1910 · CLOSE READING
The Scented Garden
The Scented Garden (1910), PDF p. 135
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The Vanity of metaphysic.
127
Then, when thou hast Him, cease to speculate—
Who hath the How is careless of the Why.4
So I, Habib, thy podex sodomize ;
With simple art the Mullahs I defy
To analyse the mystery ; nor care
So long as I am in the galaxy
Of sevenfold Suraiya ; El Qahar
Lifteth his member evermore5 on high.
So doth wise El Qahar to El Qahar
The fool by El Qahar the bard reply.
1. Suraiya. — the Pleiades.
2. Hell.
3. The passage in brackets is certainly spu-
rious. We retain it as shewing the ingenuity of in-
terpretation employed in this class of literature.
4. The natural (though hardly altogether just)
contempt of the practical expert for the arm-chair
critic.
5. Surely Oriental exaggeration.
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