CONTENTS
Hassan
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Author: Flecker James Elroy (1884-1915)
Year: 1922
Hassan: ... For thee, Master of the World, poetry is a princely diversion, but for us it was deliverance from Hell. Allah made poetry a cheap thing to buy and a simple thing to understand. He gave men dreams by night that they might learn to dream by day. Men who work hard have special need of these dreams. All the town of Baghdad is passionate for poetry, O Master. Dost thou not know what great crowds gather to hear the epic of Antari sung in the streets at evening? I have seen cobblers weep and butchers bury their great faces in their hands!
Caliph: By Eblis and powers of Hell, should I not know this.... Ah, if ever there shall arise a nation whose people have forgotten poetry or whose poets have forgotten the people, though they send their ships round Taprobane and their armies across the hills of Hindustan, though their city be greater than Babylon of old, though they mine a league into the earth or mount to the stars on wings – what of them?
Hassan: They will be a dark patch upon the world.
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