The Scented Garden

122 Devotion better than learning. XXXV ZAMZEM1 These holy talks and scriptures, truth to tell, Are foul to taste as Mecca’s holy well. Give me my boy’s narcissus waist to hold, His jasmine podex2 to my raptured smell, His rosy lips and coralline to kiss — Well saith the sage that youth’s sole heaven is hell ! A thousand times a night the Fatihah3 Did I recite — my member did not swell. Once for a night I slept with my Habib — A thousand times that member rose and fell !4 Love and not worship is the key of life ; Silence, not prayer, the universal spell. For while I knelt, how could I clasp Habib ?5 And while I prayed, how kiss ? Adorable And perfect boy, thy podex serves alike My member both to challenge and to quell ! So say the Sufis ; Allah wakes desire For Him, and grants it, Life is like a shell That rouses echoes of some distant sea To Zahid-lubbers all innavigable ;