The Kadisah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi

IV

What Truths hath gleaned that Sage consumed

by many a moon that waxt and waned?
What Prophet-strain be his to sing?

What hath his old Experience gained?

There is no God, no man-made God;

a bigger, stronger, crueller man;
Black phantom of our baby-fears,

ere Thought, the life of Life, began.

Right quoth the Hindu Prince of old,*

“An Ishwara for one I nill,
Th’ almighty everlasting Good

who cannot ’bate th’ Eternal Ill:”

• Buddha.

“Your gods may be, what shows they are?”

hear China’s Perfect Sage declare;*
“And being, what to us be they

who dwell so darkly and so far?”

• Confucius.

“All matter hath a birth and death;

’tis made, unmade and made anew;
“We choose to call the Maker ‘God’:—

such is the Zâhid’s owly view.

“You changeful finite Creatures strain”

(rejoins the Drawer of the Wine)*