ii'v'^ - ', '•Vv- ,-t**.-'<^»«B„, ..s^SW^j*^.!^'*****''* 'J«9|ii^ ^R5w p iS^ K RUBAIYAT OF LIFE Remiss thy ministry to Truths O Muse? To lend Humanity thy grace refuse? Not so: lay not my faltering art against Her willingness a fitter ttol to choose. For those who do not weep '^This sorry Scheme of Things entire ^'^ hut finding Love in nature & God in man^ keep their Sweetness and their Reason and are as Cheerful as they want to be. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE by Luke North ^ Done in the Year 1909 on the GOLDEN PRESS which is set up among the roses & orange trees of LA CANYADA in the county of Los Angeles CALIFORNIA -^6'^^^'^ %^^.^l ' \^''i LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two CoDies Received APR 6 1809 OopynuHt entry CLASS OU. XXc No. CO FY o. ' T is of a Better Day arid Way I sing^ When man ereSi shall stand and Love shall bring To human heart the art of Harmony^ And Fear shall cease and Poverty take wing! ^T is of a Brighter Day whose dawn ts near^ When Love shall take from Life its Bitter Tear; And of a -Fairer Way that sees behind The clouds'of Gloom the Sunlight bold and clear! COPYRIGHT M CM IX BY JAMES H. GRIFFE* Rubaiyat of Life HERE folio weth now these facets of the Diamond Truth which one man hath fashioned into quatrains because that was the most pleasur- able thing for him to do. They seem vital to him inasmuch as they answer life's perplexities, explain condudl, and offer basis in Reason for the faith we all have that *'God is Good.'* It is not contended that these facets of Truth an- swer the ultimate **Why" or eliminate pain & sorrow from life — nothing that h written can; but they may, and for one at least they do, heighten the glow of the sunny hours & soften the shadows that yet must fall till men shall learn to live and love without fear. L. N. lO RVBAIYAT OF LIFE Awake! Awake! Love's Shaft of Fiery Gold Burns thru the clouds of superstition old. The Living God stands forth! the Dawn is here! The heart's pure flame creates the Day foretold. Dispelling heresies of centuries old, And creedal doubt and logic's dogma cold; Man's love of man the world encircling fast — Love claiming Life — deferred desire bold! Love claiming Life and warming intelled, The heart of man his wanderings to direct. Love claiming Life, demanding sway on earth, Revealing Man of Fate the archited. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 1 1 Age long by sense alone life's Way was led; The human mind on faith or reason fed ; The God within lay hidden 'neath the flesh; And man for Deity e'er searcht the dead ! No Living God the eye of man could see- No faith in life beyond Fortuity: No hope or joy not ending in despair Or crusht by codes of dead Authority. The living God stands forth in human birth! In fearlessness no power his Will can girth To hasten evolution's toiling way, Release the millions, paradise the earth I I 2 RVBAIYAT OF LIFE Why view the universe as dark and sad, Its ways unjust, its circumstances mad; While Nature's every mood reveals that man Alone hath lost the art of being glad? I cannot think that man is but the sport Of elements that mockingly distort His fitful efforts to be great and wise, Or God exists the human Will to thwart. It is not true that throes of human pain Make mirthful holidays for gods that reign — Or Chance, or Law, or Deity disport As man plays fast and loose with Life, for gain. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 13 10 Man *s lord of all his eye or Will doth reach. The skies bend low and listen for his speech ; The tides, the trees, the lower kingdoms all Await his touch; his to command and teach. 1 1 And tho man sit in idleness supine, And rest and lean, and cringe to Outer Shrine, His task of ruling is not thus escapt: The forces uncontrolled himself confine. 12 Filosofies are wove of human skill. And in the weaving each his own sweet will May please. No static right hath any ism The Joy of Life by subtleties to kill. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 13 It Is the fruitage of a stunted brain, That view of life which brings the tears and pain. Which seeing but the shape of things, mistakes The Wine Cup for the Cheer it doth contain. 14 While yet your Cup is full plan out life's ways. While hope runs high and merciful your days Toward all that live; nor wait satiety's Recoil and midnight's shadowy dismays. 15 Youth's Wine, life's Bread, & Oil of growing thought Untramelled by the creeds of dead men taught; Let these, and Love, thy destiny safeguard. What's writ is emptiness, the code is naught. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE l6 For life is first, and then filosofy. Blood, love, and hate carve mortal destiny — Till these, transmuted by the riper growth. Bow to the Will of Man's divinity. 17 Let Heart Light delve into the mystery deep, And Reason wait on Love, her faith to keep : Her place to segregate delusion from The truth : not hers behind the veil to peep. 18 The God I worship needs no priest profound His laws for mortal welfare to expound. But writes them large on all his handiwork — *T is creed and code that riddles dark grow 'round. i6 RUBATYAT OF LIFE 19 The God I worship, then, In Man I find. Nor law nor circumstance his Will doth bind. Creator of his world within and out — All nature but the produ(5l of his Mind. 1 20 Come, read your Book of Life in Nature*s laws, And seek her meaning of whatever clause Seems made for pain and leads to unbelief That Love, embracing All, is Primal Cause. 21 If Love is true and Nature's ways are right. No bar there is on range of human sight, No bar save that which fear and indolence Hath forged. 'T is creed & awe shut out the Light. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 17 22 And tho the Ultimate I ne'er y<9r^know, If I can see the Way by which men grow, By which the tares to wheat and tears to peace Are turned; if I can see the steps that show 23 True harmony in Nature's perfedl sway, How sorrow's veil hides but a brighter day; If I can reason out the heart's desire And correlate the thorns that line the way; 24 If I can glimpse the General Plan, and see How Love and Justice can omniscient be; How Mercy lurks in every error sown, And wisdom comes thru grief and agony ; i8 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 25 If I can see the course of Justice Here! (My trust is scant of any distant sphere) Why then for me life's bitterness is gone; I'll thread it's mazes, sans despair and fear. i 26 'T is Fear that cozens Hope of its caress And leaves your piety all comfortless; 'T is Fear, I say, that robs your days of Joy, And tinges human life with bitterness. 