The Scented Garden

The ruling passion strong in death. 129 And he my tool doth entertain. I speak the truth ; falter, nor feign, Seeing my camel on the plain Girt for the Journey ; spared or slain, My love’s no moon to wax and wane. Allah our love with mercy sain ! Then death’s a splendid window-pane Through which I look the world to explain. Give me the Cup ! it’s wine I’ll drain, Thy podex to my member strain, And thrust, and pull, and writhe amain :— Thrill through each raptured dying vein That El Qahar’s dissolving brain Be of his Destiny the bane ! 1. Can this be a reference to the Western su- perstition that mystic devotion injures the intel- lect ? Or only to the dangers of “ obsession ”, to the appalling results which occasionally occur when the processes are ill performed ? I cannot but give my adhesion to the former theory : at this stage of the poem el Haji is attacking sceptics and orthodox people : there is no imperfection in his love. 2. El Haji’s Materialism. There is nothing strange to an Oriental in the theory that emotions and thought depend upon bodily changes. All books on Philosophy teach or imply this, in direct contradiction to the silly metaphysical theories of thought which pass current in the West. Yet they hold that all depend, ring within ring, upon the central point, God. If the Eastern is an idealist, it is the idealism of Malebranche or Berkeley ; if a sceptic, it is the scepticism of Huxley or Hume ; if a materialist, it is the materialism of Leibnitz or the earlier Kant. 3. Charles’ wain — the Great Bear, the Car of David, and many other names, all equally absurd.