Fanúshi Khiyál
On ancient avenues the pilgrims come,
The box perched on their shoulders; it is lit
By candlelight that pierces through the dark.
And there, upon the fragile round they move -
The painted shadow figures one by one,
In orbit and illumined by the flame,
Yet with no name, transmuting, will become
On each turn of the slow-revolving wheel
Transformed, as if the one where they now went
Had disappeared instead, and they’d become
This other pilgrim on an endless trail
That disappears around the farthest limb.
And where the light itself seems dim and dies
Arise the archetypes we’ve seen before,
Some low and forked, and others proud as kings,
Each slightly altered yet much as before,
All caught up in the endless sad parade
And pageantry within their tiny frame
Until the candle at the very heart,
Which lights the long procession, melts away
And all the darkness of the outer world
Becomes as one with what is in the box,
An empty socket where the warmth still clings
Until this sacred thing of light and dark
And purpose to the world is borne anew.
We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show.
a quatrain from 'The Rubaiyat' (Fitzgerald)
On ancient avenues the pilgrims come,
The box perched on their shoulders; it is lit
By candlelight that pierces through the dark.
And there, upon the fragile round they move -
The painted shadow figures one by one,
In orbit and illumined by the flame,
Yet with no name, transmuting, will become
On each turn of the slow-revolving wheel
Transformed, as if the one where they now went
Had disappeared instead, and they’d become
This other pilgrim on an endless trail
That disappears around the farthest limb.
And where the light itself seems dim and dies
Arise the archetypes we’ve seen before,
Some low and forked, and others proud as kings,
Each slightly altered yet much as before,
All caught up in the endless sad parade
And pageantry within their tiny frame
Until the candle at the very heart,
Which lights the long procession, melts away
And all the darkness of the outer world
Becomes as one with what is in the box,
An empty socket where the warmth still clings
Until this sacred thing of light and dark
And purpose to the world is borne anew.
We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show.
a quatrain from 'The Rubaiyat' (Fitzgerald)