27 'T is Fear, 't is fear of flesh, of death, of "lust"- In Nature, God, or SELF, no helpful trust! All modern life is ruled by dead men's codes- Its hope is based on shining bits of dust. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 19 28 O, man! stand up, and dare be What thou art! Dare to enjoy — dare to forget life's mart — Dare to be free — dare even that thine Heart May lead! O, be the very God thou art! 29 Dare lift thy head from Custom's cruel yoke; Tear from Society its tradesman's cloak. Dare take the soil, thy heritage of birth — Dare all, dare all!— Thyself alone invoke! 30 'T is creed and ignorance cloud life with fear — And Love that brings the riper, richer cheer. It is not true that happiness and peace Are purchast only by the Bitter Tear. 20 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 31 And wisdom's growth is not alone thru pain; From Joy than Grief there comes the better gain. Life's royal robe of Magnanimity In Love is wove from out the Karmic Skein. 32 Yet words and words the Door shall never ope ; With thought unspoken doth the Spirit cope : Life's meaning by the Heart alone is reacht, And Inner Light makes sure the outer hope. fli 33 *T is Western sun that blinds the Inner Sight And shades the poetry of life with night Of science and sensation's narrow view. Look to the East, O men of hope, for Light ! RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 21 34 Take from the East its light on Nature's Way. Throw out its weeds of creed and sad array Of Oriental myth and fantasy. But light comes from the East, the East, I say. 35 Thus East and West agree : The Whole unfolds ; Brahma breathes out ; the universe unrolls Its scroll of evolutionary law — And Mind begets whatever Life beholds. 36 In Cosmic void the Breath, the Word, the Sound! The Pattern manifolds, the countless round Of universal day and night begins — The cyclic web of daily life 's unwound. 22 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 37 But Western law is cruel, blind, and cold, Its man a wanton toy, a plastic mold Of clay shapt by some ruthless Potter's hand That shook — forbidding Soul its life unfold. 38 In Eastern lore the God of Love I find. Compassionate to " sin ** of humankind ; And pointing bow and where adjustment comes Its Justice Argus-eyed, and never blind ! 39 In rythmic tides the life waves rise and fall. Mankind, the stars, the seas, concurring all. The impulse from within, the pull without — Life, Growth, and Change obey the mystic call. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 23 40 Eternally God's breath indraws again: The summer suns return with golden grain: The earth gives back whatever man puts forth, An it be love, or hate, or pleasure's pain. 41 That ever hidden Inner Urge impinging The "void" without, and Form forever hinging Between the flow and flux of pulsing life : The "I" and "Thou" Totality infringing! 42 Eternal mystery! — that question "Why?"- The human heart in Joy may yet descry : The lover's ecstacy, the artist's mood. At very portals of the All may lie ! 24 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 43 Give time and depth and scope to human life, Nor dwarf its Days to three-score years of strife On this grim battle-field with anger, hate And passion's blinding mists, alas, how rife ! 44 Why all its agonies, its pains, and tears, Its seeds of effort and its withering years On lessons but half learned and work but half Performed — if death translates to other spheres ? 45 All nature writes the answer bold and clear — The theatre of human life is Here ! Death's but a sleep between the Days of Life : Man reaps where he hath sown — the harvest's here! RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 25 46 Where ripens wheat that 's sown on fallow soil? Do demon gods conspire to cheat man's toil — Remove the harvest field o'er night, reduce To emptiness his years of sweat and moil? 47 Where bursts the acorn thru its horny pod, On distant Mars, or in the forest sod Of planet where it fell ? How reason ye. That man allegiance bears to foreign God? 48 The Rose thou mournest when its petals fall Ensouls the bud that bursts at nature's call: And in the glory of the new the Sap And Essence of the old doth still enthrall ! 26 RVBAIYAT OF LIFE 49 'T is but the form that dies and not the Soul : The Essence of the Rose pervades the Whole. The Jar is broken, but the Wine flows on! Let not the heart's best love cling to the Bowl. 50 And all this loveliness shall reappear: The selfsame Roses of the yesteryear. With vesture new and perfume fresh from Sleep, Shall wake, not in some other world, but here! 51 For man on earth is not a Transient Guest ! Nor brief, nor easy to attain, his quest Of that lost Grail of Human Brotherhood, Which once regained brings man the Alkahest. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 27 52 Nor all your longings from the Now to veer Shall break the Human Tie that chains you here, Till man shall make of earth a paradise, And win the right to win another sphere. 53 On Golden strands of Human Brotherhood Man's path ascends to where the angels stood — To other worlds and shapes unknown. Till then His place is here, his task the Common Good. 54 And then, this outer sheath of man that dies. As sweethearts' vows expire and summer flies — What hell-born instind: prompts the selfish wish Its permanence of form to realize? 28 RVBAIYAT OF LIFE 55 Or finds in Nature's gentle rule of Change Inherent gloom? How then her ways estrange - Or build the flower of gold, or glass, or stone? In basalt blocks the human form arrange? 