was addressed again, and a recognition took place, to the great astonishment of the moonshee and his friends. Such a jovial companion Sir Richard was, that his bungalow was the resort of the learned men of the place, amongst whom I noticed Major (afterwards General) Walter Scott, Lieutenant (and now General) Alfred De Lisle, Lieutenant Edward Dansey of Mooltan notoriety, Dr. Stocks, and many others, but who, with the exception of General De Lisle, are all gone to their home above, where Sir Richard has now followed. May their souls rest in peace!
"Some time or other Lady Burton may write a memoir of Sir Richard's life, and a slight incident as the one I have related may be of use to her, and if you think as I do, and consider it worth inserting in a corner of your paper, I shall be very much obliged to you if you will do so.
"Yours, etc.,
"Walter Abraham.
"October 31, 1891."
On the return journey from Mecca, when Richard could secure any privacy, he composed the most exquisite gem of Oriental poetry, that I have ever heard or imagined, nor do I believe it has its equal, either from the pen of Hafiz, Saadi, Shakespeare, Milton, Swinburne, or any other. It is quite unique; it is called the Kasîdah, or the "Lay of the Higher Law," by Haji Abdu el-Yezdi. It will ride over the heads of most, it will displease many, but it will appeal to all large hearts and large brains for its depth, height, breadth, for its heart, nobility, its pathos, its melancholy, its despair. It is the very perfection of romance, it seems the cry of a Soul wandering through space, looking for what it does not find. I have read it many times during my married life, and never without bitter tears, and when I read it now, it affects me still more; he used to take it away from me, it impressed me so. I give you the poem here in full.
It reminds me more than any other thing of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyâm, the astronomer-poet of Khorasán, known as the tent-maker, written in the eleventh century, which poem was made known by Mr. Edward Fitzgerald in about 1861, to Richard Burton, to Swinburne, and Dante Rossetti. Richard at once claimed him as a brother Sufi, and said that all his allusions are purely typical, and particularly in the second verse—
II.
"Before the phantom of False morning died,
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried,
'When all the temple is prepared within,
Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside?'"
Yet the "Kasîdah" was written in 1853—the Rubáiyát he did not know till eight years later.
The Kasîdah.
I shall reproduce the "Kasîdah" in its entirety, with its fifteen pages of copious annotations, in the Uniform Library of Sir Richard's works which I am editing. I give the annotations in the Appendix.
It is a poem of extraordinary power on the nature and destiny of Man, anti-Christian and Pantheistic. So much wealth of Oriental learning has rarely been compressed into so small a compass.
"Let his page
Which charms the chosen spirits of the age,
Fold itself for a serener clime
Of years to come, and find its recompense
In that just expectation."
——Shelley.
"Let them laugh at me for speaking of things which they do not understand; and I must pity them while they laugh at me."——St. Augustine.
To The Reader.
The Translator has ventured to entitle a "Lay of the Higher Law" the following Composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and he has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as the "Higher Culture." The principles which justify the name are as follows:—
The Author asserts that Happiness and Misery are equally divided and distributed in the world.
He makes Self-cultivation, with due regard to others, the sole and sufficient object of human life.
He suggests that the affections, the sympathies and the "divine gift of Pity" are man's highest enjoyments.
He advocates suspension of judgment, with a proper suspicion of "Facts, the idlest of superstitions."
Finally, although destructive to appearance, he is essentially reconstructive.
For other details concerning the Poem and the Poet, the curious reader is referred to the end of the volume (i.e. the Appendix).
THE KASÎDAH (COUPLETS) OF HAJI ABDU EL-YEZDI.
A Lay of the Higher Law.
The hour is nigh; the waning Queen walks forth to rule the later night;
Crown'd with the sparkle of a Star, and throned on orb of ashen light:
The Wolf-tail10 sweeps the paling East to leave a deeper gloom behind, And Dawn uprears her shining head, sighing with semblance of a wind: The highlands catch yon Orient gleam, while purpling still the lowlands lie; And pearly mists, the morning-pride, soar incense-like to greet the sky. The horses neigh, the camels groan, the torches gleam, the cressets flare; The town of canvas falls, and man with din and dint invadeth air: The Golden Gates swing right and left; up springs the Sun with flamy brow; The dew-cloud melts in gush of light; brown Earth is bathed in morning-glow. Slowly they wind athwart the wild, and while young Day his anthem swells, Sad falls upon my yearning ear the tinkling of the Camel-bells: O'er fiery waste and frozen wold, o'er horrid hill and gloomy glen, The home of grisly beast and Ghoul,11 the haunts of wilder, grislier men;— With the brief gladness of the Palms, that tower and sway o'er seething plain, Fraught with the thoughts of rustling shade, and welling spring, and rushing rain; With the short solace of the ridge, by gentle zephyrs played upon, Whose breezy head and bosky side front seas of cooly celadon;— 'Tis theirs to pass with joy and hope, whose souls shall ever thrill and fill Dreams of the Birthplace and the Tomb—visions of Allah's Holy Hill.12 But we? Another shift of scene, another pang to rack the heart; Why meet we on the bridge of Time to 'change one greeting and to part? We meet to part; yet asks my sprite, Part we to meet? Ah! is it so? Man's fancy-made Omniscience knows, who made Omniscience nought can know. Why must we meet, why must we part, why must we bear this yoke of MUST, Without our leave or askt or given, by tyrant Fate on victim thrust? That Eve so gay, so bright, so glad, this Morn so dim, and sad, and grey; Strange that life's Registrar should write this day a day, that day a day! Mine eyes, my brain, my heart, are sad—sad is the very core of me; All wearies, changes, passes, ends; alas! the Birthday's injury! Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again; Yet ne'er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us other men: The light of morn has grown to noon, has paled with eve, and now farewell! Go, vanish from my Life as dies the tinkling of the Camel's bell. * * * * * In these drear wastes of sea-born land, these wilds where none may dwell but He, What visionary Pasts revive, what process of the Years we see: Gazing beyond the thin blue line that rims the far horizon-ring, Our sadden'd sight why haunt these ghosts, whence do these spectral shadows spring? What endless questions vex the thought, of Whence and Whither, When and How? What fond and foolish strife to read the Scripture writ on human brow; As stand we percht on point of Time, betwixt the two Eternities, Whose awful secrets gathering round with black profound oppress our eyes. "This gloomy night, these grisly waves, these winds and whirlpools loud and dread: What reck they of our wretched plight who Safety's shore so lightly tread?" Thus quoth the Bard of Love and Wine,13 whose dream of Heaven ne'er could rise Beyond the brimming Kausar-cup and Houris with the white-black eyes; Ah me! my race of threescore years is short, but long enough to pall My sense with joyless joys as these, with Love and Houris, Wine and all. Another boasts he would divorce