Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | Introductory to Arabia | | Sheik Huiabi’s Creed | | Semen Sergeevich Bobrov (c. 1763–1810) |
| | From the Khersonida
Translated by J. Bowring
’T IS Allah governs this terrestrial ball, | |
| To all gives laws, as he gave life to all! | |
| He rules the unnumbered circles bright with bliss | |
| That from the ends of heaven send forth their beams: | |
| He rules the space, the infinite abyss, | 5 |
| The undefined and wandering ether streams, | |
| Where thousand, thousand stars and planets play,— | |
| What are the laws that guide them on their way? | |
| They are no perishable records,—laws | |
| Written with pen and ink. No! Allah spreads | 10 |
| The golden roll of nature: o’er our heads | |
| Opens his glorious volume and withdraws | |
| The veil of ignorance: read the letters there, | |
| That is the blazing, burning record, where | |
| The letters are not idle lines, but things: | 15 |
| Read there the name of Allah, dazzling bright, | |
| In works of eloquence and words of light! | |
| Shut, shut all other books; and if thy soul, | |
| Borne upward on devotion’s angel-wings, | |
| Soar to the heaven, from earth and earth’s control, | 20 |
| Thou shalt perceive,—shalt know the Deity. | |
| His splendors then shall burst upon thine eye, | |
| An effluence of noontide round thee roll, | |
| Thy spirit glad with light and love;—a sun | |
| Of pure philosophy to lead thee on. | 25 | | | |
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