{ "id": "w-b-yeats/the-gift-of-harun-al-rashid", "title": "The Gift of Harun-al-Rashid", "ordinal": null, "subtitle": null, "poet": "W. B. Yeats", "poet_slug": "w-b-yeats", "language": "en", "book": "The Tower", "book_slug": "the-tower", "book_kind": "volume", "sequence": 11, "container": "The Tower", "epigraph": null, "first_published": { "year": 1928, "venue": "The Tower (1928)", "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.", "uncertain": false, "sources": [ "https://archive.org/details/yeats_thetower_1928" ] }, "source": { "kind": "standard-ebooks", "repo": "standardebooks/w-b-yeats_poetry", "file": "poetry.xhtml", "upstream": [ "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49608", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32491", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36865", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49615", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49609", "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32233", "https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.92252", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001776372", "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/fE8wAQAAMAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TWUEAAAAQAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Dublin_University_Review/TFAwAQAAMAAJ", "https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The_Irish_Monthly/EMoaAAAAYAAJ", "https://archive.org/details/gop-1889", "https://archive.org/details/poemsandballads00unkngoog", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000551354", "https://archive.org/details/fairytalesirish00yeatrich", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008958226", "https://archive.org/details/countesskathleen00yeat", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008883383", "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksofw01yeat", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin01yeat", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin02yeatuoft", "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksin00yeatuoft", "https://archive.org/details/responsibilities00yeatiala", "https://books.google.com/books?id=jDI3AAAAIAAJ", "https://archive.org/details/robertes00wby/robertes00wby", "https://archive.org/details/poemsyeatrich", "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001020237" ], "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)" }, "verification": { "level": "structural-only", "last_checked": "2026-08-21" }, "stats": { "n_lines": 193, "n_stanzas": 4, "n_parts": 0, "longest_line_chars": 54, "max_indent": 0 }, "site_ready": true, "parts": [], "stanzas": [ [ { "text": "Kusta ben Luka is my name, I write", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To Abd al-Rabban; fellow roysterer once,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now the good Caliph’s learned Treasurer,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And for no ear but his. Carry this letter", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through the great gallery of the Treasure House", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Where banners of the Caliphs hang, night-coloured", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But brilliant as the night’s embroidery,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wait war’s music; pass the little gallery;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pass books of learning from Byzantium", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Written in gold upon a purple stain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And pause at last, I was about to say,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "At the great book of Sappho’s song; but no,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "For should you leave my letter there, a boy’s", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Love-lorn, indifferent hands might come upon it", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And let it fall unnoticed to the floor.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pause at the Treatise of Parmenides", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And hide it there, for Caliphs to world’s end", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Must keep that perfect, as they keep her song", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So great its fame. When fitting time has passed", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The parchment will disclose to some learned man", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A mystery that else had found no chronicler", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But the wild Bedouin. Though I approve", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those wanderers that welcomed in their tents", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What great Harun al-Rashid, occupied", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With Persian embassy or Grecian war,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Must needs neglect; I cannot hide the truth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That wandering in a desert, featureless", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As air under a wing, can give birds’ wit.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In after time they will speak much of me", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And speak but fantasy. Recall the year", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When our beloved Caliph put to death", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "His Vizir Jaffer for an unknown reason;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“If but the shirt upon my body knew it", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I’d tear it off and throw it in the fire.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That speech was all that the town knew, but he", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed for a while to have grown young again;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Seemed so on purpose, muttered Jaffer’s friends,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That none might know that he was conscience struck⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But that’s a traitor’s thought. Enough for me", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That in the early summer of the year", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The mightiest of the princes of the world", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Came to the least considered of his courtiers;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Sat down upon the fountain’s marble edge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "One hand amid the goldfish in the pool;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thereupon a colloquy took place", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That I commend to all the chroniclers", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "To show how violent great hearts can lose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Their bitterness and find the honey-comb.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "“I have brought a slender bride into the house;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You know the saying ‘Change the bride with Spring,’", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And she and I, being sunk in happiness,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Cannot endure to think you tread these paths,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When evening stirs the jasmine, and yet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are brideless.” “I am falling into years.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“But such as you and I do not seem old", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like men who live by habit. Every day", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I ride with falcon to the river’s edge", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or carry the ringed mail upon my back,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or court a woman; neither enemy,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Game-bird, nor woman does the same thing twice;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And so a hunter carries in the eye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A mimicry of youth. Can poet’s thought", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That springs from body and in body falls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like this pure jet, now lost amid blue sky", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Now bathing lily leaf and fishes’ scale,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Be mimicry?” “What matter if our souls", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are nearer to the surface of the body", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than souls that start no game and turn no rhyme!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The soul’s own youth and not the body’s youth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Shows through our lineaments. My candle’s bright,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My lantern is too loyal not to show", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That it was made in your great father’s reign.