning Ali's life, Unevidenced—thine own word! Little boots Our sympathy with fiction! When I read

The annals and consider of Thamasp And that sweet sun-surpassing star his love, I weep like a cut vine-twig, though aware Zurah's sad fate is fiction, since the snake He saw devour her,—how could such exist, Having nine heads? No snake boasts more than three! I weep, then laugh—both actions right alike. But thou, Ferishtah, sapiency confessed, When at the Day of Judgment God shall ask 'Didst thou believe?'—what wilt thou plead? Thy tears? (Nay, they fell fast and stain the parchment still) What if thy tears meant love? Love lacking ground —Belief,—avails thee as it would avail My own pretence to favour since, forsooth,

I loved the lady—I, who needs must laugh To hear a snake boasts nine heads: they have three!"

"Thanks for the well-timed help that 's born, behold, Out of thy words, my son,—belief and love! Hast heard of Ishak son of Absal? Ay, The very same we heard of, ten years since, Slain in the wars: he comes back safe and sound,— Though twenty soldiers saw him die at Yezdt,— Just as a single mule-and-baggage boy Declared 't was like he some day would,—for why? The twenty soldiers lied, he saw him stout, Cured of all wounds at once by smear of salve, A Mubid's manufacture: such the tale. Now, when his pair of sons were thus apprised,

Effect was twofold on them. 'Hail!' crowed This: 'Dearer the news than dayspring after night! The cure-reporting youngster warrants me Our father shall make glad our eyes once more, For whom, had outpoured life of mine sufficed To bring him back, free broached were every vein!' 'Avaunt, delusive tale-concocter, news Cruel as meteor simulating dawn!' Whimpered the other: 'Who believes this boy, Must disbelieve his twenty seniors: no, Return our father shall not! Might my death Purchase his life, how promptly would the dole Be paid as due!' Well, ten years pass,—aha, Ishak is marching homeward,—doubts, not he, Are dead and done with! So, our townsfolk straight

Must take on them to counsel. 'Go thou gay, Welcome thy father, thou of ready faith! Hide thee, contrariwise, thou faithless one, Expect paternal frowning, blame and blows!' So do our townsfolk counsel: dost demur?"

"Ferishtah like those simpletons—at loss In what is plain as pikestaff? Pish! Suppose The trustful son had sighed 'So much the worse! Returning means retaking heritage Enjoyed these ten years, who should say me nay?' How would such trust reward him? Trustlessness —O' the other hand—were what procured most praise To him who judged return impossible, Yet hated heritage procured thereby.

A fool were Ishak if he failed to prize Mere head's work less than heart's work: no fool he! "

"Is God less wise? Resume the roll!" They did.

You groped your way across my room i' the dear dark dead of night; At each fresh step a stumble was; but, once your lamp alight, Easy and plain you walked again: so soon all wrong grew right!

What lay on floor to trip your foot? Each object, late awry, Looked fitly placed, nor proved offence to footing free—for why? The lamp showed all, discordant late, grown simple symmetry.

Be love your light and trust your guide, with these explore my heart! No obstacle to trip you then, strike hands and souls apart! Since rooms and hearts are furnished so,—light shows you,—needs love start?

The Family

4. THE FAMILY.

A certain neighbour lying sick to death, Ferishtah grieved beneath a palm-tree, whence He rose at peace: whereat objected one "Gudarz our friend gasps in extremity. Sure, thou art ignorant how close at hand Death presses, or the cloud, which fouled so late Thy face, had deepened down not lightened off."

"I judge there will be respite, for I prayed."

"Sir, let me understand, of charity!

Yestereve, what was thine admonishment? 'All-wise, all-good, all-mighty—God is such!' How then should man, the all-unworthy, dare Propose to set aside a thing ordained? To pray means—substitute man's will for God's: Two best wills cannot be: by consequence, What is man bound to but—assent, say I? Rather to rapture of thanksgiving; since That which seems worst to man to God is best, So, because God ordains it, best to man. Yet man—the foolish, weak and wicked—prays! Urges 'My best were better, didst Thou know'!"

"List to a tale. A worthy householder Of Shiraz had three sons, beside a spouse

Whom, cutting gourds, a serpent bit, whereon The offended limb swelled black from foot to fork. The husband called in aid a leech renowned World-wide, confessed the lord of surgery, And bade him dictate—who forthwith declared 'Sole remedy is amputation.' Straight, The husband sighed 'Thou knowest: be it so!' His three sons heard their mother sentenced: 'Pause!' Outbroke the elder: 'Be precipitate Nowise, I pray thee! Take some gentler way, Thou sage of much resource! I will not doubt But science still may save foot, leg and thigh!' The next in age snapped petulant: 'Too rash! No reason for this maiming! What, Sir Leech, Our parent limps henceforward while we leap?