56 Stones perish not, nor call for shallow tear Dropt in the foaming mead or vintage clear. Keep tears for real woes, and bless the wave That brings the Permanent new garb each year. 57 Unchanging form would make of earth a hell, And beauty's fairest shapes would yearn to sell Their hopes of Paradise for change of garb — If buttercups were cast of hardened shell. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 29 58 O, ye of little faith — yet faith too much! Who lean on man-made creed as on a crutch, And fail to see in Nature*s every way, Of Love and Justice the supernal touch. 59 O, ye of little faith — yet faith too great! Who would the law of life and death translate; Yet fail to read "between the lines," nor let The Inner Glow the scroll illuminate! 60 O, ye who would set bar on human sight ! And circumscribe man's range of Cosmic Light Within the narrow arc of seventy years, And with the grave his strife and hope requite! 30 RUBATYAT OF LIFE 6i O, ye who rest your lives on form and flesh, Or with false lights of wealth the soul enmesh; And lacking view of things beyond the range Of sense, lack Fount that floweth ever fresh ! 62 And ye who say that Sense alone can know. And wisdom only from the Outer grow! What turgid Wine flows in your Cup of Life To hide the sparkle of the Flood below? 63 To you, in thoughtful hour, the world must seem A feverish nightmare, a hellish dream. Pierced here and there by rays of flitting light That but confuse the whole infernal scheme. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 31 64 If wrong must win. If love and hope go down; If God's hand shook in shaping this poor clown ; If he 's created prince, and I a clod — Then God *s a cheat; let wine the trouble drown! 65 The world, 't is true, seems cruel and unjust, For often Virtue dies and prospers Lust! And Faith alone, for me, will not suffice; I cannot take so big a scheme on trust. 66 I must, I shall demand the reason Why, When woes fall heaviest; when You and I Seem tost as by an angry, wanton Fate — - Prate not to me of Hope and Trust on High! 32 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 67 What then, is there but crecdal faith for man, Or all-foredooming Chance in Nature's plan? But Reason's cold and pessimistic doubt, Or Christian version of the heathen Pan? 68 Is there no bright and sane and cheering Way? No universal Key by which men may Find Harmony in human destiny? No sign of Plan Divine in Nature's sway? 69 Ah, yes; there is an Open Door to Life, A Way of Things not wed to gloom and strife Let Reason find in Human Love a spouse. And Piety take Common Sense to wife. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 33 70 Behold, a glory at the Door of Life Awaits to banish human woe and strife ! Awake, and bid the Joy of Life come in And dwell where doubt and sadness now are rife. 71 The Head and Heart of man again must wed. The Intelled: by human Love be led, To banish in the Joy of Nature's way The Creedal night, and gloom by Science fed. 72 Full long Dame Reason 's scorned her nobler part. And man has lived on maxims of the mart. The Key that shall unlock all Doors for him Lies in the marriage of the Head and Heart. 34 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 73 Nor Rhapsody, nor "Logic absolute," Man's Leaden errors into Gold transmute. The subtleties of Church fore'er confuse, And e'er the grindings of the Bank embrute. 74 Take from your Piety its husk of creed. From Fadlory and Shop their dusty meed Of wolfishness and calculating greed — Give Reason, one; the others, Love most need. 75 The mart lacks Love; all creeds are Reasonless; And poisonous the Cup men daily press To lips drawn tight in fear of Poverty Or prideful mockery of "Holiness!" RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 35 76 But from this union of the Head and Heart A fairer Hope is born — and lo! the art Of being Glad and True hath firmer base Than faith alone or science doth impart. 77 For Heart Light glows upon the Soul of things, And hidden laws to mortal ken it brings, Revealing *neath the garb of flesh and form, Of Nature's causal force the Secret Springs. 78 Come, find with me, in Nature's vast unfolding, That Which, from seat within, e'er does the molding; Nor look afar for gods and devils scolding — To miss in Self the strength of life upholding. 36 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 79 There 's not a fad: of heaven or earth for man But mortal ken and human heart may scan, If but the Outer Shell of life be pierced And Love with Reason bare the Inner Plan. 80 Thus every hidden urge and circumstance That woe of man or happiness enhance, Expression finds in outward mold of form — The Seen and Unseen cast in consonance ! 81 And as the small but replicas the great. So "gross" and "psychic" planes associate And blend : from one the other can be known- Thus many a riddle dark shall man translate. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 37 82 Nor idly sit beside a flowing river (Save on a day that clouds do threaten never); Nor lose thyself in meshes of the flesh, Save but to gather strength for fresh endeavor. 83 Oh, fear them not, the "Jug of Wine" and "Thou!" Let lip press lip — the flesh enseal the vow. But loiter not o'erlong — pass on, pass on! The pleasures of the Jar are not enow! 84. When heart and mind shall soar beyond the Sense, (And Reason wait on Soul's omnipotence To reach the bottom of the well of Truth) — Why then we '11 learn a Uttle of the "Whence." 38 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 85 Now darkness broods and all is Unity, And Form is lost in Night's identity. A Breath, a Word, a ripple on the Wave Of Time — and Light brings forth Duality! 86 In cosmic Night dawns Light — then Trinity- Religion's "everlasting mystery" — ? No mystery, but common rule of three — Primordial way of Solidarity ! 87 The Whole unfolds at dawn of Cosmic Day, And Numbers fall, in orderly array, (Diversity in Unity e'er lurks) The rigid rule of Sequence to obey. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 39 88 Why, yes, the world is full of problems dark, When to sensation^s voice alone we hark. 'T is only That Within can read the Plan — O, from the Tree of Life tear off the bark! 89 A trailing star into the seeming Void Is dropt — the ovum of an asteroid: A "Wanderer" conceived, a world begot — In cosmic wilderness a Form deployed! 