53 With Earth's first Clay They did the last Man's knead, And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed: Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read. 54 I tell Thee this-When, starting from the Goal, Of Heav'n Parwin and Mushtarí they flung, 55 The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about Of my Base Metal may be filed a Key, 56 And this I know: whether the one True Light, One glimpse of It within the Tavern caught 57 Oh, Thou, who did'st with Pitfall and with Gin Thou wilt not with Predestination round 58 Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man KÚZA-NÁMA Listen again. One Evening at the Close 60 And, strange to tell, among the Earthen Lot 210 220 230 And suddenly one more impatient cried'Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?' 240 61 Then said another- Surely not in vain 'My substance from the common Earth was ta'en, 62 Another said-'Why, ne'er a peevish Boy, 6 I Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy ; 63 None answer'd this; but after Silence spake A Vessel of a more ungainly Make: They sneer at me for leaning all awry ; 'What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake? ' 64 Said one- Folks of a surly Tapster tell, And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell; They talk of some strict Testing of us-Pish! He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well.' 65 Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh, My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry: 66 So while the Vessels one by one were speaking, One spied the little Crescent all were seeking : And then they jogg'd each other, 'Brother, Brother! 67 Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide, 68 That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare 69 Indeed the Idols I have loved so long Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong: And sold my Reputation for a Song. 250 260 270 70 Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before I swore but was I sober when I swore? And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore. 71 And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel, 72 Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose ! 73 Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire 74 Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane, How oft hereafter rising shall she look 75 And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass TAMÁM SHUD. 280 290 300 NOTES GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1340-1400). THE CANTERBURY TALES The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is the first English poem which is at once a work of conscious and consummate art and completely national in subject and spirit. From Anglo-Saxon poetry we are separated by a chasm both of language and of character. The English language and the English people both emerged other than merely Saxon from that jostling and blending of races, tongues, and cultures which followed the Norman Conquest. The new national consciousness had begun before Chaucer to seek expression in literature, chiefly in political and satirical songs and poems. But these are rude and inartistic, and even the Vision of Piers Plowman, our first English picture of English society, is more interesting as a social, religious, and personal document than as a poem and a work of art. Its form, the long alliterative line, was incapable of any great artistic development. Art in English poetry begins with Chaucer; and before he wrote the Prologue, Chaucer's art had attained full maturity in style, verse, and picturesque, dramatic narrative. But for his themes Chaucer had hitherto gone exclusively, under French and Italian guidance, to that storehouse of mediaeval romance, allegory, and legend which was the common possession of Western Europe, and contains nothing distinctively national in character. Daunger and Bielaecoil, the Queen of Love and Daun Cupido, Ector and Troilus, Theseus and Palamon, belong to no country but the fantastic land of mediaeval romance in which so many incongruous elements are united. Nevertheless, through all Chaucer's romantic poems, except when in obedience to a mood or a behest he writes of Christian saints and Love's martyrs, one can trace the trend of his genius towards dramatic realism and satiric humour, whether in allegories like the Parlement of Foules and the Hous of Fame, or a love-romance like Troylus and Criseyde, the simple dramatic truthfulness of which shocked those who cultivated the ideal sentiment and ritual of the first part of the Romance of the Rose. It was a long time, however, before this dramatic bent in Chaucer found its natural outlet in the portrayal of real life. It may be, as Ten Brink thought, that his first essays in this direction were the prologue to the Wife of Bath's tale and such a story as January and May. It would be as natural that he should pass from romance to satirical fabliau as that later prose romancers should turn from chivalrous sentiment to picaresque story of thief and cheat. Realism always begins with low life and shady character. But be this as it may, the crown and flower of Chaucer's dramatic and humorous realism is the Prologue just because the picture is not confined to these, and the tone is not satirical only. In the same way, Don Quixote is greater than any picaresque romance because its canvas is so ample, its humanity so genial. In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales the fantastic world of romance and allegory melts away, Troy and Thebes, palaces made of glass, and temples of brass |