Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 08.djvu/92



Death finds us soiled, though we were pure at birth,

With grief we go, although we came with mirth;

Watered with tears, and burned with fires of woe,

And, casting life to winds, we rest in earth!

To find great Jamshid's world-reflecting bowl

I compassed sea and land, and viewed the whole;

But, when I asked the wary sage, I learned

That bowl was my own body, and my soul!

Me, cruel Queen! you love to captivate,

And from a knight to a poor pawn trarlslate;

You marshal all your force to tire me out,

You take my rooks with yours, and then checkmate!

If Allah wills me not to will aright,

Row can I frame my will to will aright?

Each single act I will must needs be wrong,

Since none but He has power to will aright.

"For once, while roses are in bloom, " I said,

"I'll break the law, and please myself instead,

With blooming youths, and maidens' tulip cheeks

The plain shall blossom like a tulip-bed. "

Think not I am existent of myself,

Or walk this blood-stained pathway of myself;

This being is not I, it is of Him.

Pray what, and where, and whence is this "myself"?