Shame on thee! Save the limb thou must and shalt!' 'Shame on yourselves, ye bold ones!' followed up The brisk third brother, youngest, pertest too: 'The leech knows all things, we are ignorant; What he proposes, gratefully accept! For me, had I some unguent bound to heal Hurts in a twinkling, hardly would I dare Essay its virtue and so cross the sage By cure his skill pronounces folly. Quick! No waiting longer! There the patient lies: Out then with implements and operate!

"Ah, the young devil!" "Why, his reason chimed Right with the Hakim's."

'Hakim's, ay—but chit's? How? what the skilled eye saw and judged of weight To overbear a heavy consequence, That—shall a sciolist affect to see? All he saw—that is, all such oaf should see, Was just the mother's suffering." "In my tale, Be God the Hakim: in the husband's case, Call ready acquiescence—aptitude Angelic, understanding swift and sure: Call the first son—a wise humanity, Slow to conceive but duteous to adopt: See in the second son—humanity, Wrong-headed yet right-hearted, rash but kind: Last comes the cackler of the brood, our chit

Who, aping wisdom all beyond his years, Thinks to discard humanity itself: Fares like the beast which should affect to fly Because a bird with wings may spurn the ground, So, missing heaven and losing earth—drops how But hell-wards? No, be man and nothing more— Man who, as man conceiving, hopes and fears, And craves and deprecates, and loves, and loathes, And bids God help him, till death touch his eyes And show God granted most, denying all."

Man I am and man would be, Love—merest man and nothing more. Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions—let them soar! I may put forth angel's plumage, once unmanned, but not before.

Now on earth, to stand suffices,—nay, if kneeling serves, to kneel: Here you front me, here I find the all of heaven that earth can feel: Sense looks straight,—not over, under,—perfect sees beyond appeal.

Good you are and wise, full circle: what to me were more outside? Wiser wisdom, better goodness? Ah, such want the angel's wide Sense to take and hold and keep them! Mine at least has never tried.

The Sun

5. THE SUN.

"And what might that bold man's announcement be"— Ferishtah questioned—"which so moved thine ire That thou didst curse, nay, cuff and kick—in short, Confute the announcer? Wipe those drops away Which start afresh upon thy face at mere Mention of such enormity: now, speak!"

"He scrupled not to say—(thou warrantest, O patient Sir, that I unblamed repeat Abominable words which blister tongue?)—

God once assumed on earth a human shape: (Lo, I have spitten!) Dared I ask the grace, Fain would I hear, of thy subtility, From out what hole in man's corrupted heart Creeps such a maggot: fancies verminous Breed in the clots there, but a monster born Of pride and folly like this pest—thyself Only canst trace to egg-shell it hath chipped."

The sun rode high. "During our ignorance"— Began Ferishtah—"folk esteemed as God Yon orb: for argument, suppose him so,— Be it the symbol, not the symbolized, I and thou safelier take upon our lips. Accordingly, yon orb that we adore

—What is he? Author of all light and life: Such one must needs be somewhere: this is he. Like what? If I may trust my human eyes, A ball composed of spirit-fire, whence springs —What, from this ball, my arms could circle round? All I enjoy on earth. By consequence, Inspiring me with—what? Why, love and praise. I eat a palatable fig—there's love In little who first planted what I pluck, Obtains my little praise, too: more of both Keeps due proportion with more cause for each: So, more and ever more, till most of all Completes experience, and the orb, descried Ultimate giver of all good, perforce Gathers unto himself all love, all praise,

Is worshipped—which means loved and praised at height. Back to the first good: 't was the gardener gave Occasion to my palate's pleasure: grace, Plain on his part, demanded thanks on mine. Go up above this giver,—step by step, Gain a conception of what—(how and why, Matters not now)—occasioned him to give, Appointed him the gardener of the ground,— I mount by just progression slow and sure To some prime giver—here assumed yon orb— Who takes my worship. Whom have I in mind, Thus worshipping, unless a man, my like Howe'er above me? Man, I say—how else, I being man who worship? Here 's my hand Lifts first a mustard-seed, then weight on weight

Greater and ever greater, till at last It lifts a melon, I suppose, then stops― Hand-strength expended wholly: so, my love First lauds the gardener for the fig his gift, Then, looking higher, loves and lauds still more, Who hires the ground, who owns the ground, Sheikh, Shah, On and away, away and ever on, Till, at the last, it loves and lauds the orb Ultimate cause of all to laud and love. Where is the break, the change of quality In hand's power, soul's impulsion? Gift was grace, The greatest as the smallest. Had I stopped Anywhere in the scale, stayed love and praise As so far only fit to follow gift,

