-^SlWy \^ gJH5ffiffiH5H5H5H5 a- fflA, 1:^ ca: ai5H5H5HS2SH5ESSf Class . Book_ Ic-:^ o: ^ f)J Poetry of the Orient. WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER, AUTHOR OF "the FRIENDSHIPS OF WOMEN," " THE GENIUS OF SOLITUDE," "the DOCTRINE OF A FUTURH LIFE." What precious things I found in Onental lauds, " - Returning home, 1 brought thein in my votive hands, BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1S74. ^■^:\ "L C Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of jNIassachusetts. FOURTH EDITION, ENLARGED. Cambridge: presswork by john wilson and son. T THE DEAR AND PURE MEMORY OF MY DEAD BOY, HENRY LODGE ALGER, WHO LOVED MANY THINGS IN THIS BOOK, I NOW DEDICATE IT. PREF The Avhole field of Oriental literature, i cessible through English, Latin, German, and French translations, has long been with me a favorite province for excursions in such leisure hours as I could com- mand. And during that time I have been in the habit of versifying the brief passages which struck me most forcibly. From the enjoyment these pecu- liar fragments of meditation and imagery gave me, — from the conviction that others too would enjoy them, — from the difficulty of finding them where they now lie, dispersed and buried amidst repelling masses of dry detail, — and from the expressed desire of several friends, — arose the resolve to venture the present publication. There seems to me also a striking propriety, and the promise of profit, in bringing to the acquaintance of Americans the most marked mental peculiarities of the Orientals. Must not a spiritual contact between the enterprising young ^^est and the meditative old East be a source of uncommon stimulus and culture ? It is a noble ambition to desire to master all the varieties of lawful human experience; and Oriental poetry offers to our attention fields of thought, modes of feeling, styles of imagination, the most impressively unlike our own. Whoever, born and nurtured in the midst of Western civilization, wishes to understand the whole of human nature and the whole of human consciousness, especially in its more ideal depart- ments, will nowhere else find so much instruction and excitement as in the proxhice to which the pres- ent work essays to introduce him. Many persons seem to think that this region — the poetic literature of the East — is fitted to yield only a barren crop of verbiage, or a tawdry mass of sentimental extravagance. It often has these charac- teristics. It also possesses all kinds of wealth, in their most exalted degrees, and in their most wonder- ful profusion. The poetry of the unimaginative Chi- nese is noticeable for ethical good sense, — a wholesome vein of homely truth. Its beat is circumscribed to the ranges of practical experience, neither plunging to metaphysical depths, nor soaring to rapturous heights. The Muse of Ciiina is a ground-sparrow. With the Arabs passion is carried to its most fiery ecstasies, its most tenaeious lengths. Their ideas seem to be trans- muted into sensations, rather than theii^ sensations to PREFACE. Vll be represented in ideas. Imagination itself is heated, YascLilar, vibrating with the blood. Sanscrit and Hin- dostanee poetry is characterized, in its most peculiar phases, by au unrivalled idealization. Imagination often takes the reins from judgment, and runs riot, and language breaks into a blossoming wilderness of metaphor. But the richness and originality of the result in ideas and emotions, as well as in imagery, are frequently grand and exhilarating. The most distinctive Persian poetry exhibits an exquisite deli- cacy of sense elsewhere unparalleled, a vast and ethe- real play of fancy and sentiment, a fetterless jubilancy of reason and faith, the very transcendentalism of wit. All seems strained through the imagination, deprived of grossness, held in solution, ready to dart in electric freedom. The dying Siifi, Mewlana Rumi, says, in anticipation of his funeral, to the friends weeping around him : — " ^^Tiile your dim eyes but see, through the haze of earth's sadness, My frame doomed to mix ■^^'ith the mouldering clod, I am treading the courts of the seventh heaven in gladness. And basking unveiled in the vision of God." Where has the divine lesson, " Bless them that injure you," been more charmingly rendered than in the following lines from Hafiz, translated by Sir TVilliam Jones ? " Learn from yon Orient shell to love thy foe, And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe : Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride, Imblaze with gems the wrist that tears thy side ; Mark where yon tree rewards the stony shower "With fruit nectareous or balmy flower. All nature calls aloud, ' Shall man do less Than heal the smiter, and the railer bless ? ' " The substance of many of the pieces in the ensuing pages, from the great Eastern authors, will be found most surprising. Some pieces will be found merely odd, quaint, grotesque, or bizarre ; some are unques- tionably trivial ; but nearly all, it is hoped, possess, for one reason or other, some peculiarity which lends them a justifying interest, if not value. There is a naivete in the mythological rhetoric of the old Hindu bards mentally provocative in a singular degree. "What a glimpse into the pre-liistoric state and habits of man, in the primeval Aryan world, is opened, when we find, in the Rig "\^eda, the clouds called cows, the winds calves, and the rain milk ! The cow bellows for her calf; that is, the thunder-cloud roars for the wind to draw the rain from its breast ! Again, the colors of the spectrum are seven sisters riding together in the chariot of the year, drawn by seven horses. The axle of the chariot is never heated, the nave never worn ; its journeying damages not the PREFACE. IX four quarters of the horizon ; the team never sweats nor snorts, and is unsullied by dust ! The form, also, of Eastern jDoetry is in many cases very peculiar. The ghazel consists usually of not less than five, or more than fifteen couplets, all with the same rhyme. Here is an imperfect one, translated by Vans Kennedy. In perusing it the reader must know that " cell," in the Siifi dialect, means chapel ; " pagans," priests ; " wine," Divine love. " The shade that cypress here bestows, to me 's enough. The joy that from the goblet flows, to me 's enough. The cell where pagans wine expose, to me 's enough. The sign how swift each moment goes, to me 's enough. K not to you, the joy it shows to me 's enough. The bhss her converse fond bestows, to me 's enough. Love sweeter far than angel knows, to me 's enough. A guileless heart, with verse that glows, to me 's enough." A divan is a body of ghazels arranged in alpha- betical order, according to their isocatalectic letters. The larger proportion of the specimens given here are faithful representations of Hindu, Persian, and Arab thoughts, sentiments, and fancies, which I have met with in the voluminous records of the different Asiatic Societies, in prose versions from the Vedas and Puranas, and in a thousand scattered sources. Of the rest, the originating hint and impulse alone, or merely the character and style, are Oriental. I have prefixed to each piece which is strictly a translation the name of the original author, whenever it was known to me. The specimens derived through the German of Herder and of Ruckert I am com- pelled to leave anonymous, as no clew is given to the authors from whom they were derived. I have affixed the letter H. to those drawn from Herder, the letter R. to those drawn from Riickert. All the pieces remaining, in addition to those now designated, are to be ascribed, under the conditions before stated, to the present writer. With small pretensions, with fervid interest in the subject, this humble offering, brought from the altar of the Oriental Muses, and laid on the shrine of American Literature, is commended to the kind notice of those whose curiosity or sympathy responds to the fascination of Eastern gorgeousness, reverie, and pas- sion. An edition of this work, numbering sixteen hundred copies, was published in 1856. It is now out of print. The present edition is enlarged by considerable new introductory matter, and by over a hundred additional specimens ; also, by an Appendix consisting of poems not of an Oriental character. Boston, March, 1865. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. PAGE Purposes of this Essay, . 3 Desirableness of such a Work, 4 Range and Variety of Eastern Poetry, .... 4 Alliterations ; Puns ; Ingenious Compositions in Geometrical Shapes, 5 Immense Amount of Eastern Poetry, .... .7 English Translations from the Eastern Tongues, . .8-10 Southey and Moore, . 11 French Translations from the Eastern Tongues, . . 12 German Translations from the Eastern Tongues, . . .13 Mirtsa Schaffv, a Living Persian Poet, . . . . 15 Goethe's West-Oestlicher Divan, 16 Oriental Metrical Forms, 16 Comparison of Eastern and TVesteni Poetiy, . . 17-21 Peculiarities of Eastern Literature, 22 Chinese Poetry, 23, 24 Hebrew Poetry, 25 Dr. Xoyes's Translations, 26 The distinctive Hindu, Persian, Arab, and Sufi ]Muses, . 27 The Hindu Drama, 28 The Ramayana, VaLmiki's Epic, 29 Episode of Rat ana and Sita, 30-36 The Mahabharata, Vyasa's Epic, 37 The Close of the Mahabharata,' . . .38-44 Ai-abian Poetiy, 45 Freiligi-ath's Picture of the Desert, . . . 46-49 Snenery and Life of Arabia, ...... 50 The Spirit-Caravan, 50-53 XU CONTENTS. The Arabian Maiden, Horse, and Palm, .... 53 Persian Poetry, 54 The Shall Nameh of Pirdousi, 55 Pirdousi's Terrible Satire on Mahmoud, . . . .56 Bewildering Luxury of Persian Lyrics, . . . . 57, 58 Jemschid's Cup, Solomon's Ring, Iskander's Mirror, . . 59 The Three Pairs of Persian Lovers, .... 60 Episode of Perhad in Nisami's lOiosra and Shireen, . .61 The Five Allegories of Hapless Love, .... 62 The Sect of Sufis, . . . . . . . .63 Their Quietistic Enthusiasm, 64 The Succp:ssruL Search, a Sufi Poem, . . . .64 The Three Stages of Piety, 66 Mewlana Dschelaleddin Eumi, 66 Inwai'dness of Sufism, 67 The Religion of the Heart, ' 68 Sufistic Optimism, 69 Death the Entrance to Ecstasy, 70 Characteristics of Oriental Poetry. 1. Freedom of Imagination, . . . . . .71 2. Copiousness of Comparison, 72 3. The Apologue, 73 The Caliph and Satan, . . . . 74-77 4. Paradoxical Figures, 78 5. Bacchic and Erotic Imagery, 79 6. Metaphysical and Imaginative Mysticism, . . .80 Distinction bet^veen Sentimentalist and Mystic, . 80 The Contents of Piety, 81 7. Pantheism, 82 8. Profound Feeling of Worldly Evanescence, . . 83-85 The Eastern Poet a Preacher, 86-88 The Festival, . . . . . . . • ' 89-91 Apologetic Justification of the Present Work, ... 92 Metrical Specimens, 93-316 Pieces not derived from Oriental Sources or Suggestions, 317-337 Supplement to the Fourth Edition, . . 