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O Mind, why dost thou pay no heed?

O Mind, why dost thou pay no heed?
Who speaks? Who listens? Who else is there at all?
Whatever form the glass reveals, look where you will there is but One.
Doubt is destroyed, when all is one: but few are they who understand.
As of water ice is made: and again the ice becomes water.
So from that essence comes this: and this again is that.
He that understands speaks truth: he that understands not, falsehood.
Kabìr says, Who renounces both paths: His understanding is dull.

At a Border-Fortress

Cicadas complain of thin mulberry-trees
In the Eighth-month chill at the frontier pass.
Through the gate and back again, all along the road,
There is nothing anywhere but yellow reeds and grasses
And the bones of soldiers from Yu and from Ping
Who have buried their lives in the dusty sand.
... Let never a cavalier stir you to envy
With boasts of his horse and his horsemanship.

Over the Border

The moon goes back to the time of Ch'in, the wall to the time of Han,
And the road our troops are travelling goes back three hundred miles. . . .
Oh, for the Winged General at the Dragon City —
That never a Tartar horseman might cross the Yin Mountains!