Kasidah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî

ON the return journey from Mecca, when Richard Burton could secure any privacy, he composed the following exquisite gem of Oriental poetry, and called it " The Kasîdah, " or " The Lay of the Higher Law, " by Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî, which was one of his Eastern noms-de-plume.

In his little foreword to the Reader, the better to disguise his authorship, he calls himself the Translator, and signs " F. B. " or Frank Baker, an English nom-de-plume from Francis his second name, and Baker his mother's family name. It was written twenty-seven years before he ventured to print it. It reminds one, more than any other poem, of the Rubâiyât of Omar Khayyam, the astronomer-poet of Khorasán, known as the tent-maker, written in the eleventh century, which poem was made known by Mr. Edward Fitzgerald in 1861, at one and the same time, to Richard Burton, to Swinburne, and to Dante Rosetti.

Illustrated by Willy Pogany