Bird Parliament · 18 of 20

The Journey and the Seven Valleys

‘The Road! The Road!’ in countless voices cried The Host—‘The Road! and who shall be our Guide?’ And they themselves ‘The Tajidar!’ replied: Yet to make doubly certain that the Voice Of Heav’n according with the People’s Choice, Lots should be drawn; and He on whom should light Heav’n’s Hand—they swore to follow him outright. This settled, and once more the Hubbub quell’d, Once more Suspense the Host in Silence held, While, Tribe by Tribe, the Birds their fortune drew; And Lo! upon the Tajidar it flew. Then rising up again in wide and high Circumference of wings that mesh’d the sky ‘The Tajidar! The Tajidar!’ they cry— ‘The Tajidar! The Tajidar!’ with Him Was Heav’n, and They would follow Life and Limb! Then, once more fluttering to their Places down, Upon his Head they set the Royal Crown As Khalif of their Khalif so long lost, And Captain of his now repentant Host; And setting him on high, and Silence call’d, The Tajidar, in Pulpit-throne install’d, His Voice into a Trumpet-tongue so clear As all the winged Multitude should hear Raised, to proclaim the Order and Array Of March; which, many as it frighten’d—yea, The Heart of Multitudes at outset broke, Yet for due Preparation must be spoke.

—A Road indeed that never Wing before Flew, nor Foot trod, nor Heart imagined—o’er Waterless Deserts—Waters where no Shore— Valleys comprising cloud-high Mountains: these Again their Valleys deeper than the Seas: Whose Dust all Adders, and whose vapour Fire: Where all once hostile Elements conspire To set the Soul against herself, and tear Courage to Terror—Hope into Despair, And Madness; Terrors, Trials, to make stray Or Stop where Death to wander or delay: Where when half dead with Famine, Toil, and Heat, ’Twas Death indeed to rest, or drink, or eat. A Road still waxing in Self-sacrifice As it went on: still ringing with the Cries And Groans of Those who had not yet prevail’d, And bleaching with the Bones of those who fail’d: Where, almost all withstood, perhaps to earn Nothing: and, earning, never to return.— And first the VALE OF SEARCH: an endless Maze, Branching into innumerable Ways All courting Entrance: but one right: and this Beset with Pitfall, Gulf, and Precipice, Where Dust is Embers, Air a fiery Sleet, Through which with blinded Eyes and bleeding Feet The Pilgrim stumbles, with Hyena’s Howl Around, and hissing Snake, and deadly Ghoul, Whose Prey he falls if tempted but to droop, Or if to wander famish’d from the Troop For fruit that falls to ashes in the Hand, Water that reacht recedes into the Sand. The only word is ‘Forward!’ Guide in sight, After him, swerving neither left nor right, Thyself for thine own Victual by Day, At night thine own Self’s Caravanserai. Till suddenly, perhaps when most subdued And desperate, the Heart shall be renew’d When deep in utter Darkness, by one Gleam Of Glory from the far remote Harim, That, with a scarcely conscious Shock of Change, Shall light the Pilgrim toward the Mountain Range Of KNOWLEDGE: where, if stronger and more pure The Light and Air, yet harder to endure; And if, perhaps, the Footing more secure, Harder to keep up with a nimble Guide, Less from lost Road than insufficient Stride— Yet tempted still by false Shows from the Track, And by false Voices call’d aside or back, Which echo from the Bosom, as if won The Journey’s End when only just begun, And not a Mountain Peak with Toil attain’d But shows a top yet higher to be gain’d. Wherefore still Forward, Forward! Love that fired Thee first to search, by Search so re-inspired As that the Spirit shall the carnal Load Burn up, and double wing Thee on the Road; That wert thou knocking at the very Door Of Heav’n, thou still would’st cry for More, More, More!

