(2)
DIVINE GOVERNMENT
The servant of God has no need of any station, | |
no man is his slave, and he is the slave of none; | |
the servant of God is a free man, that is all, | |
his kingdom and laws are given by God alone, | |
his customs, his way, his faith, his laws are of God, | 1235 |
of God his foul and fair, his bitter and sweet. | |
The self-seeking mind heeds not anothers welfare, | |
sees only its own benefit, not anothers; | |
Gods revelation sees the benefit of all, | |
its regard is for the welfare and profit of all. | 1240 |
Just alike in peace and in the ranks of war, | |
His joining and parting are without fear and favour; | |
when other than God determines the aye and nay | |
then the strong man tyrannises over the weak; | |
in this world command is rooted in naked power; | 1245 |
mastery drawn from other than God is pure unbelief. | |
The tyrannical ruler who is well-versed in power | |
builds about himself a fortress made up of edicts; | |
white falcon, sharp of claw and swift to seize, | |
he takes for his counsellor the silly sparrow | 1250 |
giving to tyranny its constitution and laws, | |
a sightless man giving collyrium to the blind. | |
What results from the laws and constitutions of kings? | |
Fat lords of the manor, peasants lean as spindles! | |
Woe to the constitution of the democracy of Europe! | 1255 |
The sound of that trumpet renders the dead still deader; | |
those tricksters, treacherous as the revolving spheres, | |
have played the nations by their own rules, and swept the board! | |
Robbers they, this one wealthy, that one a toiler, | |
all the time lurking in ambush one for another; | 1260 |
now is the hour to disclose the secret of those charmers | |
we are the merchandise, and they take all the profits. | |
Their eyes are hard out of the love of silver and gold, | |
their sons are a burden upon their mothers backs. | |
Woe to a people who, out of fear for the fruit, | 1265 |
carries off the very sap from the trees trunk | |
and, that the plectrum wins no melody from its strings, | |
slays the infant yet unborn in its mothers womb. | |
For all its repertory of varied charms | |
I will take nothing from Europe except-a warning! | 1270 |
You enchained to the imitation of Europe, be free, | |
clutch the skirt of the Koran, and be free! |