BENEATH the shadow of a breezeless palm
Mahmoud Ben Suleim, in the evening calm,
Sat, with his gravely meditative eyes
Turned on the waning wonder of the skies;
What time beside him paused a brother sage,
Whose flowing locks, like his, were whit with age:
His gaze a half-veiled fire, seemed sadly cast
Inward, to scan the records of his past--
Perchance the past of man--and thence to draw
From far experience, sanctified by awe
Of God's mysterious ways, some hint to tell
Who of the dead in heaven and who in hell
Dwelt now in endless bliss or endless bale.
Thus, while he mused, the old man's face grew pale
With stringent memories; on his laboring thought
Vague speculations, dim and doubtful, wrought
From out the fragments of the vanished years.
At length he said: "Ben Suleim, lend thine ears
To that I fain would ask thee. Thou art wise
In sacred lore, in pure philosophies;
So tell me now thine inmost thought of heaven
And heaven's fair habitants."
"Whoe'er hath striven,"
Ben Suleim answered, "to the extremest verge
Of spiritual power, across death's dreary surge
Hath passed to find the fathomless peace of God!"
"Yea," quoth the other, smiting on the sod
His staff impatiently. "I know! I know!
But who of all we have seen or loved below
Think'st thou in Aidenn?"
Slowly from his lips,
Wrapped by the smoke-wreaths in a half-eclipse,
Ben Suleim's pipe was lowered: "My friend," said he,
"Hark to this vision of eternity,
Which in the long-gone time of youth did seem
To rise before me in a twilight dream.
Methought the life on earth had passed away,
That near me spread the new, immortal day
Of Paradise; but yet mine eyes looked back
On this our clouded world, and marked the track
My waning life-course still left glimmering there.
Behold! all dues of funeral dole and prayer
Mine heirs had paid me; through the cypress gloom
I saw the glitter of my new-made tomb,
Whereon so many a blazoned virtue shone,
A blush seemed gathering o'er the hardened stone,
And I, albeit a spirit, flushed with shame.
Nathless, just their to Eden gates I came,
And, at the outmost wicket thundering loud,
Summoned full soon an angel from the cloud
Which girds those heavenly portals, blent with mist
Of shifting rainbow arcs of amethyst,
Who, somewhat harshly for an angel, said
I knocked as if an hundred thousand dead,
Not one poor soul, besieged the heavenly door.
He raised his luminous hands, which hovered o'er
For a brief moment, like a flash of stars,
The sapphire brilliance of the circling bars,
Then one by one unclosed them. Entered in
The realm celestial, safe from pain and sin,
I stretched at ease, with shadows cool and dim
Floating about me, thus did question him:
'Fair Seraph, speak. Is not this land divine,
Rife with pure souls, once faithful friends of mine?'
'Nay! be content if wandering here and there,
Thou meet'st a few--none in the loftiest sphere.'
'Where, then,' I cried, 'is holy Ibn Becár?
If not the highest he, surely not far
Beneath the highest that clear spirit beams?'
'Ah! thou art muffled still in earthly dreams,'
The angel answered. 'If on him thou'dst call,
Pass downward, for he's not in Heaven at all!'
'Dread Allah! can it be? So just a man
Walked not, methought, the streets of Ispahan.
Morn after morn, year after year his feet,
Alike in summer's bloom and winter's sleet,
Bore him to worship in the sacred place;
What righteous zeal burned hotly in his face!
And when inspired his heavenly vows he made,
Or 'neath the innermost mosque devoutly prayed,
Why, even the roaring Dervish, robed and cowled,
Shrank from those pious lungs, which almost howled
Creation deaf. A saint we deemed him--one
Pure as the snow, yet ardent as the sun,
Who, not content with turning toward the light
His own blest feet, must set on paths of right
All erring brethren!' 'True,' the angel cried;
'But Ibn Becár, down to the day he died,
Kept on his neighbor's ways so keen an eye
He lost at length his own straight course thereby;
And though the purblind world hath guessed it not,
He bides in Eblis' kingdom; fierce and hot
The waves of Hades roll above him now.'
Amazed, I bowed my head, just whispering low
An 'Allah Kebur.' Next: 'How fares it, then,'
I asked, 'with Hafiz, the wise scribe, whose pen
Signed many a deed of gift, and scored his name
High on the roll of charitable hearts?'
Clear came the answer: "'Mid thy public marts
No soul more sordid strove with heaven to drive
Its wicked bargains. Largely would he give
To general charities; but, sooth to say,
Whene'er he 'scaped the broad, bright gaze of day,
He stamped with cruel heel the writhing poor,
Would turn the perishing beggar from his door,
And wring from friendless widows the last crust
Saved for their half-starved children. God is just;
So Hafiz dwells not here.'
In faltering tone,
As dropped from one who deals with things unknown,
I questioned next: 'Abdallah, he is saved?'
