Classic Poem

O Arab! much I fear thou at Mecca's shrine wilt never be,
For the road that thou art going is the road to Tartary — Sa'di.

I LEFT the dusty travelled road the proper people tread —
Like solemn sheep they troop along, Tradition at their head;
I went by meadow, stream, and wood; I wandered at my will;
And in my wayward ears a cry of warning echoed still:
" Beware! beware! " — an old refrain they chanted after me —
" The road that thou art going is the road to Tartary. "

I clambered over dawn-lit hills — the dew was on my feet;
I crossed the sullen pass at night in wind and rain and sleet;
I followed trains of errant thought through heaven and earth and hell,
And thence I seemed to hear again that unctuous farewell,
For there I dreamed the little fiends were pointing all at me:
" The road that thou art going is the road to Tartary. "

From all the pious wrangling sects I set my spirit free:
I own no creed but God and Love and Immortality.
Their dogmas and their disciplines are dust and smoke and cloud;
They cannot see my sunlit way; and still they cry aloud,
From church, conventicle, and street, that warning old to me:
" The road that thou art going is the road to Tartary. "

I found a woman God had made, the blind world tossed aside —
It had not dreamed the greatness hid in poverty and pride.
I left the world to walk with her and talk with her and learn
The secret things of happiness — and will I now return
To that blind, prudish world that shrugs and lifts its brows at me:
" The road that thou art going is the road to Tartary " ?

Nay; we will go together, Love — we two to greet the sun.
There are more roads than one to heaven, perhaps more heavens than one.
Here on the lonely heights we see things hid from those who tread
Like sheep the dusty trodden way, Tradition at their head.
We sense the common goal of all — in Mecca we shall be,
Though the road that we are going seem the road to Tartary.