PRELUDE
That the Community is made up of the Mingling of Individuals, and owes the Perfecting of its Education to Prophet-hood

Upon what manner man is bound to man :
That tale’s a thread, the end whereof is lost
Beyond unraveling. We can descry
The Individual within the Mass,
And we can pluck him as a flower is plucked
Out of the garden all his nature is
Entranced with individuality,
Yet only in Society he finds
Security and preservation. On
The road of life, the furnace of life’s fire,
That roaring battlefield, sets him aflame.
Men grow habituated each to each,
Like jewels threaded on a single cord ;
Succors each other in the war of life
In mutual bond, like workmen bent upon
A common task. Through such polarity
The constellations congregate, each star
In several attraction keeping each
Poised firmly and unshaken. Caravans
May pitch their tents on mountain or on hill,
Broad meadow, fringe of desert, sandy mound.
Yet slack and lifeless hangs the warp and woof
Of the Group’s labour, unresolved the bud
Of its deep meditation, still unplayed
The flickering levin of its instrument,
Its music hushed within its muted strings,
Unsmitten by the pounding of the quest,

The Mingling of Individuals

The plectrum of desire ; disordered still
Its new-born concourse, and so thin its wine
As to be blotted up with cotton flock ;
New-sprung the verdure of its soil, and cold
The blood in its vine’s veins ; a habitat
Of demons and of fairy sprites its thoughts,
So that it leaps in terror from the shapes
Conjured by its own surmise ; shrunk the scope
Of its crude life, its narrow thoughts confined
Beneath the rim of its constricting roof ;
Fear for its life the meagre stock-in-trade
Of its constituent elements ; its heart
Trembling before the whistle of the wind ;
Its spirit shies away from arduous toil,
Little disposed to pluck at Nature’s skirt,
But whatsoever springs of its own self
Or falls from heaven, that it gathers up.
Till God discovers a man pure of heart
In His good time, who in a single word
A volume shall rehearse; a minstrel he
Whose piercing music gives new life to dust.
Through him the unsubstantial atom glows
Radiant with life, the meanest merchandise
Takes on new worth. Out of his single breath
Two hundred bodies quicken ; with one glass
He livens and assembly. His bright glance
Slays, but forthwith his single uttered word
Bestows new life, that so Duality
Expiring, Unity may come to birth.
His thread, whose end is knotted to the skies,
Weaves all together life’s dissevered parts.
Revealing a new vista to the gaze,
He can convert broad desert and bare vale
Into a garden. At his fiery breath
A people leap like rue upon a fire
In sudden tumult, in their heart one spark
Caught from his kindling, and their sullen clay
Breaks instantly aflame. Where’er he treads
The earth receiving vision, every mote ¹⁰
May wink the eye at Moses’ Sinai.
The naked understanding he adorns,
With wealth abundant fills its indigence,
Fans with his skirts its embers, purifies
Its gold of every particle of dross.
He strikes the shackles from the fettered slave,
Redeems him from his masters, and declares,
“No other’s slave thou art, nor any less
Than those mute idols.” So unto one goal
Drawing each on, he circumscribes the feet
Of all within the circle of one Law,
Reschools them in God’s wondrous Unity,
And teaches them the habit and the use
Of self-surrender to the Will Divine.