16

Lovely, oh Lord, this fleeting world; but why Must the frank heart, the quick brain, droop and sigh?

Though usury mingle somewhat with his godship, The white man is the world’s arch-deity;

His asses graze in fields of rose and poppy: One wisp of hay to genius You deny;

His Church abounds with roasts and ruby wines: Sermons and saws are all Your mosques supply.

Your laws are just, but their expositors Bedevil the Koran, twist it awry;

Your paradise no-one has seen: in Europe No village but with paradise can view.

Long, long have my thoughts wandered about heaven; Now in the moon’s blind caverns let them sty!

I, dowered by Nature with empyreal essence, Am dust—but not through dust does my way lie;

Nor East, nor west my home, nor Samarkand, Nor Ispahan nor Delhi; in ecstasy,

God-filled, I roam, speaking what truth I see— No fool for priests, nor yet of this age’s fry.

My folk berate me, the stranger does not love me: Hemlock for sherbet I could never cry;

How could a weigher of truth see Mount Damawand And think a common refuse-heap as high?

In Nimrod’s fire faith’s silent witness, not Like mustard-seed in the grate, burned splutteringly

Blood warm, gaze keen, right-following, wrong-forswearing, In fetters free, prosperous in penury,

In fair of foul untamed and light of heart— Who can steal laughter from a flower’s bright eye?

Will no one hush this too proud thing Iqbal Whose tongue God’s presence‐chamber could not tie!