339-371 AN INTRODUCTION ORIENTAL POETRY. HISTORICAL DISSERTATIOl^ The three aims of this essay are, to convey to the reader some conception of the vast contents of the im- perial treasure-house of Oriental poetry; to present a brief sketch of the labors of modern scholars towards bringing this unique literature to the acquaintance of the Occidental world ; and to give an illustrative analy- sis of the distinguishing characteristics of Arab, Hindu, Persian, and Siifi poems. I am aware that I shall ac- complish these objects imperfectly, because my knowl- edge of the original materials has been obtained through translations, and because the narrow limits within which the exposition must be cojifined will not allow a full detail even of the facts and illustrations actually in my hands. Still I hope not to be charged with presumption, and ruled out of the literary court as an incompetent intruder, however incommensurate my performance may be with the theme ; and would suggest, in. depre- cation of censure, that the present work, inadequate as it is, will yet meet a real want, and perhaps lead to worthier productions. Those who feel curiosity on the subject will gladly own, that even the meagre outUne of 4 rNTRODUCTION TO the Eastern Muse given here is better thian nothing. It comes into a vacant place where many are looking, and therefore may be welcomed, although it very in- completely fills that place. Thousands desire to know more than they can learn, from means at hand, oi that wondrous harvest of Oriental thought, sentiment, and fancy, from which scattered blades, fragmentary grains, stray blossoms, are occasionally reaching them : and while the great scholars, the front reapers in this field, do not drive their loaded wains to our "Western mart, the humble gleaner may not be stigmatized as immodest if he brings forward a small sheaf of speci- mens. Of course, at the best, it must be extremely inadequate ; for, as Dschelaleddin says, A flower-branch of the garden one brings to the town, But brings not the whole garden of flowers to the town. Oriental poetry includes a much more varied range of subjects than Occidental. A large portion of the re- ligious, metaphysical, geographical, philological, histori- cal, and mathematical treatises of the East are written in measure and rhyme. " The ancient laws of the race were framed in verse, and sung into authority as the carmen necessarium of the state." The children's school- books, from Mecca to Borneo, from Bagdad to Pekin, are almost invariably composed in poetic form. A sort of catechism, said to be universally used in the Chinese seminaries of instruction, commences thus : — All men at birth are good alike at root, But afterwards they difier much in fruit. Wilford ascribes to Yikramaditya, the powerful mon- arch at whose court Kalidasa flourished, a work on OEIEXTAL POETRY. Geography, Avhicli is still extant in manuscript, in twenty thousand slokas. There seems to be a power- ful propensity in the whole Eastern mind to a measured, musical utterance filled with recurring sounds. And so, in one rhetorical form it sets forth the subject-matter of speculation and science, observation and fancy, alike, from the attenuated theses of Buddha's abysmal philos- ophy, to the Poor Eichard maxims of the Confucian sages ; from the prayers to Agni, god of fire, in the oldest Indian Veda, to the dry etymological disquisitions in the latest Arabic grammar. Even their prose, as is remarkably shown in the Koran, is thickly interspersed with rhymes, balanced clauses, and pairs of jingling names. Instead of Cain and Abel, the Ai-abs say Abel and Kabel. A noticeable feature in Eastern poetry is the quirks, conceits, puns, alliterations, with which much of it abounds. Many of these are wrought up in forniB of such exceeding difficulty, that their elaboration must have cost immense pain?, as well as ingenuity. The construction and solution of riddles is a favorite exer- cise with them. These patient authors have composed acrostics, wlio?e lines read the same forwards, back- wards, upwards and downwards, at each end, and through the centre. They have written poems in lines of dif- ferent lengths, and so arranged as to constitute the shapes of drums, crosses, circles, swords, trees. The Alexandrian rhetoricians afterwards amused themselves in a similar manner, -^ writing cutting satires and pier- cing invectives in the form of an axe or a spear. The Christian monks of the Middle Age also did the same thing ; composing, for instance, hymns in the form INTRODUCTION TO of the cross. I have seen an erotic triplet composed by a Hindu poet, the first line representing a bow, the second its string, the third an arrow aimed at the heart of the object of his passion. . the fairest ^y .c>^ "s, blasting fire, and woes, O'erspreads creation with a pall of gloom. And rises slowly towards the brim of doom. Some sprinkling from that cup has spotted all, And plunged them in a hopeless common fall, Condemned past hope to writhe in tortures fell, Which ne'er can cleanse the destined hosts of hell. One little sin that mystic cup did fill. And yet it poureth on, and poureth still The tainting horrors of all pain and ill ; Nor will its dreadful pouring stop at last Until the final flame the world shall blast. And the everlasting sentence hath been passed. When man's poor race exists on earth no more, The frightful flood shall cease its issuing roar. But then the boundless dregs of that small cup 146 SPECIMENS OF In horrid hell shall all be gathered up, To seethe and howl in endless anguish dire, The food of deatjiless worm and quenchless fire, Whose wails and dashing waves' eternal din Proclaim in glee the victory of sin. that I the God of heaven had been ! Instead of letting evil triumph then, When foul temptation's false and fatal tricks The man beguiled the cup of guilt to mix, 1 would have snatched the enchanted goblet up, — Have snatched the mystic draught of that strange cup From ignorant Adam's trembling hand and lip Before he could have drawn a single sip. And dashed the sea of fire it latent held Down Satan's throat, the while he bafl[led yelled ! In glory thus I would have crushed the plot Which now with failure doth creation blot. For Satan's proud success is blazed abroad. When evil thwarts the primal plan of God, To make a world of fairy mount and glen. Possessed for aye by pure and happy men. DALLIANCE OF SEA AND WIND. The Sea in gladness heaves her yielding form, To meet her boisterous paramour, the Storm. ORIENTAL POETRY. 147 FIFTEEN FRAGMENTS FROM HAFIZ. Sweet Hafiz is not dead, although his body turned To dust in Eastern Shiraz centuries ago. He lives and strikes the lyre Avhich in his hand then burned : This day his thoughts through Western nations sound and glow. I. THE DRUNKEN SAINT's JUSTIPICATION. Know you the true reason and cause why it is that I drink ? From pride and from folly I strutted and swelled through the town : And now those detestable vices, from which the saints shrink, I will in the depths of the ocean of drunkenness drown ? II. THE IXFRAXGIBLE TIE. A little vSamson is my heart, Who breaks his chains with ease apart ; Aiid at each futile fetter mocks, Except the band of Leila's locks ! III. THE BLINDING REVELATION. Wouldst thou show us eternal life through dazzling rift ; Then bid the east- wind from thy face that thin veil hft. 148 SPECIMENS OF IT. DULLARD AXD GENIUS. Did Understanding know how hearts are blest When fettered in the locks of loved one's hair, The poor devil a moment would not rest Till he had lost his understanding there I V. THE reveller's VOW. Glass upon glass I will clink ; Kiss after kiss I will spend ; Draught upon draught I will drink ; And I will love without end ! VI. THE PRECIOUS FUGITIVE CAUGHT. She shyly lifts her eye's blue windowlet ; Her heart flies out into my bosom's net. VII. THE MONASTERY AND THE INN. Never did the gloomy convent win Any joy or use for rich or poor. Therefore let us throng the tavern door, Crying, " Generous host, let us in 1 " VIII. THE CHEERFUL WORLD-INN. With his morose advice the Dervish gaunt Would make my heart so empty and so sad, That, were it not for the old inn I haunt. Full long ago my life I ended had ! ORIENTAL POETRY. 149 IX. THE EARTH A BITTER CUP. The world is bitter as the juice from aloes beaten ; Yet know I lips which all its bitterness can sweeten ! X. THE GREATER SINNER THE BETTER SAINT. Dervish ! does your galling envy make it hurt jou, When you think that Hafiz' sins the prize of virtue Win? But he that sins like him, O formal weeper! In God's mercy-ocean only sinks the deeper. XI. THE SWEETEST MOUTH. Let no bard, from the North to the South, My Zuleika compare with a bud ; Because ne'er such a dainty sweet mouth Had a bud, since subsided the flood ! XII. A FRESH MIRACLE. Pupil, genuine wisdom learn. Yonder, see that bush of roses : How before thee it doth burn, Like the burning bush of Moses ! Hearken, and thou now shalt hear, If thy soul 's not deaf nor flighty, How from out it, soft and clear. Speaks to thee the Lord Almighty ! 150 SPECIMENS OF XIII. HEAVEN AN ECHO OF EARTH. 'T is but a shadow of the earth's famihar bliss, Bright mirrored on the sky's ethereal fonts, That fills our breasts with longings nothing can dismiss, In tremulous and glimmering response. XIV. THE DOUBLE RUBY. A double ruby is my fascinating ruin ; Long time ago their fatal charm my bosom flew in. Whate'er resisting reason says, quite vanquished mine is : One ruby is thy luring mouth, the other wine is. XV. IT WAS BRED IN THE BONE. My drunkenness is not a fault of mine ; For drunken came I from the hand Divine, "Which kneaded up my nascent clay with wine. Therefore, when, dry and hard, I fainting pine, No moisture suits me like the yeasty vine ! A ZOROASTRIAN MYTH. R. Stir in thy breast, O son ! Devotion's fire about. And leave no room therein for all-pernicious Doubt. By Doubt alone was evil on the world impelled ; And goodness by Devotion only is upheld. ORIENTAL POETRY. 151 The Parsee myth this truth as follows has made known. Ere earth and heaven were, was Zeruan alone. A thousand years, in full Devotion sunk, he sought To get a son by whom the world should then be wrought. The thousand years of pure Devotion now he ends : Upon the instant, in his mind fell Doubt ascends. He doubting says, " Shall I Devotion's just return Obtain, or for a son for ever vainly yearn ? " At once the womb of Power that thought's creative sperm Invades, and makes it pregnant with a double germ, Ormuzd and Ahriman ; Devotion's dazzling child, And Doubt's demoniac son, false, filthy, black, and wild. The moment they were born, creation they began : Ormuzd all good things made ; all evil, Ahriman. While that one wrought. Devotion's fire supplying played : Doubt gave the stuff" of which the other 'each thing made. 152 SPECIMENS OF While Ahriman his poisonous plans in matter wrote, Ormuzd still fanned Devotion's fire as antidote. In opposition still these two the world create, And bad are those who love the one that good men hate. Hold thou bj pure Ormuzd, Devotion s fire to feel ; And let no cause of Doubt prevail to quench thy zeal. When Doubt has in Devotion's flame expiring gleamed. Then thou art wholly good, and hast the world redeemed. ONLY CIRCLES ARE ENDLESS. All immortalities are circular in form : The transmigration of the soul is truth divine. If endless linear progress were each being's norm, The whole creation would at last become a line. TRUE friendship: from dschamt. Sheik vSchubli, taken sick, was borne one day Unto the hospital. A host the way Behind him thronged. " Who are you ? " Schubli cried. " We are your friends," the multitude replied. Sheik Schubli threw a stone at them : they fled. " Come back, ye false pretenders ! " then he said ; ORIENTAL POETRY. 153 " A friend is one who, ranked among his foes By him he loves, and stoned, and beat with blows, Will still remain as friendly as before, And to his friendship only add the more." A THOUGHT FROM HASSAN BAR SABAH. Life is a violent storm, in which thrust, Man is at best but a handful of dust. THE PROMOTION OF DISDAIN. The Prophet said, as his disciples tell, " Disdain is made the treasurer of hell." THE CALL TO EVENING PRAYER. One silver crescent in the twilight sky is hanging, Another tips the solemn dome of yonder mosque. And now the Muezzin's call is heard, sonorous clanging Through thronged bazaar, concealed hareem, and cool kiosk : " In the Prophet's name, God is God, and there is no other." On roofs, in streets, alone, or close beside his brother. Each Moslem kneels, his forehead turned towards Mec- ca's shrine. And all the world forgotten in one thought divine. 