"We now have coasted, running Ocean o'er,51
Callisto's Arctick and th' Antarctick lands;
our course hath circled Africk's winding shore;
strange skies exploring and yet stranger strands:
Ours is a potent King, loved evermore,
and we so prize his praise and his commands,
with mien right joyful, not the sea and sky,
but even Ach'eron Lake we dare defy.
"And wend we seeking by his royal will52
where farthest Indus wat'ereth Eastern plain:
For him through wild wide waves we hoist the sail,
where ugly seals and ores deform the Main.
But Reason tells us that ye may not fail
to answer, an of Truth your souls be fain,
Who are ye ? What this land wherein ye wone?
And sign of India is to you beknown?"
"We live," an island-man thus answ'ering said,53
"aliens in land and law and eke in blood ;
where native races are by nature bred,
a lawless, loutish, and unreasoning brood.
We hold his certain Law, that Holy Seed,
springing from Abram's loins, who hath subdued
the nations subject to his sign'ory true;
by sire a Gentile and by mother Jew.[1]
- ↑ Mohammed Rasul Allah.
