I recollect thy lesson yesterday.
Yet — thanks, Sir, for thy leave to interrupt” . . .
“Friend, I have finished my repast, thank God!”
“There now, thy thanks for breaking fast on fruit! —
Thanks being praise, or tantamount thereto.
Prithee consider, have not things degree,
Lofty and low? Are things not great and small,
Thence claiming praise and wonder more or less?
Shall we confuse them, with thy warrant too,
Whose doctrine otherwise begins and ends
With just this precept ‘Never faith enough
In man as weakness, God as potency’?
When I would pay soul’s tribute to that same,
Why not look up in wonder, bid the stars
Attest my praise of the All-mighty One?
What are man’s puny members and as mean
Requirements weighed with Star-King Mushtari?
There is the marvel!”
“Not to man — that’s me.
List to what happened late, in fact or dream.
A certain stranger, bound from far away,
Still the Shah’s subject, found himself before
Ispahan palace-gate. As duty bade,
He enters in the courts, will, if he may,
See so much glory as befits a slave
Who only comes, of mind to testify
How great and good is shown our lord the Shah.
In he walks, round he casts his eye about,
Looks up and down, admires to heart’s content,
Ascends the gallery, tries door and door,
None says his reverence nay: peeps in at each,
Wonders at all the unimagined use,
Gold here and jewels there, — so vast, that hall —
So perfect yon pavilion! — lamps above
Bidding look up from luxuries below, —
Evermore wonder topping wonder, — last —
Sudden he comes upon a cosy nook,
A nest-like little chamber, with his name,
His own, yea, his and no mistake at all,
Plain o’er the entry: what, and he descries
Just those arrangements inside, — oh, the care! —
Suited to soul and body both, — so snug
The cushion — nay, the pipe-stand furnished so!
Whereat he cries aloud, — what think’st thou, Friend?
‘That these my slippers should be just my choice,
Even to the colour that I most affect,
Is nothing: ah, that lamp, the central sun,
What must it light within its minaret
I scarce dare guess the good of! Who lives there?
That let me wonder at, — no slipper-toys
Meant for the foot, forsooth, which kicks them — thus!’
“Never enough faith in omnipotence, —
Never too much, by parity, of faith
In impuissance, man’s — which turns to strength
When once acknowledged weakness every way.
How? Hear the teaching of another tale.
“Two men once owed the Shah a mighty sum
Beggars they both were: this one crossed his arms
And bowed his head, — ’whereof,’ — sighed he, — ’each hair
Proved it a jewel, how the host’s amount
Were idly strewn for payment at thy feet!’
‘Lord, here they lie, my havings poor and scant!
All of the berries on my currant-bush,
What roots of garlic have escaped the mice,
And some five pippins from the seedling tree, —
Would they were half-a-dozen! anyhow,
Accept my all, poor beggar that I am!’
‘Received in full of all demands!’ smiled back
The apportioner of every lot of ground
From inch to acre. Littleness of love
Befits the littleness of loving thing.
What if he boasted ‘Seeing I am great,
Great must my corresponding tribute be?’
Mushtari, — well, suppose him seven times seven
The sun’s superior, proved so by some sage:
Am I that sage? To me his twinkle blue
Is all I know of him and thank him for,
And therefore I have put the same in verse —
‘Like yon blue twinkle, twinks thine eye, my Love!’
“Neither shalt thou be troubled overmuch
Because thy offering, — littleness itself, —
Is lessened by admixture sad and strange
Of mere man’s-motives, — praise with fear, and love
With looking after that same love’s reward.
Alas, Friend, what was free from this alloy, —
Some smatch thereof, — in best and purest love
Proffered thy earthly father? Dust thou art,
Dust shalt be to the end. Thy father took
The dust, and kindly called the handful — gold,
Nor cared to count what sparkled here and there,
Sagely unanalytic. Thank, praise, love
(Sum up thus) for the lowest favours first,
The commonest of comforts! aught beside
Very omnipotence had overlooked
Such needs, arranging for thy little life.
Nor waste thy power of love in wonderment
At what thou wiselier lettest shine unsoiled
By breath of word. That this last cherry soothes
A roughness of my palate, that I know:
His Maker knows why Mushtari was made.”
Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair
Wealth that never yet was but might be — all that verse-making were
If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare.
So I said “To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse” — And made verse.
Love-making, — how simple a matter! No depths to explore,
No heights in a life to ascend! No disheartening Before,
No affrighting Hereafter, — love now will be love evermore.
So I felt “To keep silence were folly:” — all language above, I made love.
PLOT-CULTURE.
“ Ay , but, Ferishtah,” — a disciple smirked, —
“That verse of thine ‘How twinks thine eye, my Love,
Blue as yon star-beam!’ much arrides myself
Who haply may obtain a kiss therewith
This eve from Laila where the palms abound —
My youth, my warrant — so the palms be close!
