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Hassan : the story of Hassan of Bagdad, and how he came to make the golden journey to Samarkand : a play in five acts by James Elroy Flecker
page 82 of 172 (47%)
Hassan of my heart?

HASSAN
In that great school, the Market of Bagdad. For thee, Master of the World,
poetry is a princely diversion, but for us it was a 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 Bagdad 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 the powers of Hell, should I not know this,
and know that therein lies the secret of the strength of Islam?
In poems and in tales alone shall live the eternal memory of this city
when I am dust and thou art dust, when the Bedouin shall build
his hut upon my garden and drive his plough beyond the ruins of my palace,
and all Bagdad is broken to the ground. Ah, if there shall ever arise
a nation whose people have forgotten poetry or whose poets have forgotten
the people, though they send their ships around Taprobane
and their armies across the hills of Hindustan, though their city
be greater than Babylon of old, though they mine a league into earth
or mount to the stars on wings--what of them?

HASSAN
They will be a dark patch upon the world.

CALIPH
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