154 SPECIMENS OF SAADI OX ARBORICULTURE. Though the water of life from the clouds fell in billows, And the ground were strewn over with Paradise' loam, Yet in vain would you seek from a garden of willows To collect any fruit as beneath them you roam. EARTH AN ILLUSION. From the mists of the Ocean of Truth in the skies, A Mirage in deluding reflections doth rise. There is naught but reality there to be seen ; We have here but the lie of its vapory sheen. GAYATRI : THE VEDAS' HOLIEST YERSE. Let us in silent adoration yearn After the Godhead — True Sun — evermore ; Who all illumines, who creates all o'er. From whom all come, to whom all must return, Whom we invoke to guide our minds and feet In our slow progress towards his holy seat. THE beggar's mirror. K. A beggar of Shiraz once had a looking-glass That by this magic power all others did surpass, — ORIENTAL POETRY. 155 Which many dames would wish their mirrors too could share, — To show an ugly face as if it were most fair ! The beggar held this glass in front of every one From whom he begged ; and copious guerdons thus he won. For each with gladness gave who saw himself so fair : The gay young lord, the foul old hag, both looking there. At last the beggar, lying sick, gave to his son The glass, and said, " Make use of it as I have done." But with the glass at night all empty came he back : For he had made a different use of it, alack ! He held not up the glass before each passing wight, But saw his own face there, and lingered on the sight. The father said : ''' The foolish fruit of idle pride. My son, no human heart has ever satisfied. Who shows the world hi Flattery's glass, is one shrewd elf; He is a fool who looks therein to see himself." 156 SPECIMENS OF THE DAVARF AVATAR. The wicked giant, Bali, had obtained Supreme control from heaven down to hell j He all the humbler deities had chained ; Like rain his cruelties unmeasured fell. The highest gods in fear a session called, And argued vengeful plans for many an hour : From far below he upward looked, and bawled An arrogant defiance to their power. At length dlvinest Vishnu forward stepped, While round the senate mighty plaudits ran, And vowed himself — his consort Lakshmi wept — The foe to disenthrone, and ransom man. The heavenly synod praised him, though they feared His failure through some one of million harms. On earth, a puny man, he soon appeared. And, as a beggar, asked of Bali alms. "-"What wouldst thou have?" the horrid despot said, And gave the shrinking dwarf a scornful glance. O fool ! premonished by no mystic dread. And reading naught beneath that countenance ! ORIENTAL POETPtX. 157 The little, timid mendicant replies, " Give me so much of thy dominion's space — The boon is small, but will for me sufiice — As I can only bj three steppings pace." The blinded Bali, mocking, gave assent, And looked upon him with contemptuous eje. Swift grew the dwarf through such immense extent, That 07ie step spanned the earth, one more, the sky ! Then looking round, with haughty voice he said, " The third where shall I take ? Bali, tell ! " At Vishnu's feet the tyrant placed his head, And instantaneously was thrust to hell. THE mystic's rapture : FROM MAHMOUD. Mine ego hid the sun, as would a mountain tall ; One ray of light quick smote the mass to atoms small, And through the mountain shape of dust full streamed the light Of thousand suns, all shining supersensually bright. Within a drop of dew was chained, by magic guile, The banished, vast Euphrates, as a poor exile. The earth before me lay, a heap of dusky clods. One draught this beggar drank of the pure Avine of God's, 158 SPECIMENS OF And grew a Shah. Each mote a Caucasus became. The black "veil rose from round each atom's core of flame, The welkm roof was rent, and Deity I saw Sole brooding o'er a world of shoreless light and awe. "WHY SIVA's neck IS BLUE. When once of old the demons churned the thickening ocean, To baffle the design the gods their wits employed. There soon resulted, fruitage of the sickening motion, A poisonous drug whose fumes all neighboring life de- stroyed. But Brahma, joining Vishnu, sought with deep devotion To turn from men the plot of that demonic crew : To Siva spake they ; quick he gulped the infernal po- tion ! And that is what has made his fearful throat so blue. A wine-deinker's metaphoks. As the nightingale oft from a rose's dcAv sips. So I wet with fresh wine my belanguishing lips. As the soul of perfume through a flower's petals slips, So pure wine passes through the rose-door of my lips. ORIENTAL POETRY. 159 As to port from afar float the full-loaded ships, So this wine-beaker drifts to the strand of my lips. As the white-driven sea o'er a cliffs edges drips, So the red-tinted wine breaks in foam on my lips. SUBJECTIVITY OF TIME AXD SPACE. Where is Space ? In the eye. "Where is Time ? In the ear. Light bringeth that one there, Sound bringeth this one here. Close eye and ear, and you are out of Space and Time, In contemplation, rapture, prayer, and dream sublime. You build the world according to your pleasure all : It rests on Time and Space : through you these stand and fall. THE FRAGRANT PIECE OF EARTH: FR03I SAADI. A fragrant piece of earth salutes Each passenger, and perfume shoots, Unlike the common earth or sod. Around through all the air abroad. A pilgrim near it once did rest. And took it up, and thus addressed : " Art thou a lump of musk ? or art A ball of spice, this smell t' impart 160 SPECIMENS OF To all who chance to travel by The spot where thou, like earth, dost lie ? Humbly the clod replied : " I must Confess that I am only dust. But once a rose within me grew : Its rootlets shot, its flowerets blew, And all the rose's sweetness rolled Throughout the texture of my mould ; And so it is that I impart Perfume to thee, whoe'er thou art ! " THE SPREADING SPECK: FROM MOTANEBBI. On every human soul there lies A little dusky speck of sin. As small as a mote's eye in size : But when that speck doth once begin To work, it swift and swift extends, Till the whole soul it comprehends. And all its powers overclouds With condemnation's thunder-shrouds. Then fierce and far the fear-fires flash, And dire and dread the doom-bolts dash. Thus doth the sin-speck spread, in sight, O'er all the soul a baleful night, — A blotting night of horror deep. That knows no dawn and knows no sleep ! ORIENTAL POETRY. 161 A MORAL ATMOSPHERE. It is as hard for one whom sinners still prevent From prayer, to keep his virtue, yet with them to dwell, As it would be for a lotus of sweetest scent To blossom forth in beauty 'midst the flames of hell. POWER BOUGHT BY PENANCE. R. So great Eavana's penances and rites austere \Yere, that the gods, beholding them, were filled with fear. The worlds he had subdued, with all who in them dwell, And was obeyed from Indra's heaven to Bali's hell. Dread Brahma at his court rehearsed the Yeda books ; The Sun came down as overseer of his cooks. To bear his goblets. Clouds did leave their realm of rain. And the swift AYind was his obsequious chamberlain. WINE SONG OF KAITMAS. Fill up the goblet, and reach to me some ! Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum. What is thy breath but a quaffing of air ? Smell is but drinking of fragrances rare. 162 SPECIMEXS OF What is a kiss but a clrauglit double quick ? Drinking makes blessed, but fasting makes sick. Seeing is only a drinking of light : Drinketh the ear from all sounds, day and night. Fill, then, the goblet, and reach to me some ! Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum. A TONE FROM HAFIZ' LYRE. Now is the blossoming-time of the roses. Maiden, bring wine ! never wait for the morrow. Over us joyfully smiles the soft blueness ; Quick let us, round the dark field of old sorrow, Tread the bright path of to-day in its newness, Plucking at once the fresh garlands of roses. THE SELF-LADEX CARRIER. In love there is no message interwrought : It was itself which its own meaning brought. THE RETEALING TRIAL. Is there not a sure test the deep truth of each man to divine, When the cow may be brought to the banks of the brook of red wine ? ORIENTAL POETRY. 163 THE ZEST OF THE PRIZE. Against Life's firm and many-peopled land Mobile Passion's tide doth make the pebbles rattle, With Glory's pearls it overstrews the strand, And wakes afresh Ambition's mighty battle. FOLLY FOR ONE's SELF. H. He who is only for his neighbors wise. While his own soul in sad confusion lies. Is like those men who builded Noah's ark, But sank, themselves, beneath the waters dark. THE PAUSE OF PRUDENCE. H. Be not in haste the frail arrow to shoot, For it can ne'er be returned thee again : AVhen one has killed the good tree for its fruit. He may lament it for ever in vain. THE ROAD TO KXO^YLEDGE. H. How hast thou so profound a lore attained ? To ask another, I was ne'er ashamed ! TnSD03I FOR OTHERS. Like a blind man, who bears a torch to light The way for other men, but goes in night 164' SPECIMENS OF Himself, is he who for his friends has sight, But none his own dim steps to guide aright. IDLE THOUGHT. H. Wisdom without action is hke a bee without honey, that sings : Ask his vain haughtiness why he thus idly roves about, and stings ! UNDISHEARTENED ASPIRATION. H. From torch reversed the flame still streameth, rising straight : So struggleth up the brave man stricken down bj fate. THE TRAGIC CHANGE. Mj hair was black, but white my life : The colors in exchange are cast ! The white upon my hair is rife. The black upon my life has passed. THE IMPOSSIBILITY. When I have seen, though clad in gold or silk, In peace and joy a Avicked man or maid, I then have drunk a bowl of pigeon's milk, And ate the yellow eggs the oxen laid ! ORIENTAL POETRY. 165 THE PATRON. H. When the tree with ripened fruit is loaded, Towards the hungry all its rich boughs stoop ; They who had a famine once foreboded Only have to pluck them as they droop. Likewise when the good man 's clothed with power, Gladly generous is he with his aid ; All the needy gather from his dower, And rejoice to rest them in his shade. ALL IS EACH, AND EACH IS ALL, The sullen mountain, and the bee that hums, A flying joy, about its flowery base. Each from the same immediate fountain comes. And both compose one evanescent race. Proud man, exulting in his strength and thought, The torpid clod he treads beneath his way. One parent Artist's skill alike hath wrought, And they are brothers in their fate to-day. There is no difference in the texture fine That 's woven through organic rock and grass, And that which thrills man's heart in every line, As o'er its web God's weavmg fingers pass. 166 SPECniENS OF The timid flower that decks the fragrant field, The daring star that tints the solemn dome, From one propulsive force to being reeled ; Both keep one law and have a single home. The river and the leaf, the sun and shade. The bird and stone, the shepherds and their flocks, Are all of one primeval substance made, — A single key their common secret locks. Each atom holds the boundless God concrete Besides whose abstract Being nothing is ; Each mind, each point of dust, is God complete ; — Who knows but this, the magic key is his ! The curdling horrors, doubts, of fear and woe Dissolve and flee before liis solving gaze ; Absorbing light sets death's abyss aglow, Fills evil's night an all-explaining blaze. Between heaven's bright domains and blackest hell's The separating limits swiftly fall ; A dazzling flood of glory streams, and swells, And interfuses absolutely all. eetire:mext feom gossip. Absorbing thought to worldly company is rude. And every mighty passion courteth solitude. OKIENTAL POETKT. 