Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SOUL'S RUBAIYAT: 2, by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SOUL'S RUBAIYAT: 2, by                    
First Line: The I, the creature man, unto my soul
Last Line: That god in man is love in human care.
Subject(s): Bible; Creation; God; Love; Omar Khayyam (1048-1122); Soul


I

The I, the Creature Man, unto my soul:
"Would'st look within the Ruler's great Earth-Scroll?
The folded centuries up-gather then;
By History's torch new-lit, the tale unroll.

" 'Tis travail and the sweat of blood for thee;
The fixed stars of belief reel drunkenly;
Thy sun is blotted out; thy God eclipsed;
Go find us life; this chaos strangles me.

II

"Rugged the mountains round thy pathway close;
From peak to peak, far-glittering with the snows
Of Reason's eyrie home. In what deep hell
Beside thee Doubt, with torch inverted, goes!

"Through legend-vales thou'lt follow pale Despair;
Doubt's poisonous night-shade, but no hope-ray there.
When plaints the ringdove for her Yúsuf lost,
Thou soul, alone, wilt echo 'Where, O where?'

"But oh! through stress, lose not thy God! No God?
Rather I'd be again my native clod;
Would set thee free from this earth-hampered flight.
Make haste: I see too near the broken sod.

"Press on till bulbuls to the lark repeat
Thy prayer, thine incense for the heavenly seat;
Till thou with morning's messenger canst sing
' 'Tis there!'—red roses crushing at thy feet.

III

"Set up thine altar then, emblazoned Truth,—
The In Hoc Salus of they faith forsooth;
And thy libations pour, my heart's best wine;
There sacrifice the treasures of my youth.

"Thy Jesus Hominum Salvator too,
This shrine may prove,—those altar-legends true;
As from the dying seed new breath suspires,
From faith's dead husks Christ-life may spring anew.

IV

"Stand up before thine altar now and swear,
Thou priestess Soul, that to our God Thou'lt bare
Thy brow unto whatever name be true;
Forgotten be the seal it used to wear.

"Thou'lt flinch not when old altars fall to naught.
Theologies stripped to the quick of thought,
And faiths, the sinews of thy life, inwrought
With thy heart-threads, thou'lt give for freedom bought:

" 'Tis spirit-vision with the single view,
A talisman to test the false and true.
No double thought; no judgment in reserve;
Mammon or God; thou can'st not serve the two.

V

"That thou wilt do all this for thee and me,
Swear it, as there is love 'twixt me and thee."
And as she passed, my heart wept bitterly:
Yet 'tis man's only hope that thought be free.

But oh! the hurt when old beliefs are rent
From lives by church-yard door-ways long content:
O dogmas sacred as the mother's breast!
Make haste with healing lest the years be spent.

VI

She came. Her step scarce moved her vestments' fold.
The law was written in her lips' stern mould;
I cried aloud, "O my beloved speak."
Far off her voice; her eyes were deep and old.

VII

"Two graven tablets found I by the way:
One chiseled by the Past, one by To-day:
All faiths must read by these or else we say,
'Perhaps the master-gravers were at play.'

"History and science—friendly scribes, if reads
The reader well; they mark man's changing meeds.
When Knowledge swings the world in line with law,
She'll show God's purpose to the human needs.

"For individual lives, encrusted long
In chrysalis of creeds, are with a song
And spread of wings outbursting to the hope
That Fear as fetish is a primal wrong.

VIII

"These crowds that with a nation's vigor burned,
Whose souls for truth of their Creator yearned;
They sought a Christ but found Tradition's hell;
What wonder if to God-distrust they turned?

"But sons of God, the seal is on them all;
Not potsherds set in rows against the wall.
With errors drugged, they stir as men in sleep;
New life a-thrill, they would shake off the thrall."

IX

"Yea soul, but veinings of a leaflet's plan
Go read," I cried. "From it the Maker scan.
The individual, what is he to God?
O tragedy of him, the Unit-Man!"

X

And long I waited while she wandered—where?

