When i forth fare beyond this narrow earth,
With all its metes and bounds of now and here,
And brooding clouds of ignorance and fear
That overhung me on my day of birth,
Wherethrough the jocund sun’s perennial mirth
Has shone more inly bright each coming year
With some new glory of that outer sphere
Where length and breadth and height are...
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Translated by Sir Edwin Arnold
From “Pearls of the Faith”
He made life—and He takes it—but instead
Gives more: praise the Restorer, Al-Mu’hid!HE who dies at Azan 1 sends
This to comfort faithful friends:—Faithful friends! it lies, I know,
Pale and white and cold as snow;
And ye says, “Abdullah ’s dead!”
Weeping at... -
Shall mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country? Shall mine eyes behold thy glory?
Or shall the darkness close around them, ere the sun-blaze breaks at last upon thy story?
When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle, as a sweet new sister hail thee,
Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence, that have known but to bewail thee?
Shall the ear... -
To make One's Toilette — after Death
Has made the Toilette cool
Of only Taste we cared to please
Is difficult, and still —
That's easier — than Braid the Hair —
And make the Bodice gay —
When eyes that fondled it are wrenched
By Decalogues — away —