Saying 'I thanked the gardener for his fig, But now that, lo, the Shah has filled my purse With tomans which avail to purchase me A fig-tree forest, shall I pay the same With love and praise, the gardener's proper fee?' Justly would whoso bears a brain object 'Giving is giving, gift claims gift's return, Do thou thine own part, therefore: let the Shah Ask more from who has more to pay. Perchance He gave thee from his treasure less by much Than the soil's servant: let that be! Thy part Is plain—to meet and match the gift and gift With love and love, with praise and praise, till both Cry 'All of us is thine, we can no more!' So shalt thou do man's utmost—man to man:

For as our liege the Shah's sublime estate Merely enhaloes, leaves him man the same, So must I count that orb I call a fire (Keep to the language of our ignorance) Something that's fire and more beside: mere fire —Is it a force which, giving, knows it gives, And wherefore, so may look for love and praise From me, fire's like so far, however less In all beside? Prime cause this fire shall be, Uncaused, all-causing: hence begin the gifts, Thither must go my love and praise—to what? Fire? Symbol fitly serves the symbolized Herein,—that this same object of my thanks, While to my mind nowise conceivable Except as mind no less than fire, refutes

Next moment mind's conception: fire is fire— While what I needs must thank, must needs include Purpose with power,—humanity like mine, Imagined, for the dear necessity, One moment in an object which the next Confesses unimaginable. Power! —What need of will, then? what opposes power? Why, purpose? any change must be for worse: And what occasion for beneficence When all that is, so is and so must be; Best being best now, change were for the worse. Accordingly discard these qualities Proper to imperfection, take for type Mere fire, eject the man, retain the orb,— The perfect and, so, inconceivable,—

And what remains to love and praise? A stone Fair-coloured proves a solace to my eye, Rolled by my tongue brings moisture curing drouth, And struck by steel emits a useful spark: Shall I return it thanks, the insentient thing? No,—man once, man for ever—man in soul As man in body: just as this can use Its proper senses only, see and hear, Taste, like or loathe according to its law And not another creature's,—even so Man's soul is moved by what, if it in turn Must move, is kindred soul: receiving good —Man's way—must make man's due acknowledgement, No other, even while he reasons out Plainly enough that, were the man unmanned,

Made angel of, angelic every way, The love and praise that rightly seek and find Their man-like object now,—instructed more, Would go forth idly, air to emptiness. Our human flower, sun-ripened, proffers scent Though reason prove the sun lacks nose to feed On what himself made grateful: flower and man, Let each assume that scent and love alike Being once born, must needs have use! Man's part Is plain—to send love forth,—astray, perhaps: No matter, he has done his part." "Wherefrom What is to follow—if I take thy sense— But that the sun—the inconceivable Confessed by man—comprises, all the same,

Man's every-day conception of himself— No less remaining unconceived!" "Agreed"!

"Yet thou, insisting on the right of man To feel as man, not otherwise,—man, bound By man's conditions neither less nor more, Obliged to estimate as fair or foul, Right, wrong, good, evil, what man's faculty Adjudges such,—how canst thou,—thiswise bound To take man's truth for truth and only truth,— Dare to accept, in just one case, as truth Falsehood confessed? Flesh simulating fire— Our fellow-man whom we his fellows know For dust—instinct with fire unknowable!

Where's thy man-needed truth—its proof, nay print Of faintest passage on the tablets traced By man, termed knowledge? conceded thee, We lack such fancied union—fire with flesh: But even so, to lack is not to gain Our lack's suppliance: where's the trace of such Recorded?" "What if such a tracing were? If some strange story stood,—whate'er its worth,— That the immensely yearned-for, once befell, —The sun was flesh once?—(keep the figure!)” "How? An union inconceivable was fact?"

"Son, if the stranger have convinced himself Fancy is fact—the sun, besides a fire,

Holds earthly substance somehow fire pervades And yet consumes not,—earth, he understands, With essence he remains a stranger to,— Fitlier thou saidst 'I stand appalled before Conception unattainable by me Who need it most'—than this—'What? boast he holds Conviction where I see conviction's need, Alas,—and nothing else? then what remains But that I straightway curse, cuff, kick the fool!

Fire is in the flint: true, once a spark escapes, Fire forgets the kinship, soars till fancy shapes Some befitting cradle where the babe had birth— Wholly heaven's the product, unallied to earth. Splendours recognized as perfect in the star!— In our flint their home was, housed as now they are.