167 SCHEEIF ETH-THALIK's WIXE-ORB. The sun of wine sank in th j mouth, where still its gloiy reeks, And left the flushes of its evening-red upon thj cheeks. TO DIE IS GAIX. "We then shall see no more, before the veil all dimly blurred, But for imagined shall have grasped, embraced for onlj heard. THE SOBER DRrXKENXESS. Beware the deadly fumes of that insane elation . Which rises from the cup of mad impiety ; And go, get drunk with that divine intoxication Which is more sober far than all sobriety. THE CREATION OF THE TVORLD. Creative thought and passion in a cup The meditating Brahm once hurled ; And when the seething foam had all dried up, The sediment was this briirht world. 168 SPECniENS OF NINE FRAGMENTS FROM THE PRSM SAGAR. How pitying Yishnu came from heaven, and as a peasant-bov, At Braj, by pranks filled all the cowherd lads and girls with joy, The wondrous things he said and did while mortal men among, — All this has saintly Shukadev in the Prem Sagar sung. I. THE MASKED DEITY BETRAYED. Before his parents' hut at play. The little Krishna Chand one day Swallowed some dirt. With eagsr speed His brothers ran and told the deed. Seizing a switch, his mother rushed To punish him. He shrank, and blushed, Bat firmly did the charge deny. She said, " Krishna, tell not a lie ; Open your mouth, and let me see ! " His mouth he opened instantly. She looked, — and there the Three Worlds saw. Prostrate she fell in deepest awe, And cried, " Thee I no longer call My son, but own as Lord of all.'" ORIENTAL POETRY. 169 II. THE PERILOUS BOON. Bikasiir had of penances fulfilled his task, And promise won of anj boon that he might ask. " Grant, Siva, that on whom I place my hand, He may become a heap of ashes on the land." The boon is granted. Lo ! at once Bikasur strives To place his hand on SivG''s head, whom terror drives To fly, as close the steps of his pursuer press. Then Hari, Nand's blue son, saw Siva's deep distress, And went before Bikasur, and demanded why He thus was chasing Siva round the earth and sky. And then he said, — when he the whole truth had received, — " Bikasur ! by some goblin you have been deceived. The mighty boon is all a cheat, a vanity: Just put your hand upon your own head, and then see ! " Bikasur, made by Maia's power both blind and drunk, The test applied, and to a heap of ashes sunk ! Rejoicing music floated from the heavenly bowers. And all the gods applauded loud, and rained down flowers. III. FOREORDAINED MEANS AND ENDS. "\Yliate'er man's destiny may be. His mind is changed accordingly : AYith it his heart in union blends. And thus come God's appointed ends. 170 SPECniENS OF IV. THE libertine's DOOM. Whoe'er tlie chastity of maid Doth ruin while living on the earth, He shall in Fate's black noose be laid, And drop to hell from birth to birth. V. Krishna's cowherdess weeping. Her head in bitter woe to earth depended, As she wildly tore her long curls ; And from her eyes a stream of tears descended Like a broken necklace of pearls. VI. king pariksheet's prater. From this shoreless sea of cares. From this world's illusions vain, "Where my heart each conflict shares, And I groan in being's chain, Vishnu ! kindest god of all. Where the timeless geons roll. Hear me, while to thee I call, And emancipate my soul. VII. akrur's prater, O Krishna Chand ! from whom all objects rise. Belong they to the darkness or the light. The opening and the closing of thine eyes ORIENTAL POETRY. l71 Are tlie immediate cause of day and night. Tliou art the gloom that broods, the fire that burns ; My thoughts I fix upon thy footprints now ; To thee my heart through all things ceaseless yearns : Most gracious Lord I protect me ever thou. VIII. PATERNAL AUTHORITY. When King Jajati had waxed old, He asked each son, Shayone, Yalage, " Give me thy youth of joy untold, And take instead my mournful age ! " Yalage replied, " Not I in truth ! " Then King Jajati cursed him sore. But quick the younger said, " My youth Take thou, let me be old and hoar." And King Jajati blessed Shayone, And left to him the royal throne. IX. THE LIFE-PRESERVER. To those who on the world-stream drowning float. The name of Krishna is a saving boat. THE IDOLATER S PATH. Unto an idol's shrine the luring roads that lead Are made of sighs and tears which his poor votaries bleed. 172 SPECIMENS OF THE SUN AND THE POET's EYE. R. Art thou, O Sun ! a fount from which all splendor rushes, — A fount from which the life of the creation gushes ? Art thou a golden shield, on heaven's blue peak uphung, Whose radiance, fresh and unobscured, abroad is flung ? Art thou a hero stout, thy beams the shafts he shoots ? Where is the quiver which to hold such weapons suits ? Art thou an eye whose piercing glance all space sur- veys, — Which grows not dim, but is refreshed by its own gaze ? Thou art an eye, O Sun ! an eye like this of mine, Excepting that no bound includes the scope of thine. Thou mak'st the earth turn round as on its course it rides : Such is thy love thou wilt behold it on all sides. My little eye, to thine immense one when opposed, At once begins to blink, is conquered soon and closed. Let all Mdio now look up to trace thy path of flame. When I am dead turn one kind glance upon my name ! ^ ORIENTAL POETRY. 173 Thus will Foureed, though soon must darken his fond eyes, An endless fame Avrite on the eyeball of the skies. LESSON OF submission: from saadi. A pilgrim, bound to Mecca, quite away his sandals wore. And on the desert's blistering sand his feet grew very sore. " To let me suffer thus, great Allah is not kind nor just, Wliile in his service I confront the painful heat and dust," He murmured in complaining tone ; and in this temper came To where, around the Caaba, pilgrims knelt of every name : And there he saw, while pity and remorse his bosom beat, A pilgrim who not only wanted shoes, but olso feet, THE TWO world-scribes. Earth is a parchment whose back Fate's double pencils thus write : — Life writeth white upon black, Death writeth black upon white. 174 SPECIMENS OF THE TRUTH OF THEISM. Over space the clear banner of mind is unfurled, And the habits of God are the laws of the world. SAADI MORALIZES NATURE. The wind that howls around the world's inclement camp Cares not that it extinguishes the widow's lamp. THE TWIN ANGELS OF GOD. Once, arm in arm, the angels Love and Pity "VYere flying forth across the heavenly cope ; When, as they left God's vast and blissful city, They saw where hell's tormented captives grope. A sympathizing tear fell down in sorrow, A gentle smile upon the darkness fell. That smile spread on as dawning hope's to-morrow. That tear extinguished all the fire of hell. Then rose the deep abyss, while god descended, And turned to angels fair the demon race. Such force amazing Pity's tear attended Along with light from Love's celestial face. YICE NEUTRALIZING YIRTUE. He that a vice from year to year inherits, Wieldeth an axe ao;ainst his tree of merits. ORIENTAL POETRY. 175 SELF-EXCULPATION. Regard no vice as small, that thou majst brook it ; No virtue small, that thou mayst overlook it. THE INTOLERABLE SPLENDOR. So long the light of God burns clear and bright As our eyes bear it ; then it fades from sight. THE Buddha's victory. The eyes of Wassywart were blots of blood. His awful sword could cleave the world asunder ; And, like the vastest mountain, there he stood. His hoarsened voice outroaring all the thunder. In fiercest rage he dared the Buddha mild To fight him then, with any arms he chose. To gaze upon his bulk and gestures wild, The gods came forth, and all the planets rose. To be a shield before his broadening breast, He wrenched the sun from out the socket-sky. And fearfully the Buddha mild addressed, " Behold the arm by which thou now shalt die." The unarmed Buddha mildly gazed at him, And said, in peace, " Poor fiend, even thee I love." Before great Wassywart the world grew dim ; His bulk enormous faded to a dove, 176 SPECIMENS OF That hovered where the hating monster loomed, And filled with softest notes the space Through which his rage's thund'rous accents boomed. Celestial beauty sat on Buddha's face, While sweetly sang the metamorphosed dove, " Swords, rocks, lies, fiends, must yield to moveless love, And nothing can withstand the Buddha's grace." THE LAST REMEDY. The fool, to hide his folly, one well-planned Prevention has : it is in his own hand ! Where wise men talk, or when they walk or sup, Can he not keep his foolish mouth shut up ? THE FISHERMAN, LOVE. Young Love as a fisherman spreadeth his nets. And woman's sweet lips are the bait that he sets : All eagerly bite, the men-fish that swim by, And then in the flames of desire they must fry. SOCIETY MORE THAN PLACE. Better where awful mountains rise With raging tigers dwell, Than share the halls of Paradise With men who merit Hell. ORIENTAL POETRY. 177 FRO:\I A niXDU rOET. H. Hearken, and roll not round so wild Thine eyes decoying, lovely child ! The joy of youth was long since o'er, And what we were, Ave are no more. In the repentance-grove we 've sat, And known how vain was this and that : And since that time we name, alas ! The world a little blade of grass. THE CONTRAST. Like shadows in the early morn Is friendship with a wicked man : Part after part is from it shorn. But with disinterested friends It grows, like shadows in the eve, Until the sun of life descends. THE EAGLE. Against the sky's blue floor his proud crest rubs, The distant earth his spoiling talon wrings, His eye is the lair of the lightning's cubs, The beaten thunders growl beneath his wings ; His vision spills the ocean as a drop, And only at the world-walls doth he stop. 178 SPECIMENS OF THE BIRD-KING. Dost thou the monarch eagle seek ? Thou 'It find him in the tempest's maw. Where thunders with tornados speak, And forests fly as though of straw : Or on some lightning-spHntered peak, Sceptred with desolation's law, The shrubless mountain in his beak, The barren desert in his claw. THE VEILED FACE OF DAY. Through the forehead of eve the Lord driveth yon star as a nail, And the thick-spangled darkness lets down o'er the day as a veil. THE USE OF THE MOON. The moon is a silver pin-head vast. NOT FATE, BUT SKILL. Diving and finding no pearls in the sea, Blame not the ocean, the fault is in thee ! ORIENTAL POETRY. 179 THE TEAR AND THE LAMP. Weeping, a tear put out mj lamp, and night's Deep darkness then encompassed me alone. Ah tears ! how oft ye quench the feeble lights That faith has in the halls of sorrow strewn ! A GLIMPSE. The sun and moon together in the evening sheen Seeing, while painted clouds like mists of incense curled, I said, surely such beauty has never been seen Since first the veils covered the Harem of the World. BROKEN HEARTS. When other things are broken, they are nothing worth, Unless it be -to some old Jew or some repairer ; But hearts, the more they 're bruised and broken here on earth, In heaven are so much the costlier and the fairer. NOT DRESS, BUT NATURE. If mean or costly dresses through this globe Decide the rank in which men are enrolled, Why, then we '11 clothe the wolf in satin robe, The alligator in fine silk enfold ! 180 SPECIMENS OF beauty's prerogative. Thy beauty pales all sublunary things, And man to vassalage eternal dooms : The road before thee should be swept with brooms Made of the eyelashes of peerless kings. SENSIBILITY, A tear doth not the eye unfeeling swell : A precious pearl lies not in every shell ! RAIN BEATING THE EARTH. The clouds pour on the fields the pelting showers and dew ; The earth heeds not the rain-drops' pugilistic crew, Until her bosom from their blows is green and blue. THE RESTLESSNESS OF MIND. Since the soul, exiled from its God, a haven has sought, It has found no anchorage in the ocean of thought. THE DIVINE ROSE-TREE. God holds^ the heavenly rose-bush in his hand. And starry roses on it thickly stand. ORIENTAL POETRY. 