43779.fb2 Shapes of Clay - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 71

Shapes of Clay - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 71

THE CYNIC'S BEQUEST

  In that fair city, Ispahan,  There dwelt a problematic man,  Whose angel never was released,  Who never once let out his beast,  But kept, through all the seasons' round,  Silence unbroken and profound.  No Prophecy, with ear applied  To key-hole of the future, tried  Successfully to catch a hint  Of what he'd do nor when begin 't;  As sternly did his past defy  Mild Retrospection's backward eye.  Though all admired his silent ways,  The women loudest were in praise:  For ladies love those men the most  Who never, never, never boast—  Who ne'er disclose their aims and ends  To naughty, naughty, naughty friends.  Yet, sooth to say, the fame outran  The merit of this doubtful man,  For taciturnity in him,  Though not a mere caprice or whim,  Was not a virtue, such as truth,  High birth, or beauty, wealth or youth.  'Twas known, indeed, throughout the span  Of Ispahan, of Gulistan—  These utmost limits of the earth  Knew that the man was dumb from birth.  Unto the Sun with deep salaams  The Parsee spreads his morning palms  (A beacon blazing on a height  Warms o'er his piety by night.)  The Moslem deprecates the deed,  Cuts off the head that holds the creed,  Then reverently goes to grass,  Muttering thanks to Balaam's Ass  For faith and learning to refute  Idolatry so dissolute!  But should a maniac dash past,  With straws in beard and hands upcast,  To him (through whom, whene'er inclined  To preach a bit to Madmankind,  The Holy Prophet speaks his mind)  Our True Believer lifts his eyes  Devoutly and his prayer applies;  But next to Solyman the Great  Reveres the idiot's sacred state.  Small wonder then, our worthy mute  Was held in popular repute.  Had he been blind as well as mum,  Been lame as well as blind and dumb,  No bard that ever sang or soared  Could say how he had been adored.  More meagerly endowed, he drew  An homage less prodigious. True,  No soul his praises but did utter—  All plied him with devotion's butter,  But none had out—'t was to their credit—  The proselyting sword to spread it.  I state these truths, exactly why  The reader knows as well as I;  They've nothing in the world to do  With what I hope we're coming to  If Pegasus be good enough  To move when he has stood enough.  Egad! his ribs I would examine  Had I a sharper spur than famine,  Or even with that if 'twould incline  To examine his instead of mine.  Where was I? Ah, that silent man  Who dwelt one time in Ispahan—  He had a name—was known to all  As Meerza Solyman Zingall.  There lived afar in Astrabad,  A man the world agreed was mad,  So wickedly he broke his joke  Upon the heads of duller folk,  So miserly, from day to day,  He gathered up and hid away  In vaults obscure and cellars haunted  What many worthy people wanted,  A stingy man!—the tradesmen's palms  Were spread in vain: "I give no alms  Without inquiry"—so he'd say,  And beat the needy duns away.  The bastinado did, 'tis true,  Persuade him, now and then, a few  Odd tens of thousands to disburse  To glut the taxman's hungry purse,  But still, so rich he grew, his fear  Was constant that the Shah might hear.  (The Shah had heard it long ago,  And asked the taxman if 'twere so,  Who promptly answered, rather airish,  The man had long been on the parish.)  The more he feared, the more he grew  A cynic and a miser, too,  Until his bitterness and pelf  Made him a terror to himself;  Then, with a razor's neckwise stroke,  He tartly cut his final joke.  So perished, not an hour too soon,  The wicked Muley Ben Maroon.  From Astrabad to Ispahan  At camel speed the rumor ran  That, breaking through tradition hoar,  And throwing all his kinsmen o'er,  The miser'd left his mighty store  Of gold—his palaces and lands—  To needy and deserving hands  (Except a penny here and there  To pay the dervishes for prayer.)  'Twas known indeed throughout the span  Of earth, and into Hindostan,  That our beloved mute was the  Residuary legatee.  The people said 'twas very well,  And each man had a tale to tell  Of how he'd had a finger in 't  By dropping many a friendly hint  At Astrabad, you see. But ah,  They feared the news might reach the Shah!  To prove the will the lawyers bore 't  Before the Kadi's awful court,  Who nodded, when he heard it read,  Confirmingly his drowsy head,  Nor thought, his sleepiness so great,  Himself to gobble the estate.  "I give," the dead had writ, "my all  To Meerza Solyman Zingall  Of Ispahan. With this estate  I might quite easily create  Ten thousand ingrates, but I shun  Temptation and create but one,  In whom the whole unthankful crew  The rich man's air that ever drew  To fat their pauper lungs I fire  Vicarious with vain desire!  From foul Ingratitude's base rout  I pick this hapless devil out,  Bestowing on him all my lands,  My treasures, camels, slaves and bands  Of wives—I give him all this loot,  And throw my blessing in to boot.  Behold, O man, in this bequest  Philanthropy's long wrongs redressed:  To speak me ill that man I dower  With fiercest will who lacks the power.  Allah il Allah! now let him bloat  With rancor till his heart's afloat,  Unable to discharge the wave  Upon his benefactor's grave!"  Forth in their wrath the people came  And swore it was a sin and shame  To trick their blessed mute; and each  Protested, serious of speech,  That though he'd long foreseen the worst  He'd been against it from the first.  By various means they vainly tried  The testament to set aside,  Each ready with his empty purse  To take upon himself the curse;  For they had powers of invective  Enough to make it ineffective.  The ingrates mustered, every man,  And marched in force to Ispahan  (Which had not quite accommodation)  And held a camp of indignation.  The man, this while, who never spoke—  On whom had fallen this thunder-stroke  Of fortune, gave no feeling vent  Nor dropped a clue to his intent.  Whereas no power to him came  His benefactor to defame,  Some (such a length had slander gone to)  Even whispered that he didn't want to!  But none his secret could divine;  If suffering he made no sign,  Until one night as winter neared  From all his haunts he disappeared—  Evanished in a doubtful blank  Like little crayfish in a bank,  Their heads retracting for a spell,  And pulling in their holes as well.  All through the land of Gul, the stout  Young Spring is kicking Winter out.  The grass sneaks in upon the scene,  Defacing it with bottle-green.  The stumbling lamb arrives to ply  His restless tail in every eye,  Eats nasty mint to spoil his meat  And make himself unfit to eat.  Madly his throat the bulbul tears—  In every grove blasphemes and swears  As the immodest rose displays  Her shameless charms a dozen ways.  Lo! now, throughout the utmost span  Of Ispahan—of Gulistan—  A big new book's displayed in all  The shops and cumbers every stall.  The price is low—the dealers say 'tis—  And the rich are treated to it gratis.  Engraven on its foremost page  These title-words the eye engage:  "The Life of Muley Ben Maroon,  Of Astrabad—Rogue, Thief, Buffoon  And Miser—Liver by the Sweat  Of Better Men: A Lamponette  Composed in Rhyme and Written all  By Meerza Solyman Zingall!"