Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried, The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one. IX "When all the Temple is prepared Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you within, Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?" say; Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose 35 Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobád away. X Well, let it take them! What have we to do With Kaikobád the Great, or Kaikhosrû? Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will, Or Hátim call to Supper-heed not you. 40 ΧΙ With me along the strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultán is forgot And Peace to Mahmûd on his golden Throne! XII A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 45 A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou Beside me singing in the WildernessOh, Wilderness were Paradise enow! XIII Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; 50 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 silken tassel of my Purse 55 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 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 85 As, buried once, Men want dug up again.60 That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest, Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust. And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd XXXV "I came like Water, and like Wind I go." I lean'd, the Secret of my Life to learn: Then to the Lip of this poor earthen Urn There was the Door to which I found no Key; 125 not see: And Lip to Lip it murmur'd-"While you live, Drink!-for, once dead, you never shall return." XXXVI 140 And not a drop that from our Cups we throw There was the Veil through which I might For Earth to drink of, but may steal below Some little talk awhile of ME and THEE There was and then no more of THEE and ME. Earth could not answer; nor the Seas that As then the Tulip for her morning sup mourn In flowing Purple, of their Lord forlorn; 130 And hidden by the sleeve of Night and XXXIV 155 Then of the THEE IN ME who works be- To-morrow's tangle to the winds resign, hind The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find And lose your fingers in the tresses of The Cypress-slender Minister of Wine. Would you that spangle of Existence spend You were-To-MORROW you shall not be About THE SECRET quick about it, Friend! less. XLIV A Hair perhaps divides the False and 195 And upon what, prithee, does life depend? L A Hair perhaps divides the False and True; Why, if the Soul can fling the Dust aside, And peradventure to THE MASTER too; 200 And naked on the Air of Heaven ride, When You and I behind the Veil are past, 185 Oh, but the long, long while the World TO-MORROW, when You shall be You no more? |