181 SALVATION BY MERCY. Once staggering, blind with follj, on the brink of bell, Above the everlasting fire-flood's frightful roar, God threw his heart before mj feet, and, stumbling o'er That obstacle divine, I into heaven fell. THE MYSTERY OF GOD. Though God extends beyond creation's rim, Each smallest atom holds the whole of Him. A CRINAL CONCEIT. My hair is black, but mixed with white ; and Fancy speaks, Saying, Behold a host of Negroes mixed with Greeks ! BESTIR THEE BETIMES. Oh ! be thou zealous in thy youth ; Fill every day with noble tolls, Fight for the victories of Truth, And deck thee with her deathless spoils. For those whose lives are in retreat, Their valor and ambition flown, In vain the 'larum drum is beat. In vain the battle-trumpet blown ! 182 . SPECIMENS OF THE MYSTIC PRATER OF HAFIZ. Quickly funiisli me Solomon's ring- ; Alexander's weird glass be my meed ; The philosopher's stone to me bring ; Also give me the cup of Jemscliid : — In one word, I but ask, host of mine, That thou fetch me a draught of thy wine I Bring me wine ! I would wash this old cowl From the stains which have made it so foul. Bring me wine I By my puissant arm The thick net of deceit and of hanii, Which the priests have spread over the world, Shall be rent and in laughter be hurled. Bring me wine ! I the earth will subdue. Bring me wine I I the heaven will storm through. Bring me wine, bring it quick, make no halt ! To the throne of both worlds I will vault. All is in the red streamlet divine. Bring me wine ! O my host, bring me wine ! THE MILD REBrKE. H, A blind man, fallen in the night, Cried for some one to bring a light. A scoffer jeered from folly's camp : " Thou canst not even see the lamp. ORIENTAL POETRY. 183 Much less discern things bj its beams ; And £0 thy ciy is vain, it seems." The bhnd man straightway made reply : " To you it seemeth vain, but I Conclude that, if a torch were here, Its blaze making the whole place clear, The first good man that happened by Would lead me where my way doth lie." INEFFICIENT RESTRAINT. The band of thy resolve is a fine hair ; The wolf of thy desire would break a chain : One day this ravening wolf that band will tear, And then thy bitter cries will be in vain. THE GREAT LEVEL. It is a monitory truth, I ween. That, turning up the ashes of the grave, One can discern no difference between The richest sultan and the poorest slave. THE PALIM OF DESTINY. Fate is a Hand. It lays two fingers on the eyes, Two on the ears, one on the mouth, and silent cries, "^ Be ever still ! " Then down in endless sleep man lies. 184 SPECIMENS OF THE DISARMED TERROR. After one completely draws All the lion's teeth and claws, Who would fear his helpless paws, Or his boneless, mumbling jaws ? HAFIZ ON HIS DEATH. Think not I am unhappy when my coffin passes by, And when you gaze upon my corse, sigh not, in tears, Alas ! When you fall into sin, then indeed you Alas ! may cry. And when my body sleeps in dust beneath the flowering grass, Talk not of separating absence, for the earth that covers My clay will be but a veil hiding the secrets of lovers. ENJOYMENT VERSUS IMPROVEMENT. One said, " Better a single drop of pleasure. Than to possess a hogshead full of wisdom." Such thought it fitteth a hog's head to treasure. In filthy dregs of sense appointing his doom ; But, sooth, one drop of wisdom is far better Than pleasure in whole bottomless abysses : For sense's fool must wear remorse's fetter When duty's servant reigns where endless bliss is. ORIEXTAL POETRY. 185 THE TRIPLE MURDER. These three men all at once to death the slander-poison burns : The one who speaks, the one who hears, the one whom it concerns. THE ROASTED HEX: AX ARAB TALE. R. A man once sat with his good wife to eat A hen, of which she was for him the roaster. A beggar cried, " Some food I do entreat ! " But drove him off the satiated boaster. He thought not of the old proverbial verse, " The full should call the empty to their table." Soon through his house came hunger as a curse, To get a single hen he was not able. From direst poverty he left his wife, And homeless roamed abroad without a brother ; But she, in order to preserve her life. In marriage gave herself unto another. Again she with her husband sat to eat A hen, which she for him had been a roasting. A beggar cried, '• I some of it entreat ! '' " Give him the hen ! " said he, too meek for boasting. 186 SPECIMENS OP As to the beggar with the food she came, Behold ! 't was he to whom she first was married. She turned, in tears, with thoughts that have no name : Her spouse in wonder asked why thus she tarried. She told him then, in full and frank reply, All since the first beggar away was driven. He cried : " Ah God ! that first beggar was I, — Praised be the mercy of all-pitying Heaven 1 "There is a law which orders Fortune's play, And moves the rich and poor upon its lever : I begged of him who begs of me to-day, — May God have mercy on us both for ever ! " THE SINGLE FEIEND. Against that fool must all true thinkers laugh, Who, counting o'er his friends, thinks most of number. It is as if who wants a single staff Should with a bunch of reeds his hand encumber. THE FAITHFUL FRIEND. The true friend is not he who holds up Flattery's mirror, In which the face to thy conceit most pleasing hovers ; But he who kindly shows thee all thy vices. Sirrah ! And helps thee mend them ere an enemy discovers. ORIENTAL POETRY. 187 THE SULTAX'S LESSOX. An aged Sultan placed before his throne one daj Three urns : one golden was, one amber, and one clay. 'When %\'ith liis royal seal the slaves had sealed each urn, He ordered his three sons to take their choice in turn. Upon the golden vase the ^Yord Empire was writ ; The haughty word resplendent groups of jewels stud. The eldest grasped the golden urn, and opened it, — But shrank in horror back to find it filled Avith blood ! The word Glory upon the amber vase shone bright i The luring word fresh wreaths of laurels cluster o'er. The second chose the amber urn, — pathetic sight ! ^T was filled with dust of men once famed, now known no more. Xo word inscribed upon its front the clay vase bore, And yet for this the youngest prince his choice had saved. Pie oped the urn of clay his father's feet before, — And lo ! 't was empty, but God's name was there en- graved. The Sultan to the wondering throng of courtiers turned, And asked them which of all those vases weighed the most ? 188 SPECIMENS OF Far different thoughts within their various bosoms burned : — ■ Into a threefold party broke the courtier host. The warriors said, " The golden vase, symbol of power/' The poets said, " The amber vase, emblem of fame." The sages said, " The clayey vase, God's name its dower : The globe is lighter than one letter of that name.'* Then said the Sultan to his sons : " Remember well The meaning of this scene, the lesson of this day. "When your lives' dust is balanced over heaven and hell, Ah ! think, will its renown the name of God outweigh ? " ELBOW-ROOM. Ten poor men sleep in peace on one straw heap, as Saadi sings, But the immensest empire is too narrow for two kings. FORTUNE AND WORTH. H. That haughty rich man see, a merely gilded clod ; This poor man see, pure gold with common dust be- smeared. Start not ; in needy garb was Moses girt and shod, When waved and shone before him Pharaoh's golden beard ! oriental poetry. 189 charity's eye : fro^i xisami. One evening Jesus lingered in tlie market-place, Teaching the people parables of truth and grace, When in the square remote a crowd was seen to rise. And stop, with loathing gestures and abhorring cries. The Master and his meek disciples went to see What cause for this commotion and disgust could be, And found a poor dead dog beside the gutter laid ; Revolting sight ! at which each face its hate betrayed. One held his nose, one shut his eyes, one turned away ; And all among themselves began aloud to say, '• Detested creature ! he pollutes the earth and air ! " " His eyes are blear ! " " His ears are foul ! " " His ribs are bare ! " '• In his torn hide there 's not a decent shoe-string left ! " '• Xo doubt the execrable cur was hung for theft ! " Then Jesus spake, and dropped on him this saving wreath, — "Even pearls are dark before the whiteness of his teeth ! " The pelting crowd grew silent and ashamed, like one Rebuked by sight of wisdom higher than his own ; And one exclaimed, " No creature so accursed can be. But some good thing in him a loving eye will see." 190 SPECIMENS OP FALSE PIETY. He who from love to God neglects the human race Goes into darkness with a glass, to see his face ! MERIT AND PLACE. A jewel is a jewel still, though lying in the dust, And sand is sand, though up to heaven by the tempest thrust. WHAT SAADI SAYS OF WISHES. Had the cat wings, no sparrow could live in the air : Had each his wibh, what more would Allah have to sjDare ? THE NOBLEST MAN. 'Midst noble men they Hatim Tai call In generosity the first of all. He said : " When forty camels I had slain To give my guests, I saAV upon the plain A man who thorns and thistles plucked with care. Disguised I went, and asked, ' Why not go share With those whom Hatim Tai's house doth feed ? ' He said, ' Of Hatim's house I have no need While my own toil a humble meal can buy.' My friends, that was a nobler man than I." ORIENTAL POETRY. 191 IMPEDING PLEASURE. H. Who after wisdom flies must guard both foot and wing From pleasure's honey, or therein he '11 stick and cling. THE FOLLY OF INDIFFERENCE. H. " It goes best with me then," said a carousing king, " When on the earth grieves me no good or evil thing : So let the couriers of Fate their tidings bring." A naked beggar, 'neath the window stretched, cried out: '' How then does your imperial robe surpass my clout ? Nothing irks me : I tremble at no sudden shout." PRECEPT TVITIIOUT PRACTICE. H. Wlio learns and learns, but acts not what he knows, Is one who ploughs and ploughs, but never sows. PATIENCE WINS. H. Haste not : the flying courser, over-heated, dies, While step by step the patient camel goal-ward plies. ETIL INTERFERENCE. H. Fan not the hostile spark between two friends that glows; For they will soon embrace, but both remain thy foes. 192 SPECIMENS OF MEANS AND END. Wealth must be meant to ease the load of life, Not life to load us with the weight of wealth. Stealth 's only used to win some aim of strife, Not strife 's pursued as means to practise stealth. THE HORSELEECH. Canst thou tell me what is insatiable ? The greedy eye of avarice ! "Were all the universe a loaded table,. It never, never could fill this ! THE USELESSNESS OF ENVY. Mean souls wish sorrow to the happy-minded. And hate the sun that sweetly smiles upon content. But when base owls and bats, by midday blinded, Accuse the light, is the sun into darkness sent ? SAADI SATS, NIP THE BUD. A sprout of evil, ere it has struck root. With thumb and finger one up-puUs : To start it, when grown up and full of fruit. Requires a mighty yoke of bulls. OEIENTAL POETRY. 193 LAW ALONE RELIABLE. H. One lucky hit affords no rule ; Who thinks it does, he is a fool. The king of Persia once set up His costliest ring upon a cup, And unto all his archers cries, " Who hits that ring, it is his prize." In vain the most expert of all Essay to shoot it off the balk An inexperienced stripling tries : His chance-sped arrow strikes the prize. Before he never had bent bow. He wisely said, " 'T was luck, I know ; And that my fame may still remain, I never will bend bow aprain." GUILT S PAXG THE WORST. Beneath the tiger's jaw I heard a victim cry, " Thanks, God, that, though in pain, yet not in guilt I die!" SAADl's HERALDRY. If there were not an eagle in the realm of birds, Must then the owl be kinoj amono; the feathered herds ? 