Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 92. AL-ZARR, by EDWIN ARNOLD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 92. AL-ZARR, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sheddad, the son of ad, of hadramaut
Last Line: Know and adore thy majesty.
Variant Title(s): King Sheddad's Paradise
Subject(s): God; Islam


Az-Zarr! "Harmful" He is to them that sin
Mocking the truth. Oh man! fear Him herein.

Sheddâd, the son of Ad, of Hadramaut,
Idolater, lord of the land and sea,
Hath it come to ye how he mocked at Heaven,
Saying the idols of the coast were best—
Sâkia that makes the rain, and Hafedha
The Thunderer, Razek who gives grain to men,
And Salema, lady of life and death?—
And how he sware an oath by those four gods,
Drinking the palm-wine deep at Hadramaut,
That he would build a better Paradise
Than Allah's, and be Lord and God therein;
With earthly Houris fairer than those maids
Wrought of the musk and ambergris, who have
The great immortal breasts and black-pearl eyes;
With sweeter streams the Salsabil, and trees
Richer in fruit than Tooba: this he sware,
Abiding not the judgment, nor the blasts
Of Israfil, nor weighing of the scales.
Wherefore he gave command that there be built
In Akhaf, on the hills, beyond the sand—
Within a hollow vale walled by wild peaks—
A pleasure-house—beautiful with white courts
Of leveled marble, and in every court
A fountain, sparkling from a tank inlaid
With amber, nacre, coral; and around,
In every court cloisters of columns carved
With reeded shafts and frontals, wonderful
For beasts and bird and fish and leaf and flower.
And round about this pleasure-house he bade
A lovely garden bloom, terraced by lanes
Bosky with blossoming trees and rose-thickets,
Where hidden streamlets murmured and gold fruit
Loaded the boughs, and all the air was balm.
He gave command, moreover, that there rise
Hard by, with streets and markets, a fair town
Peopled by ministers of pleasure, and walled
With ramparts of the rose and pomegranate;
Where through there led a double folding gate,
Fashioned of fragrant woods, and set with stars
Of silver, opening downwards to the vale,
Inscribed "'The Paradise of King Sheddad.

And when the house was made, and all the courts
Were girdled with the carven shafts, and cooled
With leaping fountains; and the roses, blown,
Filled the green vale with sweetness; and the town
Was heaped with grain and wine, and people moved
Busy and glad about its new fair streets,
Sheddad set forth. A shining line of spears
League-long, wound first upon the mountain-path;
And after them the camel-litters, decked
With silk and gold, and poles of silver, came
Bearing the Houris of his Paradise;
And next the Prince amid his lords: so clumb
The gay march up the sandy steeps, or streamed
Down the gray wadis. At the head of all
Rode one who held a flag of yellow silk,
Which had for its device, "Amid his gods,
Sheddâd, the son of Ad, of Hadramaut,
Unasked of Allah, wends to Paradise."

That night they entered at the silver gate,
Making bold cheer; and sweet the garden was,
And green the groves, and bright the pleasure-house
Lit with a thousand scented lamps, and loud
With dance and cymbal and the beat of drum.
But when the golden horseshoe of the moon
Waned in the west, there came into the sky
Three clouds; and one was white and had the shape
Of a winged angel; one was red and burned
Across the planets like a blazing sword;
And one, thick black, gathered around the head
Of a bare hollow mountain, seamed with gaps
And caverns, wherefrom—full upon their feast—
Brake, of a sudden, flame and cataracts
Of blood-red molten rock, with pitchy smoke
Veiling the heavens, and rain of blinding dust,
All pierced by livid lightning-spears, and driven
By fierce winds, hotter than the breath of hell;
Which sucked the streams, and parched the trees, and dried
Life from the body, as a furnace draws
The moisture from the potter's clay, while earth
Rocked, quaking; and the thunder's vengeful voice
Rolled horrible from crag to crag, and mocked
The death-cry of those choked idolaters:
Whereof, when the sun rose, there breathed not one;
Nor any green thing lingered in the vale;
Nor road nor gate appeared; nor might a man
Say where the garden of King Sheddâd stood:
So were the ways uptorn, and that fair sin
Blotted from vision by the wrath of God.

Yet to this day there lurketh—lost to view
Of all men, hardly found by wandering wolf,
Spied seldom by the vulture's hungry eye—
The remnant of the garden of Iram.
Deep in the wilderness of Aden, hid
Behind wild peaks, and fenced with burning sands,
The perished relics of that pleasaunce lie
Which Sheddâd made, mocking the power of God:
And one who tended camels in the laud,
Abdallah-Ebn-Kelâbah, seeking there
A beast estrayed, followed her footmarks up
Into a gorge, which split a cliff in twain
From sky to sand, dark as the heart of night,
With thickets at its mouth and jutting rocks.
There through he pushed, and when the light once more
Glimmered and grew, he spied a hollow, shut
In the gaunt barren peaks, with black dust strewn,
And piled with cindery crags and bladdered slag,
In midst of which lay—plain to see—the bones
Of Sheddâd's city and his pleasure-house;
All with their withered gardens, and the gate
Rusted and ruined; and the cloistered courts
Swathed in the death-drift, and the marble tanks
Choked to their brims; the carven columns fall'n
Or thrust awry; the bright pavilions foul
With ashes, and with remnants of the dead:
For Ebn-Kelâbah passed into the place,
And saw the valley thronged with carcasses
Of men and women and the townspeople—
Not moldered, as is wont, to whitened bone,
But dried, by the hot blasts of that dread night,
Unto a life in death; the skin and flesh
Yet clinging, and the robes of festival
Still gay of color; all those sinful ones
Slain in their sin even where the whirlwind struck:
So that he saw the dancers as they fell
With dancing-dress and timbrels; and the ring
Of watchers round them; and the slaves who made
Their music; and the bearers bringing wine,
Each by his shriveled wineskin, dead and dry.
Also within the courts lay corpses slim.
Rich-clad and delicate, with jeweled necks,
The Houris of that ruined Paradise.
The sunken eyes stared, and the drawn lips grinned
Under dead rose-crowns, and the shapely limbs
Were grown too lean for the loose tarnished gold
Of armlet and of anklet; dusty lay
Strings of dulled jewels on their shrunken breasts;
And brimmed with dust the cups were which they clasped
In stiff discolored fingers. In their midst
Sate, all agape, King Sheddâd, for a throne
Propped his dead form, and round the waist of it
A sword hung, in a belt of gold and silk,
Hilted with pearls and rubies. This he took—
The camel-man—and glided, terrified,
Back from that City of the Dead; and found
The night-black gorge, and groped his way, and brought
The sword and sword-hilt unto Hadramaut,
Telling the dread things seen of Allah's wrath
Wrought on the misbelievers; and their streets
Wrecked, and their painted courts peopled with dead
Such awful end came on the men of Ad,
Who made the House of Iram; and their lord.

But no foot since hath found that road again,
Nor shall; till Israfil sets to his lips
The trumpet, and Az-Zarr will bid him blow.

Oh, Harmful unto mockers! we
Know and adore Thy majesty.





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