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“And yet the jasmine season warms our blood.”", "indent": 0 } ], [ { "text": "“Great prince, forgive the freedom of my speech;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "You think that love has seasons, and you think", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That if the spring bear off what the spring gave", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The heart need suffer no defeat; but I", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Who have accepted the Byzantine faith,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That seems unnatural to Arabian minds,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Think when I choose a bride I choose for ever;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And if her eye should not grow bright for mine", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or brighten only for some younger eye,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "My heart could never turn from daily ruin,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor find a remedy.” “But what if I", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Have lit upon a woman, who so shares", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Your thirst for those old crabbed mysteries,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "So strains to look beyond our life, an eye", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That never knew that strain would scarce seem bright,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And yet herself can seem youth’s very fountain,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Being all brimmed with life.” “Were it but true", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I would have found the best that life can give,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Companionship in those mysterious things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That make a man’s soul or a woman’s soul", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Itself and not some other soul.” “That love", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Must needs be in this life and in what follows", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Unchanging and at peace, and it is right", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Every philosopher should praise that love.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But I being none can praise its opposite.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It makes my passion stronger but to think", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Like passion stirs the peacock and his mate,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The wild stag and the doe; that mouth to mouth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is a man’s mockery of the changeless soul.”", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And thereupon his bounty gave what now", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Can shake more blossom from autumnal chill", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Than all my bursting springtime knew. A girl", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perched in some window of her mother’s house", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had watched my daily passage to and fro;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Had heard impossible history of my past;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Imagined some impossible history", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Lived at my side; thought time’s disfiguring touch", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Gave but more reason for a woman’s care.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Yet was it love of me, or was it love", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of the stark mystery that has dazed my sight,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Perplexed her fantasy and planned her care?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or did the torchlight of that mystery", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Pick out my features in such light and shade", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Two contemplating passions chose one theme", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Through sheer bewilderment? She had not paced", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The garden paths, nor counted up the rooms,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Before she had spread a book upon her knees", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And asked about the pictures or the text;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And often those first days I saw her stare", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On old dry writing in a learned tongue,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "On old dry faggots that could never please", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "The extravagance of spring; or move a hand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "As if that writing or the figured page", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were some dear cheek. Upon a moonless night", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I sat where I could watch her sleeping form,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And wrote by candle-light; but her form moved,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And fearing that my light disturbed her sleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I rose that I might screen it with a cloth.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I heard her voice, “Turn that I may expound", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What’s bowed your shoulder and made pale your cheek”;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And saw her sitting upright on the bed;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Or was it she that spoke or some great Djinn?", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I say that a Djinn spoke. A live-long hour", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She seemed the learned man and I the child;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Truths without father came, truths that no book", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of all the uncounted books that I have read,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor thought out of her mind or mine begot,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Self-born, high-born, and solitary truths,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Those terrible implacable straight lines", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Drawn through the wandering vegetative dream,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even those truths that when my bones are dust", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Must drive the Arabian host. The voice grew still,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And she lay down upon her bed and slept,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "But woke at the first gleam of day, rose up", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And swept the house and sang about her work", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In childish ignorance of all that passed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A dozen nights of natural sleep, and then", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When the full moon swam to its greatest height", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She rose, and with her eyes shut fast in sleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Walked through the house. Unnoticed and unfelt", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "I wrapped her in a heavy hooded cloak, and she,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Half running, dropped at the first ridge of the desert", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And there marked out those emblems on the sand", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That day by day I study and marvel at,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "With her white finger. I led her home asleep", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And once again she rose and swept the house", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In childish ignorance of all that passed.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Even to-day, after some seven years", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "When maybe thrice in every moon her mouth", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Murmured the wisdom of the desert Djinns,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "She keeps that ignorance, nor has she now", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That first unnatural interest in my books.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seems enough that I am there; and yet", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Old fellow student, whose most patient ear", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Heard all the anxiety of my passionate youth,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "It seems I must buy knowledge with my peace.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "What if she lose her ignorance and so", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Dream that I love her only for the voice,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That every gift and every word of praise", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Is but a payment for that midnight voice", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "That is to age what milk is to a child!", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Were she to lose her love, because she had lost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Her confidence in mine, or even lose", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Its first simplicity, love, voice and all,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All my fine feathers would be plucked away", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And I left shivering. The voice has drawn", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A quality of wisdom from her love’s", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Particular quality. The signs and shapes;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All those abstractions that you fancied were", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "From the great treatise of Parmenides;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "All, all those gyres and cubes and midnight things", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Are but a new expression of her body", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Drunk with the bitter sweetness of her youth.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "And now my utmost mystery is out.", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "A woman’s beauty is a storm-tossed banner;", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Under it wisdom stands, and I alone⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Of all Arabia’s lovers I alone⁠—", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Nor dazzled by the embroidery, nor lost", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "In the confusion of its night-dark folds,", "indent": 0 }, { "text": "Can hear the armed man speak.", "indent": 0 } ] ] }