Nor idle I who speak it, nor profane,
This playful wisdom growing out of pain;
How many midnights whitened into morn
Before the seeker knew he sought in vain.
You want to know the Secret--so did I,
Low in the dust I sought it, and on high
Sought it in awful flight from star to star,
The Sultan's watchman of the starry sky.
Up, up, where Parwin's hoofs stamp heaven's floor,
My soul went knocking at each starry door,
Till on the stilly top of heaven's stair,
Clear-eyed I looked--and laughed--and climbed no more.
Of all my seeking this is all my gain:
No agony of any mortal brain
Shall wrest the secret of the life of man;
The Search has taught me that the Search is vain.
Yet sometimes on a sudden all seems clear--
Hush! hush! my soul, the Secret draweth near;
Make silence ready for the speech divine--
If Heaven should speak, and there be none to hear!
Yea! sometimes on the instant all seems plain,
The simple sun could tell us, or the rain;
The world, caught dreaming with a look of heaven,
Seems on a sudden tip-toe to explain.
Like to a maid who exquisitely turns
A promising face to him who, waiting, burns
In hell to hear her answer--so the world
Tricks all, and hints what no man ever learns.
Look not above, there is no answer there;
Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer;
Near is as near to God as any Far,
And Here is just the same deceit as There.
To me there is much comfort in the thought
That all our agonies can alter nought,
Our lives are written to their latest word,
We but repeat a lesson He hath taught.
That all our agonies can alter nought,
Our lives are written to their latest word,
We but repeat a lesson He hath taught.
So since with all my passion and my skill,
The world's mysterious meaning mocks me still,
Shall I not piously believe that I
Am kept in darkness by the heavenly will?
And do you think that unto such as you,
A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew,
God gave the Secret, and denied it me?--
Well, well, what matters it! believe that too.
