IX THE EXPERIENCE OF THE DOOR

Slow into Kum the Glaring trailed The caravan. Its courage failed A moment. Only dust-clouds veiled The sun, that overhead From fields The Plough had turned to grain, Star-honey laden on The Wain And spices from the wind-domain, Was baking angel-bread. (Astronomers in Baghdad say That Allah gave the Milky Way To feed his guests, the dead.) Even as the dead the pilgrims lay Until the sun received his pay— Man counts in gold, but he in grey— Then, whining as one daft, A voice crept to each sleeper's ear, And one by one sat up to hear It soughing like a Seistan mere Where nothing ever laughed. A blur at elbow on the floor Cried: "Sleep! 'Tis but the tavern door Amoaning in the draught." "Ay," said the master of the inn, "A black-faced gaper that lets in The dark, my creditors, and kin! Last month it strained my wrist, did The lout, so hard it slams. This week Claims it for fuel. See the leak Of air it springs! Its hinges creak, Its wood is warped and twisted. 'Tis heavy-hearted as a man, Stark, crazy thing!... It feels uncann...." The wheezing voice persisted. "Earth bare me in Mazanderan, Where, breaking her dead level plan, Steep foliage opens like a fan To hide her virgin blush; And singing, caravan, like you Brooks dance towards the Caspian blue Past coolth wherein mauve turtles coo To panthers in the rush, That turn hill-pools to amethyst. Here bucks drink deep and tigers tryst Neck-deep in grasses lush. "And there the stainless peaks are kissed By heaven whose crowning mercy, mist, With cloud-lands white as Allah's fist Anoints their heads with rain. We never dreamed, where nature pours, That life could run as thin as yours— A waif thirst-stricken to all fours— Or verdure, but a vein In sandscapes wincing from the sun That burns your flesh and visions dun, Crawl throbbing through the plain. "I grew. My shadow weighed a ton; I held a countless garrison; My boughs were roads for apes to run Around the white owl's niche. The hum of bees, the blue jay's scream.... The forest came to love and teem In me beside the vivid stream Shot through with speckled fish; Till, weary of my sheltered glen, I craved a human denizen Fate granted me my wish. "Yea, I had longed (if slope and fen Can love like this, the love of men Must live above our nature's ken) To see and shade the room, To shield far-leaning the abode, Wherein the souls of lovers glowed To songs that dimmed the bulbul's ode ... And man became my doom. He dragged me through the dew-drenched brake, And took the heart of me to make A tavern-door at Kum." The pilgrims sat erect, engrossed, Or searched the crannies for a ghost. "Ah, heed it not," implored the host; "This hell-burnt father's son Moans ever like a soul oppressed, And takes the fancy of a guest, And makes my house no house of rest: I would its voice were gone. Yet be indulgent, sirs! 'Tis old. Next week it shall be burnt or sold. A new—" The voice went on: "Here have I stood while life unrolled But not the tale my breezes told. Moonlight alone conceals the cold Drab city's lack of heart. Here have I watched an hundred years Bespatter me with blood and tears, Yet leave man ever in arrears Of where my monkeys start. No more, dog-rose and meadow-sweet! The harlot's musk and rotten meat Blow at me from the mart. "No more, clear streams and fairy feet! But through my mouth the striving street Drains in brown spate the men who eat And drink and curse and die; And out of me the whole night long Reel revellers—O God, their song!... Are there no mortals clean and strong, Or do they pass me by? I little thought that I should leave For this the groves where turtles grieve Far closer to the sky. "Instead of every song-bird's note I know the scales a merchant's throat Can compass. I have learned by rote The tricks of Copt and Jew; Can tell if Lur or Afghan brawls, The Armenian way of selling shawls Softly, and how an Arab bawls To rouse the raider's crew, Lest ululating strings of slaves Should take the kennel for their graves.... Raids! I have seen a few, "Or wars, occasion dubs them—waves Of Mongol sultans, Kurdish braves. They—Find me words! the Simûn raves— They worked ... 'tis called their will, Battered me in—behold the dint— With all their hearts that felt like flint, Besmeared the city with the tint Of sunset on my hill. My leopards stalk my bucks at eve— I shivered as I heard them heave— At least they ate their kill. "I followed that.... But men who weave Such flowing robes of make-believe, I think the flood was wept by Eve— Some sportsman shot the dove— These puzzled me, for God is good And man His image—not of wood, Thank God!