Till loom in sight Kaf’s Mountain Peak ashroud In Mist—uncertain yet Mountain or Cloud, But where the Pilgrim ‘gins to hear the Tide Of that one Sea in which the Sev’n subside; And not the Sev’n Seas only: but the sev’n And self-enfolded Spheres of Earth and Heav’n— Yea, the Two Worlds, that now as Pictures sleep Upon its Surface—but when once the Deep From its long Slumber ‘gins to heave and sway— Under the Tempest shall be swept away With all their Phases and Phenomena: Not senseless Matter only, but combined With Life in all Varieties of Kind; Yea, ev’n the abstract Forms that Space and Time Men call, and Weal and Woe, Virtue and Crime, And all the several Creeds like those who fell Before them, Musulman and Infidel Shall from the Face of Being melt away, Cancell’d and swept as Dreams before the Day. So hast thou seen the Astrologer prepare His mystic Table smooth of sand, and there Inscribe his mystic figures, Square, and Trine, Circle and Pentagram, and heavenly Sign Of Star and Planet: from whose Set and Rise, Meeting and Difference, he prophesies; And, having done it, with his Finger clean Obliterates as never they had been.

Such is when reacht the Table Land of One And Wonder: blazing with so fierce a Sun Of Unity that blinds while it reveals The Universe that to a Point congeals, So, stunn’d with utter Revelation, reels The Pilgrim, when that Double-seeming House, Against whose Beams he long had chafed his Brows, Crumbles and cracks before that Sea, whose near And nearer Voice now overwhelms his Ear. Till blinded, deafen’d, madden’d, drunk with doubt Of all within Himself as all without, Nay, whether a Without there be, or not, Or a Within that doubts: and if, then what?— Ev’n so shall the bewilder’d Pilgrim seem When nearest waking deepliest in Dream, And darkest next to Dawn; and lost what had When All is found: and just when sane quite Mad— As one that having found the Key once more Returns, and Lo! he cannot find the Door He stumbles over—So the Pilgrim stands A moment on the Threshold—with raised Hands Calls to the eternal Saki for one Draught Of Light from the One Essence: which when quaff’d, He plunges headlong in: and all is well With him who never more returns to tell. Such being then the Race and such the Goal, Judge if you must not Body both and Soul With Meditation, Watch and Fast prepare. For he that wastes his body to a Hair Shall seize the Locks of Truth: and He that prays Good Angels in their Ministry waylays: And the Midnightly Watcher in the Folds Of his own Darkness God Almighty holds. He that would prosper here must from him strip The World, and take the Dervish Gown and Scrip: And as he goes must gather from all Sides Irrelevant Ambitions, Lusts and Prides, Glory and Gold, and sensual Desire, Whereof to build the fundamental Pyre Of Self-annihilation: and cast in All old Relations and Regards of Kin And Country: and, the Pile with this perplext World platform’d, from the Fables of the Next Raise it tow’rd Culmination, with the torn Rags and Integuments of Creeds out-worn; And top the giddy Summit with the Scroll Of Reason that in dingy Smoke shall roll Over the true Self-sacrifice of Soul: (For such a Prayer was his—‘O God, do Thou With all my Wealth in the other World endow My Friends: and with my Wealth in this my Foes, Till bankrupt in thy Riches I repose!’) Then, all the Pile completed of the Pelf Of either World—at last throw on Thyself, And with the torch of Self-negation fire; And ever as the Flames rise high and higher, With Cries of agonising Glory still All of that Self burn up that burn up will, Leaving the Phoenix that no Fire can slay To spring from its own Ashes kindled—nay, Itself an inextinguishable Spark Of Being, now beneath Earth-ashes dark, Transcending these, at last Itself transcends And with the One Eternal Essence blends.

The Moths had long been exiled from the Flame They worship: so to solemn Council came, And voted One of them by Lot be sent To find their Idol. One was chosen: went. And after a long Circuit in sheer Gloom, Seeing, he thought, the TAPER in a Room Flew back at once to say so. But the chief Of Mothistan slighted so slight Belief, And sent another Messenger, who flew Up to the House, in at the window, through The Flame itself; and back the Message brings, With yet no sign of Conflict on his wings. Then went a Third, and spurr’d with true Desire, Plunging at once into the sacred Fire, Folded his Wings within, till he became One Colour and one Substance with the Flame. He only knew the Flame who in it burn’d; And only He could tell who ne’er to tell return’d.