Suppose when thou art earnest in discourse
Concerning high and holy things, — abrupt
I out with — ’Laila’s lip, how honey-sweet!’ —
What say’st thou, were it scandalous or no?
I feel thy shoe sent flying at my mouth
For daring — prodigy of impudence —
Publish what, secret, were permissible.
Well, — one slide further in the imagined slough, —
Knee-deep therein, (respect thy reverence!) —
Suppose me well aware thy very self
Stooped prying through the palm-screen, while I dared
Solace me with caressings all the same?
Unutterable, nay — unthinkable,
Undreamable a deed of shame! Alack,
How will it fare shouldst thou impress on me
That certainly an Eye is over all
And each, to mark the minute’s deed, word, thought,
As worthy of reward or punishment?
Shall I permit my sense an Eye-viewed shame,
Broad daylight perpetration, — so to speak, —
I had not dared to breathe within the Ear,
With black night’s help about me? Yet I stand
A man, no monster, made of flesh not cloud:
Why made so, if my making prove offence
To Make
r’s eye and ear?”
“Thou wouldst not stand
Distinctly Man,” — Ferishtah made reply,
“Not the mere creature, — did no limit-line
Round thee about, apportion thee thy place
Clean-cut from out and off the illimitable, —
Minuteness severed from immensity.
All of thee for the Maker, — for thyself,
Workings inside the circle that evolve
Thine all, — the product of thy cultured plot.
So much of grain the ground’s lord bids thee yield
Bring sacks to granary in Autumn! spare
Daily intelligence of this manure,
That compost, how they tend to feed the soil:
There thou art master sole and absolute
— Only, remember doomsday! Twitt’st thou me
Because I turn away my outraged nose
Shouldst thou obtrude thereon a shovelful
Of fertilizing kisses? Since thy sire
Wills and obtains thy marriage with the maid,
Enough! Be reticent, I counsel thee,
Nor venture to acquaint him, point by point,
What he procures thee. Is he so obtuse?
Keep thy instruction to thyself! My ass —
Only from him expect acknowledgment
The while he champs my gift, a thistle-bunch,
How much he loves the largess: of his love
I only tolerate so much as tells
By wrinkling nose and inarticulate grunt,
The meal, that heartens him to do my work,
Tickles his palate as I meant it should.”
Not with my Soul, Love! — bid no Soul like mine
Lap thee around nor leave the poor Sense room!
Soul, — travel-worn, toil-weary, — would confine
Along with Soul, Soul’s gains from glow and gloom,
Captures from soarings high and divings deep.
Spoil-laden Soul, how should such memories sleep?
Take Sense, too — let me love entire and whole —
Not with my Soul!
Eyes shall meet eyes and find no eyes between,
Lips feed on lips, no other lips to fear!
No past, no future — so thine arms but screen
The present from surprise! not there, ‘t is here —
Not then, ‘t is now: — back, memories that intrude!
Make, Love, the universe our solitude,
And, over all the rest, oblivion roll —
Sense quenching Soul!
A PILLAR AT SEBZEVAR.
“ Knowledge deposed, then!” — groaned whom that most grieved
As foolishest of all the company.
“What, knowledge, man’s distinctive attribute,
He doffs that crown to emulate an ass
Because the unknowing long-ears loves at least
Husked lupines, and belike the feeder’s self
— Whose purpose in the dole what ass divines?”
“Friend,” quoth Ferishtah, “all I seem to know
Is — I know nothing save that love I can
Boundlessly, endlessly. My curls were crowned
In youth with knowledge, — off, alas, crown slipped
Next moment, pushed by better knowledge still
Which nowise proved more constant: gain, to-day,
Was toppling loss to-morrow, lay at last
— Knowledge, the golden? — lacquered ignorance!
As gain — mistrust it! Not as means to gain:
Lacquer we learn by: cast in fining-pot,
We learn, — when what seemed ore assayed proves dross, —
Surelier true gold’s worth, guess how purity
I’ the lode were precious could one light on ore
Clarified up to test of crucible.
The prize is in the process: knowledge means
Ever-renewed assurance by defeat
That victory is somehow still to reach,
But love is victory, the prize itself:
Love — trust to! Be rewarded for the trust
In trust’s mere act. In love success is sure,
Attainment — no delusion, whatsoe’er
The prize be: apprehended as a prize,
A prize it is. Thy child as surely grasps
An orange as he fails to grasp the sun
Assumed his capture. What if soon he finds
The foolish fruit unworthy grasping? Joy
In shape and colour, — that was joy as true —
Worthy in its degree of love — as grasp
Of sun were, which had singed his hand beside.