—At last I understood All ... all except their love. I grew so hard that I could trace His hand's chief glory in their race. Perhaps He wore a glove." Then one without made haste to smite The malcontent. It opened. Night Stood on the threshold dressed in white, And myriad-eyed and blind. The ostler murmured: "Some Afrit Or bitter worm has entered it; Nor jamb nor lintel seems to fit. I know its frame of mind." "Air stirs the dust upon the floor," The landlord cried. "Fool! Shut that door Amoaning in the wind." "My glade was deep, a lichened well Of ether, limpid as a bell Buoyed on the manifold ground-swell Whose distance changed attires As sun-stroked plush, a roundelay Of all red-blue and purple grey, And, at each rise and fall of day, Snows dyed like altar fires Licked through those loud green sheaves of copse, Bent hyphens 'twixt the mountain-tops, Mosques of my motley choirs. "And I, who gave them bed and bower For nights enduring but an hour Mid blaring miles of trumpet-flower, Leagues of liana-wreath, I saw the rocks through leaves and lings, Could blink the fangs and feel the wings, Thrill with the elemental things Of life and love and death. The purity of air and brook And song helped me to overlook The rapine underneath. "But you—no! one dream more: an elf, Askip on ochre mountain-shelf, Who once had seen a man himself. I used his wand to gauge The sheen of moths and peacocks' whir, To plumb the jungle-aisles, to stir The drifts of frankincense and myrrh, And amorous lithe shapes that purr.... 'Tis finished. Turn the page To where man cased his bones in fat. His mate moved like a tiger-cat Until he built her cage. "You, I have watched you all who sat Successive round the food-stained mat, And reckoned many who lived for that Alone; have seen the mark Of that last state the Thinking Beast Peep through the foliage of the feast, And crown its poet's flight with greased Fingers that grope the dark; Have heard a cleanlier bosom catch Her breath, and fumble with my latch Irresolute. The lark "My inmates never feared to match Bespoke the end. I belched the batch, Rolling them down the street, a patch Of dirt against the dawn. Then in its stead there came a saint, Inventor of a soul-complaint, Who gave men's faith a coat of paint Like mine, and made me yawn With furtive wenching. Here have sighed Exultant groom and weeping bride Led like a captive fawn. "This way passed those who marry lean Girl-chattels ere their times of teen. I knew a like but milder scene: A hawk, small birds that cower. How soon the chosen was brought back dead— Poisoned, the hakim always said— The husband groaned beside the bed, Arose, and kept the dower, But swept his conscience out with prayer. Man took the angels unaware When he became a power. "And what of woman? On my stair The merchants spread their gaudiest ware, For which fools bought a love affair That ended in a jerk. Enough! To round the tamasha A bloated thing came by, the Shah; It grinned, and viziers fawned 'Ha! ha!' Curs, brainless as a Turk. And all the women in his train Beheld him once and ne'er again, And called his love their work. "You see, my friends, I tired of this Wild doubling in the chase of bliss. Pards miss their spring as men their kiss, And yet the quarry dies. I learned the world's least mortal god, Whose epitaph is Ichabod, May sport till noon, but if he nod Shall never more arise. Then, caravan, you passed, and I Have solved my riddle with a cry: The sad are never wise. "Your song was all that I had heard In dreams beyond the wildest bird, That rose above my yellow-furred Basses that bell and roar. It took the heart of me in tow To heights that I had longed to know, To the great deeps where lovers go And find—and want—no shore. In these alone is man fulfilled; And gleaming in the air I build My hope of him once more. "For all the few that see truth whole, And take its endlessness for goal, And steer by stars as if no shoal Could mar their firmament, For all the few that sing and sail Knowing their quest of small avail, Thank God who gave them strength to fail In finding what He meant...." "Poets!" the landlord groaned, "and poor! This house is cursed." He banged the door Behind them as they went. And distance placed soft hands upon their mouths.