Far off I saw her, resurrection fair
Of form; her face a glory from within;
I knew she had with spirits swept the air.

" 'Tis Love," she cried. "A heart of love the key
That opens now the one life-truth to thee;
That God is love to man, and only love,
To His own children whom He would make free.

"In lights sur'fine—the tints from desert sands—
Beside me stood a man with piercéd hands,
His brightness shaded by the mantling sun;
His voice,—no sound so sweet on summer strands.

XI

" 'Man is not left alone upon the sod
Of earth, his home, though often weary trod;
God's amulet of love, within he bears;
No heart that loves can ever lose its God.

" 'And when thou bearest to the river-brink
Thy talisman of love, thou shalt not shrink;
And there the Angel of eternal life
Shalt lift her Cup o'er-flowed, and bid thee drink.'

XII

"And he was gone. The Mother-Earth looked up,
A twilight on her face; the hasty sup
Of sweetness, fragrant on the desert air;
Earth sighed for yet a cup—a brimming Cup.

"A tender mantle of his thought to thee
Fell on me as he passed. Love gives thee free
Salvation from the 'Body of this death,'
The world-old fetish, dread of God's decree.

XIII

"Even as on Judea's mountain-side,
He spake. And then I knew with vision wide,
Not lore occult nor dogmas complicate
Made of the Nazarene, the Crucified.

"But patience meeting wrong with meekness mild;
Simplicity with wisdom of a child;
And charity's clean hand that cast no stone,
And raised the weeping Mary, undefiled.

"It is the spirit of the Master's thought;
Not deep developments, by scholars wrought
Of doctrines that would shrivel on the lips
Which 'Peace and good will' from the manger brought.

"Spirit of love all human and divine;
One chalice ruby with his heart's red wine,
From lip to lip, the Rabbin then shall pass
In mosque-cathedral-temple, one pure shrine.

XIV

"And there shall come a time of Pentecost
To thee upon thy homeward way, but lost;
When 'tongues of fire,' a spirit flame, the truth
For thee, shall heal thy heart, sore question-tossed.

"Then life shall be an Olivet of peace,
And from its height thy vision shall increase
To unknown kingdoms of His love and joy,
Till doubts like waves on a dead sea shall cease.

"Be it Love's Zion-heights immortalized,
Be it Gethsemanes pain-solemnized,
Be it the cross of life-hopes sacrificed,
Thine eyes shall see the fields emparadised."

XV

She ceased. And from her eyes' uplifted sight
A splendor filled the deepness of the night:
Oh, mantle of the hope that covered me!
O Truth, the glory of that desert light!

XVI

"Accept defeat as to Creation's plan,"
I cried. "There is no other peace for man.
The De Profundis of a life is this,—
Would god be God if I His will could scan?

"Now in the sun I set the bowl to-day:
What matter be it brazen bowl or clay?
It gathered up the light of yesterday;
To-morrow it shall draw a brighter ray.

XVII

"Once Ramoth scoffed and clashed the heavenly keys;
One door defied his hand. 'What then are these?
Insult from Him?' he cried. Then Astrofel,
'The mystery of His Godhead would'st thou seize?'

"So I, the Self, this terror-stricken lord
Of earth who is afraid to meet his God,
Upon th' Eternal Sword would lay a hand,
And would compel th' Almighty's final Word.

XVIII

"Forever vanished now the great god Fear;
Released his captives, to the daylight-cheer.
Gone too, the little gods of fretting creeds;
But Love remains and God is there—is here.

"I see men perjured, mad with lust of fame;
I see them reeking with the gutter's shame.
Behold! they rise and call upon God's name;
For Fear lives not, but Love with eyes of flame."

XIX

O Love, our refuge in earth's wildest storm!
O Service, life-breath of a heart that's warm!
A dual-unity, of heaven born;
For love is service in its highest form.

Flame-tints that shimmer on the desert air!
Love-lights that make Life's sands a garden fair,
Where joy and pain sing softly to the soul
That God in man is Love in human care.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net