  Moussa, the son of the Crypto-Jew, Had eaten his fill of yellow stew And a bit besides (as a business man He was far too quick for the caravan, Who loved him not, though it feared his guile). Moussa then: "I shall walk awhile "To ease my soul of its heavy load." His pious friends: "May you find a road," And winked. "His soul has begun to feel There's nothing left but a march to steal." But one from the village, decoying quail For the governor's pot, came back with a tale Of a lean arm shaken against the sky Like a stunted thorn, and this piteous cry: "As sound within an ice-bound desert mewed Drags out existence at the very core Of isolation, as breakers slip ashore In vainly eternal whispers to the nude Reef-coral, where no human feet intrude Upon the purity of stillness; or As, far from life, unmated eagles soar Above the hilltops' breathless solitude, "So moves my love, like these a thing apart, Fierce, in the ruined temple of my heart, Shy as a shooting star that peers new-risen Mid strangers. Even so. Pent in the prison Of space my soul, a lonely planet, wheels ... Men call the sum of loneliness 'Ideals.'" This is the plaint that the cross-road heard Where it strikes from Kashan to Burujird. The townsmen, met by the sun-dried stream, Caught a voice high up like an angel's scream Or a teaspoon tapping the bowl of heaven, And they cried: "Ajab! May we be forgiven, "But it sounds a soul of the rarer sort Whose wings are set for no earthly port." And the answer came, as they cried: "Who's that?" "One that sells short weight in mutton fat." |
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