90 Thus groups of worlds from out the starry light, And souls of men in glory all bedight. Come trooping down from out the Milky Way- Come to their Days of Life, from Cosmic Night. 40 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 91 From Time's dark cavern of tranquility, All down the path of Life's adivity, Come Worlds and Men to conquer space & fate And reach the heart of true Fraternity ! 92 Caught on the Wheel of life's necessity — A Ray of God (of All Humanity) — I '11 murmur not that I, a Spark of It, Shall fail to read divine Totality. 93 Yet this I know — but for myself alone (Let each of Truth's array proclaim his own) — That Man of earth is Lord and God Supreme! Here He creates — and reaps as He hath sown. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 41 94 In groups of Conscious Entities came man From other sphere — a Mighty Caravan! — To tarry for a Cosmic Day on Earth, Nor fold his tent till he works out his Plan. 95 As Living Gods the Life Wave came to earth, Man's evolutionary Day to girth. The story of the Christ is history Not of one man, but of the Human Birth. 96 In symbol cosmic truth was ever told. All scriptures variously the Plan enfold. 'T is time at last to tear aside the veils — Yet words but symbols are, however bold. 42 RVBAIYAT OF LIFE Man came, and "fell" — took on the fleshly shape: Creator he, not ofl^spring, of the ape. That Man could from the monkey grow — alas! What fancies then may flow from too much grape! 98 And all that 's now on earth or e'er shall be — The Simian brute, the fish, the stone, the tree — Inside or out, unseen or seen — by Man Were clothed — progenitor of Form is he! 99 Vex not thy life with asking why the Whole Unfolds : the answer *s known but to the Soul, Whose comprehension reaches back of words. For reason of the Wine, ask not the Bowl. RUBATYAT OF LIFE ■■■■■■■■■■lai—— —^^B^^lMIMI 11 WM—— 43 100 From Night of Time came I to earth, and You, Because Day follows Night — and then we knew: Again we '11 know why all this "hollow show" — Ere Day gives way to Night the Whole we'll view. lOI And yet, the answer 's not so far to see (When all the world is bright and fair to me), The Perfed: God is here on earth; is here. In You and Me — because he wills to be! 102 I scan the earth, the sea, and starry space - Of Discord here or there no faintest trace All palpitate in waves of harmony: Uncertainty 's in but the Human race. 44 RVBAIYAT OF LIFE 103 The will to Err in man alone I find : Unfailing sign of The Creative Mind! Here consciousness has reacht the Godlike stage, And Nature all bows to the Human kind. 104 In freedom perfect, absolute, and vast The universe, its worlds, man's life, are cast; And Cosmic "Law" 's but harmony supreme Unbroken by the human arts that blast. 105 And in the Scheme of Things this mystery Profound I see: that man's high destiny It is to consciously produce on earth The tie of Human Solidarity. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 45 io6 For that which IS must come to vision's plane; The Heart of Truth be sponsored by the brain. By choice shall men again enad: on earth The Cosmic Harmonies that ever reign. 107 I cannot see the Cause its trail defled, Nor trace each thought and ad to its effed. But Nature's stanch and true, I know, and step By step, each separate detail doth conned. 108 There is no "iron hand of fate" on me, No bond but human solidarity! And tho I pay my share for man's false steps, I pay no more than I alone decree. 46 RUBATYAT OF LIFE 109 Fruition is the name of human Fate: No super-being doth Predestinate. Each sows the seed that time for him shall reap; Each instant doth each Ray its life create! no Who look behind the Veil of life shall see That man himself carves out his destiny; That fate is but the reaping of the sown. And each alone e'er writes his own decree. Ill "Law*' limits but to rule of Harmony — That every Cause its full EfFed: shall see. And in the reaping each his pleasure takes — The Cup he drains in gloom, or manfully. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 47 112 If then the fleeting hour of Now and Here Eternal record of each hope and fear And thought and ad: mark on the warp of Time, Futurity is mine! I'll drop no tear. "3 "Law" binds all things to Rationality: No other limit on man's will I see — That 3 plus 3 are 6 and never more. Why wail at this Inflexibility 1 14 "The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, Moves on:" but why should man of Godlike wit And all Futurity at his command, Seek to evade or lose a word of it? 48 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 115 And this I seem to see, that man and men Achieve by using Law ! AIJ power then, Is theirs in fearlessness who use, nor waste The Cosmic force that lies in human ken. 116 Tho "good" or "ill" each ad of yon or me — Sure guiding stars for all eternity! Ohj ye who sail life's sea sans chart or map, Turn to the "scroll," thy compass it will be. 117 If Fate is but the fruitage of the sown, And every thought and act bring forth their own. Why then it rests with me, not to undo The Past, but carve the New — with me alone! RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 49 ii8 Who 'd have the past recalled, the scroll unwrit, Hath yet to learn that human growth is knit On woof and warp of all experience. All colors, too, must enter into it. 119 If woven in the fabric of a life. No move is false, nor failure loss ; nor strife. Nor grief, nor "sin" can mar the perfe6t plan. Oh, then, forget the Pain — take Joy to wife! 120 Have faith in Life; its skies are always clear Above the blackest clouds however near. The Joy of Yesterday will knock again: Ope wide the door; pour out a Cup of Cheer. 50 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 121 In cyclic waves come Gloom and Happiness, Maugre the outer circumstance or stress. Gloom hungers e'er for sympathy, and Joy Stays only where the welcome doth caress. 122 Like beads upon a Thread men*s lives are cast, Each Day of Life a bead. The first and last Are strung the same, and all the beads on all The Threads will look alike in finis masst. 