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"Stanzas from the Kasidah"
NOTE: "Kasidah" is an Arabic or Persian panegyric. A panegyric is a public speech or writing in praise of some person, thing, or achievement; a laudatory discourse, a formal or elaborate encomium or eulogy. According to the ancient rules the author of a "qasîda" must begin by a reference to the forsaken camping-grounds. Next he must lament, and pray his comrades to halt, while he calls up the memory of the dwellers who had departed. The Kasidah is a very artificial composition; the same rhyme has to run through the whole of the verses, however long the poem may be. (OED.)
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Friends of my youth, at last adieu!
- Haply some day we meet again;
- The years shall make us other men:
Fie, fie! you visionary things,
- Ye motes that dance in sunny glow,
- On briefest moment here below;
Who pass through Life like caged birds,
- The captives of a despot will;
- And Whence and Whither, wond'ring still;
Who knows not Whence he came nor Why,
- Who kens not Whither bound and When,
- The blessing dreamt by foolish men;
Hardly we learn to wield the blade
- Before the wrist grows stiff and old;
- Ere Thought and Fancy faint with cold.
When swift the Camel-rider spans
- The howling waste, by Kismet sped,
- Hurries the quick to join the dead.
How Thought is impotent to divine
- The secret which the gods defend,
- That Isis-veil no hand may rend.
O the dread pathos of our lives!
- How durst thou, Allah, thus to play
- All that shows the god in mortal clay.
Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail;
- Enjoy thy shining hour of sun;
- But is the dance less full of fun?
How shall the Shown pretend to ken
- Aught of the Showman or the Show?
- Which only means thou ne'er canst know?
There is no Good, there is no Bad;
- These be the whims of mortal will:
- What harms and hurts I hold as "ill:'
They change with place, they shift with race;
- And, in the veriest span of Time,
- All good was banned as Sin or Crime:
All Faith is false, all Faith is true:
- Truth is the shattered mirror strown
- His little bit the whole to own.
What is the Truth? was askt of yore.
- Reply all object Truth is one
- The moral Truth for all is none.
With God's foreknowledge man's free will!
- What monster-growth of human brain,
- This puzzle dense with words inane?
There is no Heaven, there is no Hell;
- These be the dreams of baby brains;
- To 'fright the fools his cunning blinds.
Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight;
- To poorest passion he was born;
- To rue the headache of the morn.
From self-approval seek applause:
- What ken not men thou kennest, thou!
- Before thine own Ideal bow:
Be thine own Deus: Make self free,
- Liberal as the circling air:
- Break every prisoning lock and bar:
By Sir Richard F. Burton (1821-1890).
Just a couple of more notes: Isis was a principal God of ancient Egypt. The expression "to lift the veil of Isis" means to pierce to the heart of a great mystery. "Motes," "ken," "ere," "twain," "rend," and "weal" are old Saxon expressions, old English expressions. "Motes" are the smallest of things; "ken" means know; "ere" means before; "twain" means two; "rend" means to take apart; and "weal" means well being. "Kismet" is a Mohammedan expression meaning fate or destiny. "Durst thou" means "dear you."
My interpretation of "All Faith is false, all Faith is true" is, faith in the unreal is false, Faith in the real is true. And, to conclude my notes on Stanzas from the Kasidah: I say that belief in life alone, in reality alone (no God) does not mean one will run amok. Life is self regulating for us all, and the example is given, "Who drains the score must e'er expect \ To rue the headache of the morn" : too much liquor will make one sick, thus most all of us learn our lesson, and, with experience, rarely does a mature person drink too much.