Ferishtah's Fancies/The Sun
5. THE SUN.
"And what might that bold man's announcement be"—Ferishtah questioned—"which so moved thine ireThat thou didst curse, nay, cuff and kick—in short,Confute the announcer? Wipe those drops awayWhich start afresh upon thy face at mereMention of such enormity: now, speak!"
"He scrupled not to say—(thou warrantest,O patient Sir, that I unblamed repeatAbominable words which blister tongue?)— God once assumed on earth a human shape:(Lo, I have spitten!) Dared I ask the grace,Fain would I hear, of thy subtility,From out what hole in man's corrupted heartCreeps such a maggot: fancies verminousBreed in the clots there, but a monster bornOf pride and folly like this pest—thyselfOnly canst trace to egg-shell it hath chipped."
The sun rode high. "During our ignorance"—Began Ferishtah—"folk esteemed as GodYon orb: for argument, suppose him so,—Be it the symbol, not the symbolized,I and thou safelier take upon our lips.Accordingly, yon orb that we adore —What is he? Author of all light and life:Such one must needs be somewhere: this is he.Like what? If I may trust my human eyes,A ball composed of spirit-fire, whence springs—What, from this ball, my arms could circle round?All I enjoy on earth. By consequence,Inspiring me with—what? Why, love and praise.I eat a palatable fig—there's loveIn little who first planted what I pluck,Obtains my little praise, too: more of bothKeeps due proportion with more cause for each:So, more and ever more, till most of allCompletes experience, and the orb, descriedUltimate giver of all good, perforceGathers unto himself all love, all praise, Is worshipped—which means loved and praised at height.Back to the first good: 't was the gardener gaveOccasion to my palate's pleasure: grace,Plain on his part, demanded thanks on mine.Go up above this giver,—step by step,Gain a conception of what—(how and why,Matters not now)—occasioned him to give,Appointed him the gardener of the ground,—I mount by just progression slow and sureTo some prime giver—here assumed yon orb—Who takes my worship. Whom have I in mind,Thus worshipping, unless a man, my likeHowe'er above me? Man, I say—how else,I being man who worship? Here 's my handLifts first a mustard-seed, then weight on weight Greater and ever greater, till at lastIt lifts a melon, I suppose, then stops―Hand-strength expended wholly: so, my loveFirst lauds the gardener for the fig his gift,Then, looking higher, loves and lauds still more,Who hires the ground, who owns the ground, Sheikh, Shah,On and away, away and ever on,Till, at the last, it loves and lauds the orbUltimate cause of all to laud and love.Where is the break, the change of qualityIn hand's power, soul's impulsion? Gift was grace,The greatest as the smallest. Had I stoppedAnywhere in the scale, stayed love and praiseAs so far only fit to follow gift, Saying 'I thanked the gardener for his fig,But now that, lo, the Shah has filled my purseWith tomans which avail to purchase meA fig-tree forest, shall I pay the sameWith love and praise, the gardener's proper fee?'Justly would whoso bears a brain object'Giving is giving, gift claims gift's return,Do thou thine own part, therefore: let the ShahAsk more from who has more to pay. PerchanceHe gave thee from his treasure less by muchThan the soil's servant: let that be! Thy partIs plain—to meet and match the gift and giftWith love and love, with praise and praise, till bothCry 'All of us is thine, we can no more!'So shalt thou do man's utmost—man to man: For as our liege the Shah's sublime estateMerely enhaloes, leaves him man the same,So must I count that orb I call a fire(Keep to the language of our ignorance)Something that's fire and more beside: mere fire—Is it a force which, giving, knows it gives,And wherefore, so may look for love and praiseFrom me, fire's like so far, however lessIn all beside? Prime cause this fire shall be,Uncaused, all-causing: hence begin the gifts,Thither must go my love and praise—to what?Fire? Symbol fitly serves the symbolizedHerein,—that this same object of my thanks,While to my mind nowise conceivableExcept as mind no less than fire, refutes Next moment mind's conception: fire is fire—While what I needs must thank, must needs includePurpose with power,—humanity like mine,Imagined, for the dear necessity,One moment in an object which the nextConfesses unimaginable. Power!—What need of will, then? what opposes power?Why, purpose? any change must be for worse:And what occasion for beneficenceWhen all that is, so is and so must be;Best being best now, change were for the worse.Accordingly discard these qualitiesProper to imperfection, take for typeMere fire, eject the man, retain the orb,—The perfect and, so, inconceivable,— And what remains to love and praise? A stoneFair-coloured proves a solace to my eye,Rolled by my tongue brings moisture curing drouth,And struck by steel emits a useful spark:Shall I return it thanks, the insentient thing?No,—man once, man for ever—man in soulAs man in body: just as this can useIts proper senses only, see and hear,Taste, like or loathe according to its lawAnd not another creature's,—even soMan's soul is moved by what, if it in turnMust move, is kindred soul: receiving good—Man's way—must make man's due acknowledgement,No other, even while he reasons outPlainly enough that, were the man unmanned, Made angel of, angelic every way,The love and praise that rightly seek and findTheir man-like object now,—instructed more,Would go forth idly, air to emptiness.Our human flower, sun-ripened, proffers scentThough reason prove the sun lacks nose to feedOn what himself made grateful: flower and man,Let each assume that scent and love alikeBeing once born, must needs have use! Man's partIs plain—to send love forth,—astray, perhaps:No matter, he has done his part.""WherefromWhat is to follow—if I take thy sense—But that the sun—the inconceivableConfessed by man—comprises, all the same, Man's every-day conception of himself—No less remaining unconceived!""Agreed"!
"Yet thou, insisting on the right of manTo feel as man, not otherwise,—man, boundBy man's conditions neither less nor more,Obliged to estimate as fair or foul,Right, wrong, good, evil, what man's facultyAdjudges such,—how canst thou,—thiswise boundTo take man's truth for truth and only truth,—Dare to accept, in just one case, as truthFalsehood confessed? Flesh simulating fire—Our fellow-man whom we his fellows knowFor dust—instinct with fire unknowable! Where's thy man-needed truth—its proof, nay printOf faintest passage on the tablets tracedBy man, termed knowledge? ’Tis conceded thee,We lack such fancied union—fire with flesh:But even so, to lack is not to gainOur lack's suppliance: where's the trace of suchRecorded?""What if such a tracing were?If some strange story stood,—whate'er its worth,—That the immensely yearned-for, once befell,—The sun was flesh once?—(keep the figure!)”"How?An union inconceivable was fact?"
"Son, if the stranger have convinced himselfFancy is fact—the sun, besides a fire, Holds earthly substance somehow fire pervadesAnd yet consumes not,—earth, he understands,With essence he remains a stranger to,—Fitlier thou saidst 'I stand appalled beforeConception unattainable by meWho need it most'—than this—'What? boast he holdsConviction where I see conviction's need,Alas,—and nothing else? then what remainsBut that I straightway curse, cuff, kick the fool!'"
Fire is in the flint: true, once a spark escapes,Fire forgets the kinship, soars till fancy shapesSome befitting cradle where the babe had birth—Wholly heaven's the product, unallied to earth.Splendours recognized as perfect in the star!—In our flint their home was, housed as now they are.
Fire is in the flint: true, once a spark escapes,Fire forgets the kinship, soars till fancy shapesSome befitting cradle where the babe had birth—Wholly heaven's the product, unallied to earth.Splendours recognized as perfect in the star!—In our flint their home was, housed as now they are.