123 Some wear this Day of Life a golden bead, And some the anxious hues of war and greed, Whilst many dull and somber ones give tone Of gloom and doubt — to modern world its meed. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 91 124 Thus he the Beggar now and I the Sheik: Tomorrow he the Sultan, whilst I seek The mystery of life in devious paths And learn that wisdom comes but to the meek. 125 O, beads and beads of lives and lives untold ! What wisdom shall your orbits then unfold — When human hearts and minds are fixt upon The Thread, and read the secrets that ye hold! 126 Ah, many chipt and broken beads I see! Distorted lives, by man's uncharity; Cheap tawdry beads and beads of muddy glass, Strung on the Thread of Life by mans decree. 52 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 127 Blind laws and customs of the rule of greed, Still wrecking human life and planting seed That only thankless toil and weariness Can grow for millions doomed by man to need 1 128 Blind laws that parcel to the "lucky" few Those values that from common toil accrue! Dire laws of greed and graft that take from All And lavish where no work or worth make due! 129 Laws reeking with the lust of wolfish pack, That every attribute of Justice lack. That nourish vice and craft and weigh on weak Like Old Senility on Sinbad's back. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 53 130 These old and withering laws now soon must blow, As man his cruel childhood doth outgrow: Cain's code of greed to Get and Have and Hold That which the strongest must ere long let go! 131 And hearts of men bowed low with years of gain, With only gold for all their moil and pain. Go to their Longer Sleep with halting step — Ah, well ! no life is totally in vain. 132 And hearts of men are sore of strife for gain — Or it be fruitful, or their toil in vain: The years grow wearisome for all whose lives Are spent in bondage to the Golden Fane. 54 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 133 But life expands with Giving, years do crown With peace fair work and worth, and funeral gown Hath pockets that will carry golden deeds From life to life: for Growth age wears no frown. 134 The crude and banal strife of gold must go, For hearts are weary of the empty show. Now toiling millions plead to listening ears. And soon the New the Old shall overthrow! 135 The Better Day and Way to earth shall bring Surcease of Hunger's Fear: then men shall sing At work, and all that lives the impetus Of joyous growth shall feel — & thought take wing. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE S5 136 When on the altar of the Common Good Men lay their hope of Gain from laws withstood For private ends and mercenary greeds, Then dawns the reign of Social Brotherhood. 137 When all have equal Opportunity To work and reap: there is no charity So great! When men shall hold their mother earth Intad, in trust for all humanity! 138 Not all the Grape that flows from gold to red A light on human destiny can shed. [blood, 'T is Wine of Life mixt with the Heart's best By which the wandering feet of men are led. 56 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE And tho the "Grape with logic absolute" Confute the creed and ism, man's attribute Of sympathy, his hunger for the Heights, Unquenched remain for all the wine of fruit. 140 For man is not the Jar that drinks red wine, Nor flesh that presses lips incarnadine. Give Youth its mede of eflfervesing flood. But Men crave stronger Drink than fruit of vine. 141 'T is true that never "blows the Rose so red" — As where Truth's pioneers have lived and bled. On Calvary is human progress fixt. And crown of thorns doth press the Toiler's head. R U B A M' A T OF LIFE 57 142 That Thorns on Roses grow men do not mourn, Nor e'er forego the Fragrance for the Thorn. Let Roses bloom on every ill of life — Each troubled hour bv Roses be o'erborne. "But Roses come and go!" Ah, that *s the lie That robs life of its joy — that Roses die To leave the heart forlorn. *T is only Form That comes and goes — the Roses vivify! 144 Crush not the Rose in heedlessness or lust: Bruised Roses wither soon, and turn to dust. It is the Rose within the Rose that brings Perfume to life — Oh, pluck it if you must! RVBAIYAT OF LIFE »45 But having pluckt your Rose, its brier flung Into your Cup of Life — tho scarred and stung, Don*t whimper as you drain the Karmic Brew : Its bitterness is lost in Paean sung! 146 Full half the gloom of life lies in the Quaffing: In every Cup there *s Pang within the draffing. Groans ease no pain and frowns resolve no doubt. Then stand & drink your Cup with eyes a-laughing. •47 One came who pluckt His Rose of Life and tost It to the World, nor murmured at the cost. (Who give their all as Nature gives reap most.) A fairer Rose Fie gained than that He lost! R IJ B A 1 Y A 1^ O F ■■■ai LIFE 59 148 And all who find the Inner Light, nor shrink The stronger, headier Wine of Life to drink, Lay Roses on the altar of the World — With blood and love cement the human link! 149 So many Roses on the Way of Life — And yet so few! and still the world so rife Of war and greed that Roses bloom and die Unseen and crusht beneath the human strife. 150 The Rose that buds and blows in Open Air — So willingly it grows, so free and fair ! Its fragrance and its beauty blessing all Who take and leave it! — growing everywhere! 6o R V B A 1 Y A T OF LIFE »5i Of Beauty her Free Sceptre to dethrone, How many Roses crusht to Hoard and Own ! Mad lust to Have and Hide — and e'er provide But charnel house for ash of Roses blown ! 152 In Autumn days cling not to Springtime Rose — The flower of Youth let go — a fairer grows. Red Roses for life's Summer years, and Gold Of Ophir for the Winter hours that close. 153 Seek not for Roses in the Vale of Tears. Its stunted blooms bespeak of Self man's fears. Life's Rose in Sunlight grows. Bend low the ear: Its petals ting with Music of the Spheres! R U B A I Y A T O V L I ? K 61 ^54 Man sells his Roses as the harlot flings Her favors to the human creeping things, And reaps her meed for every flower blasted — Joy scorned disease and death forever brings. 