XX

Yet if all things that vanish in their noon
  Are but the part of some eternal scheme,
  Of what the nightingale may chance to dream
Or what the lotus murmurs to the moon!

XXI

Have I not heard sagacious ones repeat
  An irresistibly grim argument: 
  That we for all our blustering content
Are as the silent shadows at our feet.

XXII

Aye, when the torch is low and we prepare
  Beyond the notes of revelry to pass—­
  Old Silence will keep watch upon the grass,
The solemn shadows will assemble there.

XXIII

No Sultan at his pleasure shall erect
  A dwelling less obedient to decay
  Than I, whom all the mysteries obey,
Build with the twilight for an architect.

XXIV

Dark leans to dark! the passions of a man
  Are twined about all transitory things,
  For verily the child of wisdom clings
More unto dreamland than Arabistan.

XXV

Death leans to death! nor shall your vigilance
  Prevent him from whate’er he would possess,
  Nor, brother, shall unfilial peevishness
Prevent you from the grand inheritance.

XXVI

Farewell, my soul!—­bird in the narrow jail
  Who cannot sing.  The door is opened!  Fly! 
  Ah, soon you stop, and looking down you cry
The saddest song of all, poor nightingale.

XXVII

Our fortune is like mariners to float
  Amid the perils of dim waterways;
  Shall then our seamanship have aught of praise
If the great anchor drags behind the boat?

XXVIII

Ah! let the burial of yesterday,
  Of yesterday be ruthlessly decreed,
  And, if you will, refuse the mourner’s reed,
And, if you will, plant cypress in the way.

XXIX

As little shall it serve you in the fight
  If you remonstrate with the storming seas,
  As if you querulously sigh to these
Of some imagined haven of delight.

XXX

Steed of my soul! when you and I were young
  We lived to cleave as arrows thro’ the night,—­
  Now there is ta’en from me the last of light,
And wheresoe’er I gaze a veil is hung.

XXXI

No longer as a wreck shall I be hurled
  Where beacons lure the fascinated helm,
  For I have been admitted to the realm
Of darkness that encompasses the world.