194 SPECIMENS OF WHAT IS WEALTH? H. Thus did a choking wanderer in the desei't cry : " O that Allah one prayer would grant before I die ; That I might stand up to my knees in a cool lake, My burning tongue and parching throat in it to slake." No lake he saw ; and when they found him in the waste, A bag of gems and gold lay just before his face, And his dead hand a paper with this writing grasped : " Worthless was wealth when dying for water I gasped." FOUNT AND EIYER. The bad fount, which a pitcher can hide from your view, Feeds a stream which an elephant scarce can wade through. THE KING S EXAMPLE. H. Once Sultan Nushirvan the just, hunting. Stopped in an open field to take a lunch. He wanted salt, and to a servant said, " Go, get some at the nearest house, but pay The price the peasant asks." " Great king," exclaimed The servant, " thou art lord o'er all this realm ; Why take the pains to buy a little salt ? " " It is a little thing," said Nushirvan, ORIENTAL POETRY. 195 " And so, at first, was all the evil whose Most monstrous load now presses so the world. Were there no little wrongs, no great could be. If I from off a poor man's tree should pluck A single apple, straight mj slaves would rob The whole tree to its roots : if I should seize Five e^gfi, my ministers at once would snatch A hundred hens. Therefore strict justice must I, even in unimportant acts, observe. Bring salt, but pay the peasant what he asks." THE BANNER AND THE CARPET. H. Once a royal baimer bent his head. And unto a royal carpet said, In the Sultan's palace at Bagdad : *' See what different duties we have had, And how different too is our reward, Though we 're servants both of one great lord. I, on weary marches, tired and torn, Journey, in the van of peril borne. Thou, afar from travel's dust and pains, And afar from battle's siege and stains, In the palace brightly art arrayed TThere 3'oung prince, and dame, and beauteous maid Odors scatter on thine every band. Thou art blest : but me some menial hand 196 SPECIMENS OF In the rawest blast extends, or holds High upon some crag mj flapping folds." •- Spake the soft, rich carpet then, and said : " Thou dost lift to heaven thy haughty head ; I lie here beneath my sovereign's tread : As a slave I 'm kept here, nice and warm, Thou, ambitious, scorning each low form. In the height find'st danger and the storm ! " FICKLENESS. Hard separation's thorn already grows Beneath the heart of every friendship's rose. THE BRIEF CHAXCE-ENCOTINTER. As two floating planks meet and part on the sea, O friend ! so I met and then drifted from thee. THE THREEFOLD CONDITION. That what was born must die, is true, And that what dies is born anew. O man ! thou know'st not what thou wert of late ; But what thou art at present, learn In thought completely to discern. And what thou shalt become anticipate. ORIENTAL POETET. 197 IXDOCILITY. Of what use unto fools is wise discourse ? In vain the teacher talks until he 's hoarse. As moonlight streams through a crack in the roof, So on the hearts of fools shines wise reproof. THE TKAITOIl SURPRISED. O Sudra ! think not thou canst hide from Siva's ejes : Bite not the hook beneath a painted bait hid weU. The man who walked o'er treachery's road to Paradise, When at the journey's end, found he was snug in Hell ! THE DIFFERENCE. H. Seek wisdom, wliile on earth, as if you were immortal there ; But virtue, as if death already had you by the hair ! DESPICABLE PALLIATION. TTlio laughingly calls it a good piece of wit, When friends too confiding he foully betrays. He then should admire, as a hero most fit, The man who a sleeper remorselessly slays. 198 -SPECIMENS OF THE TWO BLOSSOMS. On the world's infected tree, of fruits the mother, Two fair blossoms sjDrinkled are with heavenly dew- drops. Poetry is one, and Friendship is the other. For their plucking, Moslem, Christian, Brahmin, Jew, stops. That one makes all nature as a loving brother : This one, when the heart is weak, each nerve and thew props. IXJUEY OR DEFILEMENT. H. Avoid a villain as you would a brand. Which, lighted, burns, extinguished, smuts the hand. rXAD VISED CONTEMPT. H. Before scorning a man investigate thou him. For some contain a mine of harm, yet do not blab it : Pass not with careless step across the thicket dim ; Beware ! that empty bush a tiger may inhabit. HUMAN EVANESCENCE. Our life endures — such is its brevity — But while a rain-drop falls from cloud to sea. ORIENTAL POETRY. 199 TRADITION AND LIFE. Be no imitator ; freshly act ihj part ; Through this world be thou an independent ranger : Better is the faith that springeth from thy heart, Than a better faith belonging to a stranger. MORAL COMMERCE. Caring not, however cynics censure. All the wealth of heart I have I venture, And to man 's equator-region send ship For the ivory, spice, and gold of friendship. RESOLUTE LABOR. Howe'er the ignorant decry, Ilowe'er oppose the envious crew, Since death comes soon, and brief years fly. Thy firmly chosen work pursue ! As when the Demons churned the sea With Mount Meru, although they found Jewels it dazzled them to see. Though horrid poison gushed around. They drove the mighty churning still. Holding the handle closely clasped. In spite of sore fatigue, until Their hands the bright Ainreeta grasped. 200 SPECIMENS OF LIMITATION. Each is bounded hj liis nature, And remains the same in stature In the valley, on the mountain. Scoop from ocean, or from fountain, With a poor hand, or a richer, You can onlj fill your pitcher. BRAHMINIC CONSOLATION : FROM THE MAHABHARATA. Sad friend ! thou mourn'st for what it is not well to mourn. No garb of dark lament have wise men ever worn, Or for the living, or the dead. Both youth and age The soul in this poor husk doth find, and on each stage Of being it again will find, 'neath other veils. Heat, cold, pain, pleasure, every earthly thing, still fails. The body is the jail of time's swift weal and woe. Each comes, departs, and naught remains of all the show. O Bharat's son ! in patience bear the fates below. The wise man nothing can disturb : to him the same Are sweet and sour, censure and praise, neglect and fame. His spirit is divinely calm, his mind supernal. That which creates all forms is formless and eternal. ORIENTAL POETRY. 201 UXIVERSALITY OF GOD. Exempt from lust, exempt from love of pelf, The wise man acts unconscious of himself. He cares not for his action's consequence, But feeds devotion's fire with pure incense. God is his gift, his sacrifice is God ; God is his sacrificial knife and rod, Himself, his altar, altar's flame, the sward ; God also is the worship's sole reward. THE CAUSE AND THE AGENT. The wall said to the nail, " What have I done. That through me thj sharp tooth thou thus dost run ? " The nail replied, " Poor fool ! what do I know? Ask him who beats my head with many a blow ! " THE HOLT LIE. H. A man-befriending lie, I think, in sooth. Far better than a man-destroying truth. ***** A king in wrath once bade his servants slay A man who had offended him that day. The poor man, robbed of hope by this dread stroke, With foreign tongue to foulest cursing broke, — As in despair one falleth on his sword, — And cursed the king with each reviling word. 202 SPECIMENS OF " "What says he ? " asked the king. " Lord," straight replied One who the language knew, and stood beside The throne, '' he says, Heaven is for him who lives In meekness, and his enemies forgives." " For saying so divine and just a thing, This moment he is pardoned," cried the king. " Not so," a second courtier loud exclaimed ; " The slave thy soul with oaths reviled and blamed." Then rose the king, and said, in accents stern, *■' And if he did, your soul with shame should bum To think this good man's falsehood doth so much, In Allah's sight, outshine your truth : for such A lie as his my anger would assuage, While such a truth as yours would more enrage : And know the lie that saves a human breath Is better than the truth that causes death ! " TEST OF THE RITAL GODS. 'Twixt Brahma, Yishnu, Siva, — as a Puran shows, — A grave dispute once raged, and still grew sharp and strong : The question was, wherefrom the solemn quarrel rose. To which one of the three did precedence belong ? Then Yishnu said, "If one of you, uprising fleet, Can soar to where my head extends in regions dim, ORIENTAL POETRY. 203 Or dive so far as to discern where are mj feet, At once I will the palm of greatness yield to him." For fifty million years, like lightning Brahma soared : For fifty million years, like lightning Siva dived ; But Siva could not reach where Vishnu's feet were lowered, - And Brahma could not reach where Vishnu's head was hived. At last the twain, their efforts baflfled, back returned, And to the great Preserver paid allegiance due. Therefore by hosts is incense now to Vi.-hnu burned, "Wliile Bralima's worshippers and Siva's are so few ! TI3IE, THE MOWER. TThere is thy sire ? thy loving mother where ? Where are the friends who in thy youth did share ? They bloomed with thee like trees hard by the shore ; The stream still flows, but they bloom there no more. So Time, the mower, cuts his fatal swath. And mortals see him not across then* path. SEXSUALITY, "Whom the senses securely have caught, He will please himself, there where he lies, 204 SPECniENS OF Until lust becomes seated in thought, And from lust pain and follj arise. Driven out of high Purity's hall, From his noble estate he will fall, Losing memory, reason, and all. As a storm on the ocean's dark breast Blo^Y3 a banner's light fluttering folds, So his fancies lust blows without rest, And all peace from his spirit withholds. Truly happy but then shalt thou be. When desire disappeareth in thee. As a stream in the calm of the sea. A PERSIAX SOXG. The mighty globe and human life A gloomy ocean rolls around : Floods roar on floods, in endless strife. The floods with turbaned clouds are crowned. The future is a black abyss ; The present time alone is sure. O youth, spring up ! its joys secure. Remember, when upon Kaf s summit Great Anka flew o'er every cloud, His pinion shook the earth-dust from it, Surpassing all things strong and proud. ORIENTAL POETRY. 205 lie soared that daj, lie coars not this : The present time alone is sure. youth, spring up ! its joys secure. 1 see the midnight of thy hair, And of thy lips the morning-red, And of thy smiles the day-shine fair ; But dawn, day, night, will soon have fled : The fixirest things we soonest miss : The present time alone is sure. youih, spring up ! its joys secure. A RIDDLE. Between a thick-set hedge of bones A small red dog now^ barks, now moans ^^ j onSao; umuuTT y ^^ — '5ua.i jOAVsuiJ oqj^ TJIZ RIYZR OF PLEASURE. A dallying stream, in greatest and in least. Our wishes as its waves, soft Pleasure flows. Insatiable Lust, a monstrous beast. Doth ravening in its hollow deeps repose. As little birds across the billows dart, Licentious fancy lures, and eager passion follows, 206 SPECI3IENS OF Despising wliat it li'T OF A SOXG TO ZULEIKA. What is the blooming rose's cup, where nightingales may sip, Compared with thy more blooming mouth, and thy much sweeter lip ? What is the sun, and what the moon, and what each glowing star ? They bum and tremble but for thee, still ogling thee from far. 228 sPFxniExs of And what am I, mj heart, the love-mad songs that I create ? We are the blessed slaves thy beautj doomed to cele- brate ! X. I3IPR03IPTir -WELCOME TO A FRIE:S^D. Come in the evenmg and come in the morning ; Come when I ask you, and come without warning : Mh'tsa SchafFy, with you when a-meeting, Always rejoices, and his heart gives you greeting. XI. INTOXICATION OF LOVE. She but wept my drunkenness, And my utter sunkenness ; And no pity I found. O to be for ever drunk, And to be for ever sunk, In thy white arms drowned ! XII. MIKTSA SCHAFFY OX EYES. A gray eye is a sly eye, And roguish is a brown one : Turn full upon me thy eye, — Ah, how its wavelets drown one ! A blue eye is a true eye ; Mysterious is a dark one, Which flashes like a spark-sun ! A black eye is the best one. ORIENTAL POETRY. 