{
 "id": "ameen-rihani/the-fugitive",
 "title": "The Fugitive",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ameen Rihani",
 "poet_slug": "ameen-rihani",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Chant of Mystics and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "a-chant-of-mystics-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 21,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "A Chant of Mystics and Other Poems (1921)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/chantofmysticsot00riha"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ameen-rihani_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Myrtle_and_Myrrh",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Chant_of_Mystics_and_Other_Poems",
   "https://archive.org/details/myrtlemyrrhpoems00riha",
   "https://archive.org/details/chantofmysticsot00riha"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 106,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I saw Thee following me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I heard Thee calling me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I even felt Thine arrows in my tears;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I know Thou art shadowing me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And wilt yet, forestalling me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Whip out the vanities of all my years.",
    "indent": 4
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I ran and still I run away from Thee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through maze and mirage of mortality;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over the hot sands and the frozen lakes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Across the sable wilderness that breaks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In fragrant moors, I ran to hills of dreams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to the secret borderland that gleams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eternally, casting its shafts of light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From every incommunicable height,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the spinning feet of humankind.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, how I leaped from peak to peak to find",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The path to the azure dance-hall of the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose dome is gemmed, whose portals are empearled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With hearts that melt and crystallize and shine⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With frozen music, frozen beads of wine⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And whose laughter echoes through the spinning spheres,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where we were taught to dance in former years.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea, I, who lit Thine altar, as a boy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nursed in incense fumes my vision of joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And like a roebuck leaped across the rills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And danced like sparks of sunlight o’er the hills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be, at early morn and eventide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The first of acolytes that served with pride",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy venerable priests, alas! one day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Casting my shame and piety aside,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I snuffed the candles out and walked away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the dazzling night of dance and song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the temple of the merry throng.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ever since, a fugitive from Thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shod with Thy lightning, chuckling oft with glee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unburdened and unfettered and undaunted,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With naught, not e’en my shamelessness to hide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And only by beguiling Beauty haunted,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I trod the path of demiurgic pride.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea, I was proud, when in the dawn’s desire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I could command the fruit of every tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bloom of every garden, and the fire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of every passion, every ecstasy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon my way. O pride of brawn and dare!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d shake the lustre from the stars and steal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sap from the vines of June, and I would share",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My booty with the comrade that would seal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His thieving faith with paeons to the deed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That knows nor law, nor moral code, nor creed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I ran and still I run away from Thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Past pyramids and labyrinths of reason,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through gleaming forests, where the upas tree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Feeds both the saint and sinner for a season.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I danced in its lethal shades; I climbed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to the highest fruit-concealing bough",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That bends beneath a mocking wing; I rhymed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My joy and pride; and o’er the very brow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Death I leaped into the howling void,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the acrobats of Mind, with balance-pole",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Logic in their hands, are ever employed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In scanning the dark canyons of the Soul.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I was proud when on the tight rope I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Essayed my feet and fixed my giddy brain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the universe; whereat the sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was but a mute infinity of vain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Belief; and every mystery divine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A sea-washed, iridescent hollow shell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the sands of faith: yea, every sign",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the road led to an empty well.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I was proud⁠—O pride of intellect!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the nothingness of things I could detect.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I ran and still I run away from Thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mistaking Thy compassion for Thine ire;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A rebel I, fantastically free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A green-eyed flame of crepitating fire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whipped by the winds of Circumstance, and yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By Thee pursued and by Thy love beset.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why?⁠—I oft pretend to know not why",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This fond solicitude. For what am I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But a bubble of vanity, a human thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Puffed with the vision of a loneliness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In which a pimpled Ego tries to sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Self, alas! and spread its ebon wing.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I remember still Thy first caress,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, in my infant vision I could feel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even as the flowers, which Thy love reveal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even as the ocean in the Moon’s embrace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even as the sunrise that reflects Thy face.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And this remembering, I hailed the soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flaunting the sacred symbol of the goal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That shrines Thine image; yea, and I was proud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, rising over Self Thyself to find,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With Thine own godliness I was endowed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet I am but partially resigned.⁠ ⁠…",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, spiritual pride! which would disguise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hollow heart of Holier-than-thou",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In accents borrowed from the meek and wise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, too, have prated with a placid brow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though I, still casting shadows in the mire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was but a scarecrow in the vineyard of desire.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I saw Thee following me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I heard Thee calling me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I even felt Thine arrows in my tears;",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I know Thou art shadowing me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And wilt yet, forestalling me,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Whip out the vanities of all my years.",
    "indent": 4
   }
  ]
 ]
}