155 Some sell their Roses to a demon thirst Of gold — spend all their days in greed immerst. Some listen to the lure of passions wild, And burn their Roses in desires accurst. 156 Some sell Life's Roses for a sounding name — Some barter peace and love for empty fame. Some sell and sell, all happiness in trade — The rule of daily life — a fair world's shame ! 62 R U B A 1 Y A T Of LIFE And those who would not sell their Roses red. Must ever part with them for daily bread. The Game of modern life is Buy and Sell — And Luxury on Human Blood is fed. 158 All Life's best Roses then are held too slightly; And not the least those gript and hoarded tightly. In fear and doubt of Nature, Life, and Love, His Roses man lets go, alas, too lightly! ^59 For lust of Having men thus blindly choose The peace and joy of Living now to lose; Unmindful of Life's Roses free that bloom To Give, to Give their All and ne'er refuse. R U B A 1 Y A T O F L I F F, 63 160 A Rose shall in Life's Garden come to grow, And men await its budding, hearts aglow — A Rose devoid of Thorns, its blossoms fair To sweeten life, and peace on earth bestow. 161 The slips are planted and the soil kept free. Ten million hearts the royal bloom to see Give all their best to human freedom's cause. And O, the glory of the Day to be ! 162 Indeed, on earth with "Fate" we shall conspire, Recast the wolfish Scheme of Things entire. Unshackle chains that hold men from the earth, Remold the nations to the "Heart's Desire"! 64 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 163 No higher task or aim has man than this: (Nor they a full life lead that are remiss) To Revolutionize the wanton codes That doom the mass to Poverty's abyss. 164 'T were vain one climb the Garden's Upland Height, A Thornless Rose to seize by Spirit's might. Who gathers fragrance for himself alone His Rose shall find accurst by Inner Blight. 165 From Heart to Heart, tho never eyes may see, Intad the human bond shall ever be; Nor may one loosen it, by toil or craft. To step beyond the Great Fraternity. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 6^ 166 For severed lives rejoin the Human Whole, And those "releast** gain not the Final Goal: Resurgent to the end the Common Cause, Till men shall know each other Soul to Soul. 167 Alike Within and Out man*s course is run — (From Center to the Rim shines e'er the Sun). Life's strength & poise at Inner Shrine is found - In human service its best joy is won. 168 No mystic life that shuns the Outer Path Shall conquer fate. Inadtion's aftermath Holds bitter tears for those who seek the Way For self. Beware the God within his wrath ! 66 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 169 For every Flow of Wine a Jar must fill, Nor wantonly the Golden Fluid spill, Nor carelessly the Vessel mar or crack — Lest thou befoul the brew thou wouldst distill. 170 The Sun is greater than its single Ray, And sway of Whole each Unit doth obey — Till One shall learn the essence of the All To draw, and be himself Lord of his Day. Tho bound to Whole, its energies to save, No life to aught but ignorance is slave. Fore'er the choice is free to reach and be The All — to mount and ride the Cosmic Wave. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 67 172 At Center of the Whole the power lies: Let all the Center be who power prize Not to rule others but themselves to free. Take then the Most 1— (yet not the Least despise). None really mourn that two plus two make four, But seize, and from it weave their need or more. Not "law" but rule of Like to Like binds life: The fact that but one Key can ope your Door. 174 Man to unlock each Door of Life is free. Yet sot and God at once he may not be. Sit still and rust who will, but cease to whine Nor fancy that from heaven shall drop your Key. 68 R U B A J Y A T O F LIFE 175 Not every Key shall open every Door, Nor one man*s truth be all men's sacred lore. As many Portals then as Souls there are. Steal not my Key — a Leaner I abhor. 176 A Day shall come — bowed hearts, dim eyes, shall A time when men, thru yearning to be free, L^^^ Shall learn to help and not to bind — shall learn To live and love, be kind, and Disagree! 177 The Lethal Cup to man no wisdom brings. We learn by living, loving, doing things. tl^ "School keeps*' in Daylight Hours, and death is The Curtain 'tween Life's Adls that Nature rings. RUBAJYAT OF LIFE 69 178 Death opes no Door not often oped before, And That which Passes In knows well the "Shore" Where It shall rest (as in the sleep of night) And free of discord spread its wings and soar. J 79 Death 's not grim-visaged, cruel, cold, austere — But as a gentle, loving mother dear. She rocks her tired children to their Sleep Betirrfes, and shelters them from Day grown sere. 180 Death is not dark — its shores all Stygian black — (Save to the body's eyes that ever lack Purview beyond the Form.) But Death is Light, The Light of Time's eternal zodiac. 70 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE i8i And That which Enters In to rest and soar Is not the Total Man, but less and more Than He whose evolutionary Days Are cast on earth, its mysteries to explore. 182 Oh, fear not Death, nor mourn her kindly ways — Nor fancy that just dying your debt pays. Life's debt is paid — its passport only gained — By growing, loving, livings all your days. 183 If Problems could be solved by dying merely, And we could Grow, & see Life's Way more clearly. And peace and joy so cheaply purchast be — How foolish then to live and buy more dearlv? RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 7» 184 Beware, the Cup of Death its Bitter Dregs ! Or it be quaft too soon ! Or one who begs Its surcease as the easier way! Death may Not serve as Crutch for those who have two legs! 185 As like to like doth flow, and every cause EfFed doth know — so Death not quickly draws The troubled Soul to peace. Control — cast out! But do not recklessly invoke Death's jaws ! 186 Thus if the heart know only Outer life — If "snaps the chord" in midst of battle rife — The Tou that Tou are now earth hovers o'er, And slowly Soul sinks from terrestrial strife. 