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Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Iqbal, Muhammad, Sir and Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
Arabia, China, and Greece are subject to him.
If thou wouldst drink clear wine from thine own grapes, 1005
Thou must needs wield authority over thine own earth.
To become earth is the creed of a moth;
Be a conqueror of earth; that alone is worthy of a man.
Thou art soft as a rose. Become hard as a stone,
That thou mayst be the foundation of the wall of the garden! 1010
Build thy clay into a Man,
Build thy Man into a World!
If thou art unfit to be either a wall or a door,
Some one else will make bricks of thine earth.
O thou who complainest of the cruelty of Heaven, 1015
Thou whose glass cries out against the injustice of the stone,
How long this wailing and crying and lamentation?
How long this perpetual beating of thy breast?
The pith of Life is contained in action,
To delight in creation is the law of Life. 1020
Arise and create a new world!
Wrap thyself in flames, be an Abraham![80]
To comply with this ill-starred world
Is to fling away thy buckler on the field of battle.
The man of strong character who is master of himself 1025
Will find Fortune complaisant.
If the world does not comply with his humour,
He will try the hazard of war with Heaven;
He will dig up the foundations of the universe
And cast its atoms into a new mould. 1030
He will subvert the course of Time
And wreck the azure firmament.
By his own strength he will produce
A new world which will do his pleasure.
If one cannot live in the world as beseems a man, 1035
It is true life to give up one’s soul.
He that hath sound intelligence
Will prove his strength by great enterprises.
‘Tis sweet to use love in hard tasks
And, like Abraham, to gather roses from flames.[81] 1040
The potentialities of men of action
Are displayed in willing acceptance of what is difficult.
Mean spirits have no weapon but spite,