"I was, ere a name had been named upon earth, Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth; When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign, And being was none save the Presence Divine. Ere the veil of the flesh for Messiah was wrought, To the godhead I bowed in prostration of thought. I measured intently, I pondered with heed (But, ah, fruitless my labor!) the cross and its creed. To the pagod I rushed and the magian's shrine, But my eye caught no glimpse of a glory divine. The reins of research to the Caaba I bent, Whither, hopefully thronging, the old and young went. Candahár and Herát searched I wistfully through, Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view. I toiled to the summit, wild, pathless, and lone, Of the globe-girding Kâf, but the phœnix had flown. The seventh earth I traversed, the seventh heaven explored, But in neither discerned I the court of the Lord. I questioned the pen and the tablet of fate, But they whispered not where He pavilions his state. My vision I strained, but my God-scanning eye No trace that to godhead belongs could descry. But when I my glance turned within my own breast, Lo, the vainly sought Loved One, the godhead confessed! In the whirl of its transport my spirit was tossed, Till each atom of separate being I lost; And the bright sun of Tauriz, a madder than me, Or a wilder, hath never yet seen, nor shall see."