'Nay; for, albeit with seeming truth he braved
Temptation, and each wise and sacred saw
Wrought from the precepts of our prophet's law,
Fell soft as Hybla's honey from his mouth,
Yet, his whole nature withered in the drouth
Of drear hypocrisy. By stealth he bought,
Strong waters of the Giaour, and nightly sought
Oblivion from sweet opiates of the South.
Sickness he feigned, to gain in these his cure;
And once, that he might tipple more and more.
Moved to a province rife with serpents dread,
Because, by such as knew his wiles, 'twas said
He drank the poison of each treacherous throat,
To seek in fiery wine an antidote.
Nathless, a serpent slew him, and his home,
Is far from ours.'
My thoughts began to roam
Vaguely, in loose disorder. Yet again:
'What of Kalkarri, he whose songs of pain
And joy alike forever struck the key,
The under-note of golden purity,
Virtue his theme and heavenly love his muse?'
'Thou fool and blind! Kalkarri could not choose
But sing mellifluous verses; yet in him
The light of truth was always blurred and dim.
A tireless trick of tinkling rhymes he had,
And naught he cared what spirit, good or bad,
O'erruled his lay. The good, perchance, paid best;
Therefore he sang of heavenly joy and rest,
But sang of that whereof he shall not taste.'
'Just Allah!' sighed I, 'see what barren waste
Drinks up my hopes. Since none of all I named
Here for the sacred roll hath Allah claimed,
I pray thee tell me whom his will hath blessed.'
'Dost thou remember Saädi?' 'What, that wretch
Who shod the Bactrian camels--who would fetch
Strange oaths from far to sow our wholesome air
With moral poison?' 'True, the man did swear,'
Confessed the Bright One, sadly. 'Yet so strong
His penitent sorrow o'er the hateful wrong
Done his own soul and Allah, and so rife
With tireless effort his whole earnest life
To smite the giant tempters in his soul,
To kill them outright, or with firm control
Hold them in native darkness chained and cowed--
At last he conquered and our Lord allowed
His weary soul to quaff the founts of balm!'
Amazement held me dumb. Within the palm
Waving above, just then a whispering breeze
Rose, and passed up the long-ranked, radiant trees
Which lined the hills of heaven. It seemed a sigh
Born of soft Mercy's immortality
Wafted toward the throne! The Bright One then,
Lifting his voice harmonious, spake again:
'Ferdusi, the small merchant by the quays,
Too poor to give, but with a heart as broad
As the broad sky, reverent of faith and God;
Islal-ed-Din, who, though he could not make
The commonest prayer, would yet exclaim Amen!
To those who did, so warmly, for the sake
Of truth and fervent worship, all might see
His generous spirit's large sincerity--
Both these are with us,'
'But Wassaf,'said I,
The blameless teacher, who methinks came nigh
Virtue as pure as frail humanity
On earth may compass?' 'Yea; his soul is here,
But his soul wanders in the humblest sphere.
For, mark thee, though no damning sin did stain
This Wassaf's record, still in blood and brain
So weak was he, his pale life-currents flowed
So like dull streamlets through a wan abode
Of windless deserts, that he lived and died
Ne'er by a sharp temptation terrified;
And if his course the Prophet's law fulfilled
And near his path all passionate gusts were stilled,
What credit to him? His to coldly live,
Act, fade--a creature tamely negative
But lo! in flaming contrast the hot stir
Of Agha's fate--Agha, the flute player,
Glutton on earth, wine-bibber, and the rest,
He still is held in heaven a nobler guest
Than all your Wassafs--proper, crimeless, cool,
And soulless, almost, as a stagnant pool,
For Agha's blood a furious torrent ran;
Half brutal he, half tiger and half man,
In health and power, the body's lustful force,
Whose strength to fetter in its turbulent course
Had taxed an angel's will. His nature sore
Tormented him; yet o'er and o'er and o'er
From some vast fall he lifted prayerful eyes,
And like a Titan strove to storm the skies,
Which, through unequalled strife and travails passed,
His hero-soul hath grandly won at last!
No more! no more! the glorious presence said.
'In light to come thy knowledge perfected
Shall bloom in flower and fruit; but, Suleim, say,
Hast thou beheld the swift sky-rocket's ray
Burn up the heavens? How beautiful at first
Its splendors gleamed, too soon, alas! to burst
And die in outer darkness! Thus it is
With many a soul, soaring, men dream, to bliss.
Awhile they mount, clear, dazzling, drunk with light,
To sink in ruin and the desolate night.
Would'st know the true believer? He is one
Whose faith in deeds shines perfect as the sun.
His soul, a shaft feathered by works of grace,
Death, the grim archer, launches forth in space;
It cleaves the clouds, o'ershoots the vaporous wall
That wares 'twixt earth and heaven its mystic pall,
To light, at last, unerring, strong and fleet,
In the deep calm which lies at Allah's feet!'"
