Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.

With Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man’s knead,

And then of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed:

   Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote

What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

I tell Thee this—When, starting from the Goal,

Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal

   Of Heav’n Parwín and Mushtara they flung,

In my predestin’d Plot of Dust and Soul

The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about

If clings my Being—let the Súfi flout;

   Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key,

That shall unlock the Door he howls without.

And this I know: whether the one True Light,

Kindle to Love, or Wrath—consume me quite,

   One glimpse of It within the Tavern caught

Better than in the Temple lost outright.

Oh, Thou, who didst with Pitfall and with Gin

Beset the Road I was to wander in,

   Thou wilt not with Predestination round

Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to sin?

Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,

And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;

   For