72 RUBAIYAT O F LIFE ■■■■■^^■■■■■■■■iHMHBBBiBBmiMBaanaaBH 187 Death feeds on Form alone, and this Man molds. His every thought and ad: a Shape unfolds. He laughs at Death then who expands & grows, And fashions faster than the Reaper holds. 188 Time's havoc on the Garb of Flesh shall stay And even Death the human Will obey, When finding in Himself the power divine, Man rules the forces that await his sway. 189 Would age defy, its canker never know — Would taste the Wine of Time's eternal flow? Not vain the search for Life's Elixir was — To live fore'er is but to Love and Grow. R U R A I Y A T OF I. I F E tmmaKmaammaamMmamammKa 73 190 Life's Key is forged in Love's pure flame of Gold Fierce iires whose dead white fury, seeming cold. With roaring heat uniting lives and worlds. Brims with one bubbling flux the Cosmic Mold. 191 Ah, yes; environment enslaves us all! Because supine we rest, or rage and fall On knee to Powers far, and hesitate The Flame to light — the Man within to call. 192 Tho facts, events, and circumstances bind. Inert are these, unconcious, senseless, blind. To rule them is the part of human Will — Of Him that dares his all the Heights to find. 74 RVBAIYAT OF LIFE '93 O, be a gambler bold! and freely throw The Dice of Life — lay all its "hollow show" Of dross upon the cloth, its Gold to win — And play the greatest Game the Heart can know! 194 They say that This or That man cannot know. That only vintage of the fruits that grow In soil can wisdom bring — because on Form Alone man 's lookt, two thousand years or so. 195 With telescope in vain man has peered out. Nor microscope has helpt resolve his doubt. He turns at last within Himself to search, And there finds wisdom not extant without. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 75 196 Truth flashes like a Diamond held a-high. Each his hope weaves from Rays that catch his eye. Truth Absolute, in words ne'er spoke, deep lies At center, where the Rays, converging, die. 197 Cain's answer to his God was partly right, His brother's keeper man is but by might: His friend and sharer, yes ; but no man finds The Way by following another's Light. 198 His brother each can help but none may bind; Who rules another is himself most blind. As many paths to Fields Elysian lead As there are conscious Gods in Human Kind. 76 RVBAIYAT OF LIFE 199 To stand upright alone in joy or pain, To stand, or fall still fighting, nor complain To drink the deepest Cups that life may hold — This each must learn, his strength of Self to gain. 200 For only those that Stand Alone can Serve. Who Lean, or murmur at the Cup, unnerve rjj^g Whom they would help. Dread not the Tests of That tutor mind and heart no more to swerve. 201 The cost of happiness will e'er advance. Yet every farthing paid doth but enchance Life's joy. Be not content with copper coins — The Purest Gold is your inheritance. RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 77 202 To many Idols cold men bend the knee — Abstradions, Platitudes, "Prosperity!'* But naught I see so sacred in the world As Man — just Man, is God enuf for me. 203 The Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Today — In one mold cast — inseparable are they. A cheat is Time, the three are one, all parts Of Now's sequential and eternal play. 204 The world is vast, its mysteries profound. Seek not to circumscribe them in the round Of school or creed: all tune the mind to Gloom And close the heart to Nature's joyous sound! 78 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE 205 One ray I catch from flashing stone of Fate — That hand-in-hand shall men storm Heaven's gate; That none shall in the outer void be left, And none shall earlv be, and none Too Late. 206 That each with all shall share whate'er may pass, As toward the Pearly Gates we move en masse; That every Soul a God in power shall be, And that, at last, you'll find — no "Empty Glass." Between the Lines T IS the purpose of the foregoing quatrains to present a more rational and more hopeful View of Life, and a broader estimate of the Scheme of Things, than do any of the schools, creeds, or isms. Life is larger than filosofy, I hold, and the heavens higher than any sys- tem of thought. Life is wove so inextricably of seen and unseen fails and forces that no surface filosofy can explain it. ^Unconditioned freedom of mind and heart do these quatrains stand for, and depend upon for their perspicuity — & no other worth while freedom is possible until this has been attained. ^No one can know all of truth, nor can the mind alone reach any truth that is absolute. The heart finds Truth Absolute; it can & does know, at times, but its knowing is not exprest in language. ^But when the heart and mind work together in freedom — the heart leading, the mind sifting, both raised above the market-place and uncontrolled by creed or ism — much more of truth and reality can be known than science will ever achieve. ^Knowledge is what a man knows. A mentally free man will not persume to tell another what he can or cannot know. ^By the heart I mean that part of man's nature which does not analyze or reason. If it be steept in emotion, rather than free to soar in aspiration — well, it leads, it leads! for all the creeds and 82 %RUBAIYAT OF LIFE systems devised by human ingenuity since man's advent on this planet — it leads and ever will I ^Reason never has guided life & never can, tho its filosofies and dogmas have clouded human vision & darkened life's natural trend toward peace and happiness. Reason neither can guide or control human nature, nor alter the status nor find the Way of Things Eternal. So long as reason keeps her eyes on the ground — that is to say on the bare appearance of Things — on Form alone — and dares not follow the bold heart on its adventures behind the Veil of gross fysical substance, so long will reason be a hindrance than a help toward the achievement of genuine human knowledge. ^Assuredly I will not follow reason wherever she may lead, for she leads mostly into culs de sac. Man is greater than intelleft. ^Creed & dogma, scientific or religious — I w^ould cast out entire- ly, and let filosofy explain (never guide^ life — in so far as it can. But I will listen to no filosofy, no explanation of Life & Things, which has gloom for its finis, or which admits any God (Jehovah, Natural Selection, Chance, or what not) that is apart from or out- side of Man, or that inherently or from necessity foredooms man to any course or plan. ^There is, to be sure, a certain orderly and sequential way in which things great and small occur — the simple way of cause and effect, for instance — but, except where interrupted and interfered with by Man's free will, this way is of freedom, a freedom so complete as to result in absolute Harmony. ^The Cosmos is not **Law Governed." It is not governed at all, in the sense of being controlled. It is free — free to follow the 1 BETWEEN THE LINES-. 