What if he said the orange held no juice
Since it was not that sun he hoped to suck?
This constitutes the curse that spoils our life
And sets man maundering of his misery,
That there’s no meanest atom he obtains
Of what he counts for knowledge but he cries
‘Hold here, — I have the whole thing, — know, this time,
Nor need search farther!’ Whereas, strew his path
With pleasures, and he scorns them while he stoops:
‘This fitly call’st thou pleasure, pick up this
And praise it, truly? I reserve my thanks
For something more substantial.’ Fool not thus
In practising with life and its delights!
Enjoy the present gift, nor wait to know
The unknowable. Enough to say ‘I feel
Love’s sure effect, and, being loved, must love
The love its cause behind, — I can and do!’
Nor turn to try thy brain-power on the fact,
(Apart from as it strikes thee, here and now —
Its how and why, i’ the future and elsewhere)
Except to — yet once more, and ever again,
Confirm thee in thy utter ignorance:
Assured that, whatsoe’er the quality
Of love’s cause, save that love was caused thereby,
This — nigh upon revealment as it seemed
A minute since — defies thy longing looks,
Withdrawn into the unknowable once more.
Wholly distrust thy knowledge, then, and trust
As wholly love allied to ignorance!
There lies thy truth and safety. Love is praise,
And praise is love! Refine the same, contrive
An intellectual tribute — ignorance
Appreciating ere approbative
Of knowledge that is infinite? With us
The small, who use the knowledge of our kind
Greater than we, more wisely ignorance
Restricts its apprehension, sees and knows
No more than brain accepts in faith of sight,
Takes first what comes first, only sure so far.
By Sebzevar a certain pillar stands
So aptly that its gnomon tells the hour;
What if the townsmen said ‘Before we thank
Who placed it, for his serviceable craft,
And go to dinner since its shade tells noon,
Needs must we have the craftsman’s purpose clear
On half a hundred more recondite points
Than a mere summons to a vulgar meal!’
Better they say ‘How opportune the help!
Be loved and praised, thou kindly-hearted sage
Whom Hudhud taught, — the gracious spirit-bird, —
How to construct the pillar, teach the time!’
So let us say — not ‘Since we know, we love,’
But rather ‘Since we love, we know enough.’
Perhaps the pillar by a spell controlled
Mushtari in his courses? Added grace
Surely I count it that the sage devised,
Beside celestial service, ministry
To all the land, by one sharp shade at noon
Falling as folk foresee. Once more then, Friend —
(What
ever in those careless ears of thine
Withal I needs must round thee) — knowledge doubt
Even wherein it seems demonstrable!
Love, — in the claim for love, that’s gratitude
For apprehended pleasure, nowise doubt!
Pay its due tribute, — sure that pleasure is,
While knowledge may be, at the most. See, now!
Eating my breakfast, I thanked God. — ’For love
Shown in the cherries’ flavour? Consecrate
So petty an example?’ There’s the fault!
We circumscribe omnipotence. Search sand
To unearth water: if first handful scooped
Yields thee a draught, what need of digging down
Full fifty fathoms deep to find a spring
Whereof the pulse might deluge half the land?
Drain the sufficient drop, and praise what checks
The drouth that glues thy tongue, — what more would help
A brimful cistern? Ask the cistern’s boon
When thou wouldst solace camels: in thy case,
Relish the drop and love the loveable!”
“And what may be unloveable?”
“Why, hate!
If out of sand comes sand and nought but sand
Affect not to be quaffing at mirage,
Nor nickname pain as pleasure. That, belike,
Constitutes just the trial of thy wit
And worthiness to gain promotion, — hence,
Proves the true purpose of thine actual life.
Thy soul’s environment of things perceived,
Things visible and things invisible,
Fact, fancy — all was purposed to evolve
This and this only — was thy wit of worth
To recognize the drop’s use, love the same,
And loyally declare against mirage
Though all the world asseverated dust
Was good to drink? Say, ‘what made moist my lip,
That I acknowledged moisture:’ thou art saved!
“For why? The creature and creator stand
Rightly related so. Consider well!
Were knowledge all thy faculty, then God
Must be ignored: love gains him by first leap.
Frankly accept the creatureship: ask good
To love for: press bold to the tether’s end
Allotted to this life’s intelligence!
‘So we offend?’ Will it offend thyself
If, — impuissance praying potency, —
Thy child beseech that thou command the sun
Rise bright to-morrow — thou, he thinks supreme
In power and goodness, why shouldst thou refuse?
Afterward, when the child matures, perchance
The fault were greater if, with wit full-grown,
The stripling dared to ask for a dinar,
Than that the boy cried ‘Pluck Sitara down
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 216