The Abana, River of Damascus

How Life is dim, unreal, vain, like scenes that round the drunkard reel; How “Being” meaneth not to be; to see and hear, smell, taste and feel.

A drop in Ocean’s boundless tide, unfathom’d waste of agony; Where millions live their horrid lives by making other millions die.

How with a heart that would through love to Universal Love aspire, Man woos infernal chance to smite, as Min’arets draw the Thunder-fire.

How Earth on Earth builds tow’er and wall, to crumble at a touch of Time; How Earth on Earth from Shînar-plain the heights of Heaven fain would climb.

How short this Life, how long withal; how false its weal, how true its woes, This fever-fit with paroxysms to mark its opening and its close.

Ah! gay the day with shine of sun, and bright the breeze, and blithe the throng Met on the River-bank to play, when I was young, when I was young:

Such general joy could never fade; and yet the chilling whisper came One face had paled, one form had failed; had fled the bank, had swum the stream;

Still revellers danced, and sang, and trod the hither bank of Time’s deep tide, Still one by one they left and fared to the far misty thither side;

And now the last hath slipt away yon drear Death-desert to explore, And now one Pilgrim worn and lorn still lingers on the lonely shore.

Yes, Life in youth-tide standeth still; in manhood streameth soft and slow; See, as it nears the ’abysmal goal how fleet the waters flash and flow!

And Deaths are twain; the Deaths we see drop like the leaves in windy Fall; But ours, our own, are ruined worlds, a globe collapst, last end of all.

We live our lives with rogues and fools, dead and alive, alive and dead, We die ’twixt one who feels the pulse and one who frets and clouds the head:

And,—oh, the Pity!—hardly conned the lesson comes its fatal term; Fate bids us bundle up our books, and bear them bod’ily to the worm:

Hardly we learn to wield the blade before the wrist grows stiff and old; Hardly we learn to ply the pen ere Thought and Fancy faint with cold.

Hardly we find the path of love, to sink the self, forget the “I,” When sad suspicion grips the heart, when Man, the Man begins to die:

Hardly we scale the wisdom-heights, and sight the Pisgah-scene around, And breathe the breath of heav’enly air, and hear the Spheres’ harmonious sound;

When swift the Camel-rider spans the howling waste, by Kismet sped, And of his Magic Wand a wave hurries the quick to join the dead.*

* Death in Arabia rides a Camel, not a pale horse.

How sore the burden, strange the strife; how full of splendour, wonder, fear; Life, atom of that Infinite Space that stretcheth ’twixt the Here and There.

How Thought is imp’otent to divine the secret which the gods defend, The Why of birth and life and death, that Isis-veil no hand may rend.

Eternal Morrows make our Day; our Is is aye to be till when Night closes in; ’tis all a dream, and yet we die,—and then and THEN?

And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man Weaving th’ unpattern’d dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan.

Dost not, O Maker, blush to hear, amid the storm of tears and blood, Man say Thy mercy made what is, and saw the made and said ’twas good?

The marvel is that man can smile dreaming his ghostly ghastly dream;- Better the heedless atomy that buzzes in the morning beam!

O the dread pathos of our lives! how durst thou, Allah, thus to play With Love, Affection, Friendship, all that shows the god in mortal clay?

But ah! what ’vaileth man to mourn; shall tears bring forth what smiles ne’er brought; Shall brooding breed a thought of joy? Ah hush the sigh, forget the thought!

Silence thine immemorial quest, contain thy nature’s vain complaint None heeds, none cares for thee or thine;— like thee how many came and went?

Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail; enjoy thy shining hour of sun; We dance along Death’s icy brink, but is the dance less full of fun?