83 true lines of least resistance — free to be harmonious. The stars arc at liberty to move as they will, and their will is to move in graceful cycles of perfect harmony. ^.Freedom, of course, is a relative term. The stone is not free to resist man's casting it into the sea. Nor is man entirely free to tinker with the natural Harmony of Things. Man is free to butt his head against a stone wall — & makes use of that freedom, alas! every day — but he is not free to do so with impunity. Nor is he free to disunite himself from the human totality. fLStill is man's degree of freedom very great. He is free to refrain from butting a stone wall. Would to high heaven he could see that freedom and utilize it, say with half the keenness he now discerns the stone wall & bewails the wounds on his head from butting it. CBut he will not perceive his true path of freedom so long as his mind is shackled by creed & dogma, so long as his heart is bowed in fear of any God that is outside of himself, nor so long as he looks only upon the Form of Things. ^Thraldom of man to man, or to that Frankenstein monster we call Government, rests on thraldom to Diety — whatever its name, whether the Personal God, the God Chance, or Natural Selection. Human slavery rests on mental concepts. It is only as man learns his own powers to Be and Do that he attains freedom. ^Man is his own and only God. Perhaps I am really the atheist that Voltaire and Paine certainly were not. Both of them admitted some Governing Power outside of & above man. I can see no such power — no interfering or foredooming Fact or Law or Person- ality — nothing more terrible or predestinating than the multiplica- 84 RUBAIYAT OF LIFE tion table. Some think my reach of vision too short — some too long — but such as it is I have w^oven it into these stanzas, not to convince anvone, not to argue any question, not to save the world, for it isn't lost, nor a human soul in it, but solely for the reason set forth in the brief foreword on the opening page. ^Quatrains 43 to 57 stand boldly and clearly for Reincarnation — the fact that death is but the Longer Sleep between two Days of Life — without which no rational explanation of life is possible. j(T Man is not a Transient Guest on this earth, coming here at birth and going away forever after so brief a span as seventy years. This sudden translation to heaven, to hell, or to some far distant planet or sphere — or to the oblivion of Extinftion — (the materi- alistic concept still echoes the theological lie that man is only a Transient Guest on this planet or plane of life) — this translation theory, I say, is neither desirable nor reasonable, nor in accord with the evolutionary idea of infinite progression, nor does it satisfy the human mind, nor respond to the highest and best promptings and intuitions of the human heart. Moreover, it is untrue (in my filos- ofy) and one of the very strongest pillars — if you examine it with- out prejudice — upon which rests the superstructure of man's slav- erv to man. If I am to be here but seventy years or so and am destined to spend All Eternity in heaven, hell, or the oblivion of extinction, then indeed, ** What's the Use?" — why bother much about conditions on this brief resting place? — and we don't. ^It is quite true that life and the world are mystical — to a civili- zation that has spent its best energies on the outer rim of both. But they are mystical only because man has not heretofore chosen i BETWEEN THE LINES 85 to delve very deeply beneath the surface of things apparent. He is mending his ways now, to some extent, and one of his first mental patches will consist of acquiring a larger & quite a different mental view of Time and Eternity. Our arbitrary division of Past, Pres- ent, and Future bears relation only to the surface of life. In the more permanent world behind form there is no past or future, but only a circle of Now, to be contacted at any and all points. ^Throwing off all shackles (I hope) as well those of material-/j/i'; as of mysti-cism ; bound not to evidence of the senses, nor by authority dead or living, nor by codes or creed, I have questioned Life and the Way of Things — and what 1 think I have learned is woven into these quatrains. I am quite sure I learned nothing new, for Lite and the Way of Things are eternally old, but much of it seemed new as I rather toilsomely gathered it. ^I shall be classed with the empiricists, no doubt, but that does not terrify nor deter me. Every man need not be his own shoe- maker (tho I sometimes think he would be happier if he were) but assuredly each man must be, eventually, his own filosofer — or worry along without filosofy — for sooner or later he learns that no Key but his own can unlock his Door of Life. ^I^Reading over the foregoing printed pages before writing these ** introductory remarks" I find there is more of the didaftic in these quatrains than I would like to have, less of poetic virtue than I am proud of, & a greater diffusiveness than I meant there should be. None the less do I send them forth with scant apology, hop- ing that the import of the facets of truth they seek to express may outweigh their lacking in struftural grace. jQ^O here endeth the Rubaiyat of Life, which N-^ was written in the years nineteen hundred seven and eight by Luke North and printed and publisht by the Golden Press at The Garden in the valley of La Canyada, Los Angeles county, Cali- fornia, in January of the following year. ♦ I APR 6 1909 r*^'. wy%^^-/-:-