The Kasîdah

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With God's foreknowledge man's free will!
what monster-growth of human brain,
What pow'ers of light shall ever pierce
this puzzle dense with words inane?

Vainly the heart on Providence calls,
such aid to seek were hardly wise
For man must own the pitiless Law
that sways the globe and sevenfold skies.

"Be ye Good Boys, go seek for Heav'en,
come pay the priest that holds the key;"
So spake, and speaks, and aye shall speak
the last to enter Heaven, - he.

Are these the words for men to hear?
yet such the Church's general tongue,
The horseleech-cry so strong and high
her heav'enward Psalms and Hymns among.

What? Faith a merit and a claim,
when with the brain 'tis born and bred?
Go, fool, thy foolish ways and dip
in holy water buried dead!

Yet follow not th' unwisdom-path,
cleave not to this and that disclaim;
Believe in all that man believes;
here all and naught are both the same.

But is it so? How may we know?
Haply this Fate, this Law may be
A word, a sound, a breath; at most
the Zâhid's moonstruck theory.

Yet Truth may be, but 'tis not Here;
mankind must seek and find it There,
But Where nor I nor you can tell,
nor aught earth-mother ever bare.

Enough to think that Truth can be:
come sit we where the roses glow,
Indeed he knows not how to know
who knows not also how to 'unknow.

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From Chapter VI of The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, translated by Sir Richard Francis Burton