The Singing Caravan: A Sufi Tale

In twenty years of lands and seas and cities I had small joy and sought for it the more, Thinking: "If ever I am polymêtis, 'Tis yours to draw upon the hard-won store."

I had some bouts from Samarkand to Paris, And took some falls 'twixt Sweden and Sudan. If I was slow and patient learning parries, I hoped to teach you when you were a man.

I cannot fall to whining round the threshold Where Death awaited you. I lack the skill Of hands for ever working out a fresh hold On life. In mystic ways I serve you still.

The age of miracles is not yet ended. As on the humble feast of Galilee Surely a touch of heaven has descended On the cheap earthen vessel, even on me,

Whose weak content--the soul I travail under-- Unstable as water, to myself untrue, God's mercy makes an everlasting wonder, Stronger than life or death, my love of you.

I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Humphreys, Mr. John Murray, and the Editor of the Spectator for kind permission to reproduce a few of the shorter poems in this tale of Persian mystics. I have included them, firstly, because I wished otherwise new work, being a memorial, to include such fragments of the past as might be worth preserving; secondly, because decreasing leisure inspires a diffidence in the future that may justify me in asking a reader or a friend to judge or remember me only by "Foolery" and "The Singing Caravan."

R. V.