Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
IX.
Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say:
Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
And this first Summer month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.
X.
Well, let it take them! What have we to do
With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru?
Let Zal and Rustum
bluster as they will,
Or Hatim call to Supper--heed not you.
XI.
With me along the strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot--
And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne!
XII.
A Book of Verses
underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
XIII.
Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the
rumble of a distant Drum!
XIV.
Look to the blowing Rose about us--"Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the world I blow,
At once the
silkentassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."
XV.
And those who husbanded the Golden grain,
And those who flung it to the winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.
XVI.
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two--is gone.
XVII.
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Portals are
alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.
XVIII.
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.
XIX.
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
XX.
And this reviving Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean--
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!
XXI.
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears:
To-morrow--Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.
XXII.
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept
silently to rest.
XXIII.
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?
XXIV.
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!
XXV.
Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after some TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries,
"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There."
XXVI.
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so wisely--they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
XXVII.
Myself when young did
eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.
XXVIII.
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand
wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd--
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."
XXIX.
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not W
hither, willy-nilly blowing.
XXX.
What, without asking,
hitherhurried Whence?
And, without asking, W
hitherhurried hence!
Oh, many a Cup of this
forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence!
XXXI.
Up from Earth's Center through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.
XXXII.
There was the Door to which I found no Key;
There was the Veil through which I might not see:
Some little talk
awhile of ME and THEE
There was--and then no more of THEE and ME.
XXXIII.
Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that mourn
In flowing Purple, of their Lord Forlorn;
Nor rolling Heaven, with all his Signs reveal'd
And
hidden by the
sleeve of Night and Morn.
XXXIV.
Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind
The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find
A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,
As from Without--"THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND!"
XXXV.
Then to the Lip of this poor
earthen Urn
I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live,
"Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return."
XXXVI.
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And drink; and Ah! the
passive Lip I kiss'd,
How many Kisses might it take--and give!
XXXVII.
For I remember stopping by the way
To watch a Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all-obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd--"Gently, Brother,
gently, pray!"
XXXVIII.
And has not such a Story from of Old
Down Man's
successive generations roll'd
Of such a clod of saturated Earth
Cast by the Maker into Human mold?
XXXIX.
And not a drop that from our Cups we throw
For Earth to drink of, but may steal below
To
quench the fire of Anguish in some Eye
There
hidden--far beneath, and long ago.
XL.
As then the Tulip for her morning sup
Of Heav'nly Vintage from the soil looks up,
Do you devoutly do the like, till Heav'n
To Earth
invert you--like an empty Cup.
XLI.
Perplext no more with Human or Divine,
To-morrow's
tangle to the winds resign,
And lose your fingers in the tresses of
The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine.
XLII.
And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in what All begins and ends in--Yes;
Think then you are TO-DAY what YESTERDAY
You were--TO-MORROW you shall not be less.
XLIII.
So when that Angel of the darker Drink
At last shall find you by the river-brink,
And,
offering his Cup, invite your Soul
Forth to your Lips to quaff--you shall not shrink.
XLIV.
Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside,
And naked on the Air of Heaven ride,
Were't not a Shame--were't not a Shame for him
In this clay
carcass crippled to abide?
XLV.
'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest
A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest;
The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash
Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.
XLVI.
And fear not lest Existence closing your
Account, and mine, should know the like no more;
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd
Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.
XLVII.
When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast.
XLVIII.
A Moment's Halt--a
momentary taste
Of BEING from the Well amid the Waste--