229 XIII. TRUTII AND PRUDEXOE. .The fulness of truth to express is most dangerous no^r ; Yet, Mirtsa SchafFy ! ever noble and truthful be thou, Kor as a false light on the marshes of lying be left : All beauty is true ; and from beauty be thou never reft. Yet, every treatment perverse to avoid or outreach, Thy wisdom be veiled in a raiment of flowery speech ; As clustering grapes, nearly bursting with daintiest juice, Are hidden by leaves and green tendrils from sight and abuse. XIV. ADMONITION IN REVELKT. For pleasure's bright sport the carelessest seeker All through the wide world to the South, When Mirtsa Schaffy took up the red beaker, With sayings of wit in his mouth, — As, drinking, his heart grew ever more jolly, He saw, o'er the goblet's foamed rim Uprising in pomp, to judge the world's folly, And fearfully frowning on him, A dreadful avenger mount from the winc-lakc. And speak to remorse for wisdom's benign sake. XV. THE DARK TRANSITION. Where ends wrong-doing Begins long rueing. 230 SPECIMENS OF XVI. A SQUIB FOR THE WISE MAN OP BAGDAD. Mirtsa Jussuf is a mucli-learned man ! Now reads he Plafiz, and now the Koran, Dschamy, Chakanj, Saadi's Giihstan ; Here steals an image, and there steals a flower, Now robs a casket, and now strips a bower. What has been often said says he again, Sets the whole world in his plagiarized strain, Tricks out his bootj in scrambled-up plumes, Spreads himself, and the name poet assumes ! Otherwise lives and sings Mirtsa Schaffy : Not a purloiner from others is he ; Glows his own heart as a guide-star in gloom ; Scattering far a celestial perfume, And with no stolen productions bedressed. Bloom a whole garden of flowers in his breast. XVII. LOVE, THE GATE OP HEAVEN. "Wlien, on a day, the gates of Paradise Stand open for the good as their reward. Great hosts, both men of virtue and of vice, "Will look in doubt and terror to the Lord. But I, whatever be the others' fates. Shall stand, by doubt and fear quite unconcerned. Since, long before, to me on earth the gates Of Paradise through thee were open turned. ! ORIENTAL POETRY. 231 XVIII. LAMENT FOR DEPARTED DAYS. When, as ray life's appointed courses wend, Tlie blessed day of youth is ended quite, 'T is true remembrances, like stars, ascend ; But then they only show that it is night ! XIX. THE SONGS OP MIRTSA SCnAFPY. As the floating raiment glances round thy limbs. So the rhyming music hangs around my songs : Charming is the lure that to the robe belongs, Faii'er far the dazzling beauty it bedims. XX. MIRTSA SCriAPPY TO HIS YOUXG BRIDE. Where rose aloft old Mount Elborz, His top the cloud-world reached : Spring blushed upon his flowery floors, While snows his forehead bleached. So I, as ancient Mount Elborz, Have frost upon my brow : While, blushing at my summer doors, A beauteous Spring art thou. XXI. THE WINE OF THE SOUL. Once, as Mirtsa Schaffy sat a quaffing clear wine. His heart's pity grew vast, his mind's wit grew divine. 282 SPECIMENS OF He rose up, gave his lute a melodious clang, And, beginning to sing, it was thus that he sang : " As the hallowing flames of the wine I inspire. And, they gush o'er my lips, touching all with their fire, I in seas of wild ravishment limitless swim, And a crystalline bliss fills the scene to its brim. Such a joy to young Adam was given ere the Fall O, I would it were poured o'er humanity all ! Could my body, dissolving to wine, only fall. And each world be a drop in the flood of the All, What a grand resurrection we then might acquire. Coming forth from that bath in new strength and fresh fire! XXII. THE poet's offering. I, in ray glowing songs, from out the skies Snatch sun and moon and stars, And lay them as a burning sacrifice On Beauty's altar-bars. XXIII. MIRTSA SCHAFFY DEFENDS HIS THEMES. Doth it displease you that I sing Of few things only as divine ? Of naught but roses, love, and spring, And nightingales, and wooing wine ? • ORIENTAL POETRY. 233 Which were the best, that I should praise "Will-o'-the-wisps and wax flambeaux ? Or to the Sun's eternal rays Fresh panegyrics still compose ? While, like a sun that shines abroad, I pour my raying songs around, The beautiful I do applaud. And not what 's on the common found. Let other bards their lyres attone To wars, and mosques, and fame of kings ; To roses, love, and wine alone My fingers strike the melting strings. O pure Schaffy ! how fragrant are Thy verses on these lovely themes ! Thy songs are strains without a jar. While others' best are pamful screams. XXIT. FINAL SATIRE OX THE BAGDAD SAGE. Wretched Mirtsa Jussuf ! all your sneers T despise ; While you sulk, with gay heart through the world I am tripping : And instead of returning your hatred and lies. Only see, how this beaker of wine I am sipping ! 234 sPEcniExs of Retribution enough is inflicted on you, In that nothmg below your fastidiousness pleases ; While for me springs delight from the stars and the dew, From the birds and the hills, from the flowers and the breezes. Sprawling iMirtsa Jussuf with great awkwardness walks ; How he wrinkles his brow, as with thought it were laden ! And with all who pass by he finds fault as he stalks, Because not as he goes goes each man and each maiden. So the ox, as he rolls with unwieldiest gait. And his voice is a hoarse and detestable bellow. Thinks he must for this cause the sweet nightingale hate, — That so lightly it flies, and its song is so mellow ! XXT. MIRTSA SCHAFFf TO HIS WIFE. Of Joseph in the Egyptian land. The handsomest of mortals brave, 'T was said, to him Jehovah's hand One half of all earth's beauty gave. But when this prince at last was dead. His thi'own-off beauty wandered forth ; ORIENTAL POETRY. 235 From year to year she roamed and sped From land to land througli all the earih. For this command had been decreed : '• Thou shalt thyself nowhere enthrone, Except where thou shalt find, mdeed, Kind love and wisdom both in one." At many doors she faintly knocked Of huts and temples costliest : Each one for her was quick unlocked, — In none of them she stayed, a guest. But when she came, Ilufisa fair ! To thee, a final home she found, AYliere sweetness and discretion rare Were, once for all, together bound. XXTI. -WISE MEN" UXXOTICED, ATEEE THERE XO FOOL3. Shall I laugh or shall I wail it, — That the most of men are such asses .'' Borrowed wit, how they retail it ! A fresh thought their brains never passes. The shrewd Maker, — how I thank him That the world is filled so with ninnies ! Else the wise man had none to rank him O'er the rest, and fame none could win his. SPECIMENS OF XXVII. CLOSE AT HAND. The wise man will not roam afar For what at home his finding naught can hinder : He will not try to pluck a star To kindle with its light a piece of tinder. XXVIII. MODEKATION. The rose who doth not pick, Its thorn will him not prick : To-daj, then, be content To snuff its fragrant scent ! XXIX. LIFE DEEPER THAN BOOKS. To learn the best experience of nations. Search not through ancient books, in dusty heaps : By far the choicest of all revelations Is that which from the nearest fountain leaps. XXX. THE UNKENEWABLE nOUH. The winter bears no buds, The summer yields no ice : The fire which young hearts floods The old man feels not twice. ORIENTAL POETRY. 237 THE BEGGAR S REVENGE. R. The king's proud favorite at a beggar threw a stone : He picked it up, as if it had for alms been thrown. He bore it in his bosom long with bitter ache, And sought his time revenge with that same stone to take. One day he heard a street mob's hoarse commingled cry: The favorite comes ! — but draws no more the admiring eye. He rides an ass, from all his haughty state disgraced ; And by the rabble's mocking gibes his way is traced. The stone from out his bosom swift the beggar draws, And, flinging it away, exclaims : " A fool I was ! 'T is madness to attack, when in his power, your foe. And meanness then to strike when he has fallen low." ACTIVITY. Good striving Brings thriving. Better a dog who works, Than a lion who shirks. 238 SPECIMENS OF THE DIVINE gazer: FROM MAHMOUD. As thy beloved's eyes are mirrored in thine eyes, God's spirit, painted so, within thy spirit lies. THE LURE OF PLEASURE. E. A fount-o'ershading tree stands near the highway-side, And many a good fellow, pausing there, has died. For in the fountain's depths a dragon lies asleep : Sits on the tree a bird, his constant watch to keep. The bird's sweet song allures the unwary wanderer near : Then sings he loud, so loud the dragon wakes to hear. The thirsty traveller drinks, — the dragon darts aloft, — DANGEROUS INTERFERENCE. If you should chance to see two dragons mixed in fight, As mediator come not you betw^een them; For they may make a peace at the unwonted sight, And straightway your poor form divide between them. ORIENTAL POETKY. 239 CONDITIONS OF SAFETY. H. Be thou a poor man and a just, And thou mayst live without alarm ; For leave the good man Satan must, The poor the Sultan will not harm. THE BEST OF GOOD WORKS. " Of all good works of men, which is the best ? " A young man once a prophet thus addressed, And this reply the prophet on him pressed : " From strife exempt, good works together chime, And all are beautiful each in its time." TREACHEROUS RAY^IENT. Serve not thy belly with such zest : He is a most ungrateful guest. Who serves him most and best at first. He finally will treat the wor.st. ASSIMILATION. The wise man never heard a joke But living wisdom from it broke: The fool no wisdom ever learned But it in him to folly turned. 240 SPECIMENS or DEATH AMONG THE GODS. Between divine and human life what is the odds? A human life is but a watch-tick to the gods. Their hour has many ticks ; their day has many an hour J And many days fill up their year's enormous dower. But when threescore and ten of those large years a god Has told, he is touched by death's appropriating rod. And all those years like arrows fly in heaven's bowers, Because in bliss unmixed they pass more swift than ours! WOKLDLY SUCCESS. Vulgar souls surpass a rare one, in the headlong rush ; As the hard and worthless stones a precious pearl will crush. THE GOOD OE SUCCESSION. The mighty Khosru whispered once to his beloved Shireen, " If stayed the crown with one, it were a prize indeed, I ween." Shireen replied, " The blessing of its change dost thou not see ? Did it remain for aye with one, it ne'er had come- to thee?" ORIENTAL POETRY. 241 THE DEEPER THOUGHT. Sankara Atcliareja held the wise man's faith, That naught is real here, but empty as a wraith. One day a hostile Brahmin to his friends observes, " Drive we an elephant towards him, and if he swerves, He is a hypocrite ; if not, he is a saint." Accordingly, to ride him down they made a feint. Sankara fled aside at once. They ask, " why Before a mere illusion did you stoop to fly ? " Sankara says, " There was no elephant, no flight ; The whole was nothing but a dream's deceptive sight." BENEFICENT DESIGN: OR NATURAL THEOLOGY. The cocoa-palm leaves infidels without excuse, For nine and ninety are its common uses : In hardened carelessness they wait a hundredth use Until some new discovery introduces ! PROUD HUMILITY. In proud humility a pious man went through the field ; The cars of corn were bowing in the wind, as if they kneeled : He struck them on the head, and modestly began to say, " Unto the Lord, not unto me, such honors should you. pay." 242 ^ sPEcniENS of Mohammed's opinion of poetry. Beneath God's throne a dazzlmg treasure lies, Whose opemng key is but the poet's tongue ; Without that key the wondrous hoard's supplies Could ne'er be brought on earth to old and young THE BAD poet: FROM DSCHAMT. Two poets sat to eat a dish of burning broth. Through blistered lips one cried, by agony made wroth : "'T is hotter than the sulphur, which, when you are dead, The fiends in deepest hell will pour upon your head." The other said : " Such fate to you could give no fright ; You would but have one of your couplets to recite, To chill, throughout, the furnace of infernal night. One verse, hke those to which your brain has given birth, If uttered in the realm that flames beneath the earth, Or written on the gate of hell, would, in a trice. Put out the fire, and turn the Devil's blood to ice." MOASEDDINS generosity. For when the sea of Moaseddin's gifts began to swell. The sun itself was but a pearl, 'the sky its upper shell. ORIENTAL POETKY. 