Mihrab Shah

6. MIHRAB SHAH.

Quoth an enquirer, "Praise the Merciful! My thumb which yesterday a scorpion nipped— (It swelled and blackened)—lo, is sound again! By application of a virtuous root The burning has abated: that is well: But now methinks I have a mind to ask,— Since this discomfort came of culling herbs Nor meaning harm,—why needs a scorpion be? Yea, there began, from when my thumb last throbbed,

Advance in question-framing, till I asked Wherefore should any evil hap to man— From ache of flesh to agony of soul— Since God's All-mercy mates All-potency? Nay, why permits He evil to Himself— Man's sin, accounted such? Suppose a world Purged of all pain, with fit inhabitant— Man pure of evil in thought, word and deed— Were it not well? Then, wherefore otherwise? Too good result? But He is wholly good! Hard to effect? Ay, were He impotent! Teach me, Ferishtah!" Said the Dervish: "Friend, My chance, escaped to-day, was worse than thine: I, as I woke this morning, raised my head,

Which never tumbled but stuck fast on neck. Was not I glad and thankful!" "How could head Tumble from neck, unchopped—inform me first! Unless we take Firdusi's tale for truth, Who ever heard the like?" "The like might hap By natural law I let my staff fall thus— It goes to ground, I know not why. Suppose, Whene'er my hold was loosed, hold was loosed, it skyward sprang As certainly, and all experience proved That, just as staves when unsupported sink, So, unconfined, they soar?" "Let such be law— Why, a new chapter of sad accidents

Were added to humanity's mischance, No doubt at all, and as a man's false step Now lays him prone on earth, contrariwise, Removal from his shoulder of a weight Might start him upwards to perdition. Ay! But since such law exists in just thy brain I shall not hesitate to doff my cap For fear my head take flight." "Nor feel relief Finding it firm on shoulder. Tell me, now! What were the bond 'twixt man and man, dost judge, Pain once abolished? Come, be true! Our Shah— How stands he in thy favour? Why that shrug? Is not he lord and ruler?"

"Easily! His mother bore him, first of those four wives Provided by his father, such his luck: Since when his business simply was to breathe And take each day's new bounty. There he stands― Wherelse had I stood, were his birth-star mine? No, to respect men's power, I needs must see Men's bare hands seek, find, grasp and wield the sword Nobody else can brandish! Bless his heart, said, he scarcely counts his fingers right!"

"Well, then—his princely doles! from every feast Off go the feasted with the dish they ate And cup they drank from,—nay, a change besides Of garments…

"Sir, put case, for service done,― Or best, for love's sake,—such and such a slave Sold his allowance of sour lentil soup To therewith purchase me a pipe-stick,―nay, If he, by but one hour, cut short his sleep To clout my shoe,—that were a sacrifice!"

"All praise his gracious bearing." "All praise mine— Or would praise did they never make approach Except on all-fours, crawling till I bade 'Now that with eyelids thou hast touched the earth, Come close and have no fear, poor nothingness!' What wonder that the lady-rose I woo And palisade about from every wind,

Holds herself handsomely? The wilding, now, Ruffled outside at pleasure of the blast, That still lifts up with something of a smile Its poor attempt at bloom… "A blameless life, Where wrong might revel with impunity― Remember that!" "The falcon on his fist— Reclaimed and trained and belled and beautified Till she believes herself the Simorgh's mate— She only deigns destroy the antelope, Stoops at no carrion-crow: thou marvellest?"

"So be it, then! He wakes no love in thee For any one of divers attributes

Commonly deemed love-worthy. All the same, I would he were not wasting, slow but sure, With that internal ulcer… "Say'st thou so? How should I guess? Alack, poor soul! But stay— Sure in the reach of art some remedy Must lie to hand or if it lurk,—that leech Of fame in Tebriz, why not seek his aid? Couldst not thou, Dervish, counsel in the case?"

"My counsel might be—what imports a pang The more or less, which puts an end to one Odious in spite of every attribute Commonly deemed love-worthy?"

"Attributes? Faugh!—nay, Ferishtah,— an ulcer, think! Attributes, quotha? Here's poor flesh and blood, Like thine and mine and every man's, a prey To hell-fire! Hast thou lost thy wits for once?"

"Friend, here they are to find and profit by! Put pain from out the world, what room were left For thanks to God, for love to Man? Why thanks Except for some escape, whate'er the style, From pain that might be, name it as thou mayst? Why love,—when all thy kind, save me, suppose, Thy father—and thy son—and … well, thy dog, To eke the decent number out—we few Who happen—like a handful of chance stars

From the unnumbered host—to shine o'erhead And lend thee light,—our twinkle all thy store,— We only take thy love! Mankind, forsooth? Who sympathizes with their general joy Foolish as undeserved? But pain—see God's Wisdom at work!—man's heart is made to judge Pain deserved nowhere by the common flesh Our birthright,—bad and good deserve alike. No pain, to human apprehension! Lust, Greed, cruelty, injustice crave (we hold) Due punishment from somebody, no doubt: But ulcer in the midriff! that brings flesh Triumphant from the bar whereto arraigned Soul quakes with reason. In the eyes of God Pain may have purpose and be justified: