All my doing, all my leaving,
Reaches not to my perceiving;
Lost in whirling spheres I rove,
And know only that I love.

I am seeker of the stone,
Living gem of Solomon;

From the shore of souls arrived,
In the sea of sense I dived;
But what is land, or what is wave,
To me who only jewels crave?
Love is the air-fed fire intense,
And my heart the frankincense;
As the rich aloes flames, I glow,
Yet the censer cannot know.
I'm all-knowing, yet unknowing;
Stand not, pause not, in my going.

Ask not me, as Muftis can, To recite the Alcoran;

Well I love the meaning sweet,

I tread the book beneath my feet.

Lo! the God's love blazes higher, Till all difference expire.

What are Moslems? what are Giaours?

All are Love's, and all are ours.

I embrace the true believers,

But I reck not of deceivers.
Firm to Heaven my bosom clings,
Heedless of inferior things;
Down on earth there, underfoot,
What men chatter know I not.

III

APPENDIX.

THE POET.1

I.

RIGHT upward on the road of fame
With sounding steps the poet came;
Born and nourished in miracles,
His feet were shod with golden bells,
Or where he stepped the soil did peal
As if the dust were glass and steel.
The gallant child where'er he came
Threw to each fact a tuneful name.
The things whereon he cast his eyes
Could not the nations rebaptize,

Nor Time's snows hide the names he set,
Nor last posterity forget.

Yet every scroll whereon he wrote
In latent fire his secret thought,
Fell unregarded to the ground,
Unseen by such as stood around.
The pious wind took it away,
The reverent darkness hid the lay.
Methought like water-haunting birds
Divers or dippers were his words,
And idle clowns beside the mere
At the new vision gape and jeer.

1 This poem was begun as early as 1831, probably earlier, and received additions for more than twenty years, but was never completed. In its early form, it was entitled, The Discontented Poet, A Masque.

But when the noisy scorn was past,
Emerge the winged words in haste.
New-bathed, new-trimmed, on healthy wing,
Right to the heaven they steer and sing.

A Brother of the world, his song
Sounded like a tempest strong

Which tore from oaks their branches broad,
And stars from the ecliptic road.

Times wore he as his clothing-weeds,

He sowed the sun and moon for seeds.
As melts the iceberg in the seas,

As clouds give rain to the eastern breeze,
As snow-banks thaw in April's beam,
The solid kingdoms like a dream
Resist in vain his motive strain,
They totter now and float amain.
For the Muse gave special charge
His learning should be deep and large,
And his training should not scant

The deepest lore of wealth or want:
His flesh should feel, his eyes should read
Every maxim of dreadful Need;

In its fulness he should taste

Life's honeycomb, but not too fast;
Full fed, but not intoxicated;

He should be loved; he should be hated;
A blooming child to children dear,
His heart should palpitate with fear.

And well he loved to quit his home
And, Calmuck, in his wagon roam
To read new landscapes and old skies:-