243 COLOR OF TTIXE AND GLASS. Give me, fair boy ! the wine and glass : One red, the other white, ahis ! Two gems from out one coffer rich, Love both has painted to that pitch : One rosy as his joy in blow, One pale as his despairing woe. THE SOL-XD AND THE HEARER. Mewlana Dschelaleddin once proclaimed That music was the noise of heaven's gates : A foolish man, who heard this speech, exclaimed, " So harsh the heaven-doors sound, it through me grates." Mewlana Dschelaleddin straight replied, " I hear those gates on opening hinges ride. But you, when on the closing hinge they gride." MATHEMATICAL LOVE. My heart 's a point, round w^hich, in fixed curves of dawn, The beauty of the fair one 's as a circle drawn : Desire's divided j^ains are living radii, Tiiick stretching from the centre to periphery. 244 SPECIilENS OF THE TIMOROUS GIANT. The sun aslant and low in heaven hung ; The pigraj a stupendous shadow flung ; A giant sat upon the mountain's head, Beheld the shadow, and in terror fled ! THE KIGHT VISIT. I sat beside a taper's flame ; The Loved One unexpected came. I thought the time to sunrise drew: It seemed my taper thought so too j — The breezy light she shed about Made it grow dim, and flicker out. SCHANFERI, OH THE VEXGEAXCE-OATII FULFILLED. Schanferi, the peerless runner who outstrips the swiftest steed, Whom an arrow whizzing from the bow-string scarcely can outspeed, Holding towards the tribe Salaman rancorous and deadly hate, Swore to kill a hundred of them his revenge to sa- tiate. ORIENTAL POETRY. 245 Nine-and-ninetj he has slaughtered ; for the hundred but one more : Schanferi, himself, outmatched, is slain Avithin the en- tered door. As his severed head from off his body rolled upon the hearth, One, of tribe Salaman, kicked it on a pile of ord'rous earth. " Schanferi, the peerless runner, — death has overtaken him. Ere he could fulfil his vow and heap his hundred to the brim." Swiftly, from the skull he kicked, a splinter like a dag- ger flew. Smote the mocker dead, and thus the hundredth fated victim slew ! SLEEPLESS LOVEH AND TURTLE-DOVE. Turtle-dove ! that keepest me awake, Thj breast and mine with love's deep longings ache. Thy woe is loud, mine silent in the night : I>ut tears, wanting to thee, bedim my sight. Love's treasure thus is halved between us twain : To thee the plaints, to me the tears remain. 246 SPECIMENS OF THE rOET AND ALEXANDER. E. To Alexander came a man in garb with tattered fold, Bringing a poem splendidly adorned with silk and gold. The king demands : " Why hast thou not unto thy body lent Some of the pains upon this manuscript so largely spent ? " The poet says : " The law of labor is, that each must drive At his appropriate trade, if he would honor it and thrive. It is my work majestic thoughts to clothe in fit ar- ray ; But honor's robes — the king knows how to cut and give away. I here have set thee forth in lasting praise and fame enrd'ed, And left it unto thee for this to have me dressed in gold." Amidst his loud-applauding courtiers, Alexander bade The bard at once in gold-embroidered garments to be clad ! ORIENTAL POETRY, 247 THE IDEAL PHILOSOPHY : FROM :MAHM0UD. Nothing is the mirror, and the world the image in it : God the shower is, who shows the vision eveiy minute. THE AVOIDED CLUMP OP PALMS. K. On Yonder hill, where stand those seven tall palms, once raged A battle as terrific as was ever waged. The world's two dreadest monsters, frights to all that live. One monster by the other one was crushed amain, And the survivor by the dead one then was slain. Long time those palm-trees to approach we did not dare : In vain from far their precious fruits we saw them bear. Because the thicket near a tiger for his lair Had taken, and he howled, bloodthirsty, there. T\'hen in the morning looked those palms alluringly, 248 SPECIMENS OP But once, as we were looking towards those palms at dawn, We saw a branch down from the highest summit drawn. The branch, now up, now down, with strangest motions went, As in a serpent's coils it here and there was bent. Upon those twistings gazing, quite a space it takes For us to recognize the giant queen of snakes : As thick as a large man, and sixty feet in length, "We calculated, and enormous was her strength. Her tail aloft was wreathed around the palm-tree's top ; Her jaws were near the ground, upon her prey to pop. "Wide open were they for the helpless little beasts By fate allotted for this dreadful huntress' feasts. She seemed — we from the tiger's wrathful growl could hear — To intrude upon his beat, and in his lair to peer. Then stepped he out to battle, dauntless champion like : The mighty serpent spired in angry act to strike. And as he sprang to clutch beneath her haughty throat. She downward shot her head, and him from under smote. ORIENTAL POETRY. 249 He shrank convulsive, as she with a single bite A great piece from his bright striped belij tore outright. She holds him fast, and from the palm all slowly swims Fold after fold, to let her lace about his limbs. Her fangs soon choke his frightful yell with dripping clots, And soon compressed him breathless have her rigid knots. She is too weak to crunch the life left in his body lithe ; And so, for aid, she towards the palm begins to writhe. Against the trunk she draws the tiger, and a crack Is heard, as break the bones which form his lordly back. He lies upon the ground ; and she, exhausted, heaves Herself up in the palms, to rest amidst their leaves. On that the first day of the fight we stood in fear, A few and far : for who would dare to venture near ? The second day the number of spectators grew ; Their courage rose, and nearer to the scene they drew. "We saw her through the bushes, but we did not feel Disposed to trouble her, preparing for her meal. 250 SrECTMENS OF She, with a yellow drool, red lumps has pasted thick Of the repulsive carcass ; in her throat they stick. This gorging most obscene the whole day occupied, But when we left at night, she seemed quite satisfied. Of women, children, and old men. All fear had passed. There lay the victress, swoln immensely, and half dead : The triumph-feast with sleep her glutted stomach fed. She safely killed the tiger, and then took her rest; But such a fearful meal no creature could digest. The people rushed upon her with swift blow and shout, And in ten thousand fritters scattered her about. Then quick they went, delivered from their deep alarms. And plucked the fruit from olF those long-forbidden palms. MOHIJEDDIN AT THE RUIXS OF SEHRA. The place where courts and hosts once glittered thick, Is now a waste which makes one sorrow-sick. On all sides yesterday were heard gay songs ; ORIENTAL POETRY. 251 To-day are hushed the migratorj throngs. One bird the echoes of a broken heart Sang, sadly as if soul from frame would part. I said, " What piteous hap dost thou grieye o'er ? " He said, " The time that will come back no more ! " AX ARAB ADVENTURE. R. Teabbata Scherran, in time of war, A spy, went forth, as eye was growing dunner ; His friend, Amru Ben Barrak^ with him went. And so did Schanferi, the matchless runner. They paused about the middle of the night, A-near a fountain M'here a palm-groye darkled, Like hot and panting deer, their thirst to slake : The silent moonbeams on the water sparkled. Teabbata Scherrrm, the doughty, spake : " I hear of some man's heart the mufSed Avorkiu^ It is, I think, some anxious foeman's heart, Who, hidden here, for us in arms is lurking." They said : " The only sound that we can hear Is clearly but the gurgling fountain's rustle : If thou discern'st the blows of any heart. It doubtless is thine own faint bosom's bustle." 252 SPEcniENs of He takes a hand of eacli companion then, And both upon his naked bosom places, Crying, " The steady strokes that beat there, feel, And say if me a timid heart disgraces." " Indeed, thy heart makes stroke with even pulse, Like his "who is entirely free from terror ; But in such heat the stoutest heart might thump- Come, let us drink ; we frankly own our error." Cen Barrak stoojDed him down, the first, and drank, His hand meanwhile his trusty sword-hilt feeling. Refreshed, then rose he up, and said, aloud : " No secret foe yon palm-clump is concealing ; But if there be a foe, and he be near, Then let him snort ! " said Barrak, and loud laughed he. The runner, Schanferi, descended next, And while he moved, the cooling water quaffed he. The runner, likewise, soon returned, but said. In Barrak's ear, " Not where that spring aspireth, But yonder, lies the foe ; and not Amru, It is Teabbata that he desireth." They say, "Now year has saturated all The burning nerves through which thirst lately fried thee." ORIENTAL rOETRY. 253 He cries, " I am as hotly parched as yon ; Behold ye now how much you have belied mc." At once the bold Scherran throws down his sword, No fibre of his dauntless courage shrinking, And helpless lies upon the edge, and drinks, With slow-drawn gulps, just like a wild bull drinking. The ambushed foes dare not rush forth in fL"ont, To seize the drinking bullock open-handed ; But from behind they fling around his arms A netted rope, strong-woven, many-stranded. " Ben Barrak ! " calls Teabbata, " come too ; For thou hast brought me to this plight unhandsome : Thou, Schanferi, run back and tell the Sheik To haste with bloody sword and win our ransom ! " THE ESCAPIXG- EIRD. R. TThere, in the sacred Xorth, the glittering mountains rise. There lives a bird which wears a changing coat of dyes. He is green in Spring, in Summer has a yellow tint, In Autumn red, goes white through "Winter's fleecy mint. 254 SPECIMENS OF "What for ? In order that in plumes of fitted hue He through the chai;ging seasons may his course pur- sue, — Spring's herbage, Summer's grain, Fall's leaves, and Winter's snow : The cause is not mere pleasure, it is likewise woe ! He thus escapes the harm the sportsman's glance por- tends ; Because his raiment always with the landscape blends. He is blest who has his life in such a garb infurled. And so can lose himself unnoticed in the world. INDESTRUCTIBLE FRIENDSHIP: FROM DSCHAMT. My bosom's dazzling lamps were lighted at my friend ; My bosom's far-seen lamps no smoke nor ashes leave ; From him and me the chain of friendship naught can rend ; — Of its soft rinf^s who can the ring-dove's neck bereave ? THE HERETIC BREAST. The two-and-seventy sects on earth caressed, Collective dwell in every human breast. oriental poetry. 255 sajib's escape from the great shipwreck. Life-embarked, out at sea, 'mid the wave-tumbling roar, The poor ship of mj body went down to the floor ; But I broke, at the bottom of death, through a door, And, from sinking, began for ever to soar. ARAB HOSPITALITY. Lift up, O slave ! the torch on high. That any traveller may spy. If thou a guest dost bring to me, I will that instant make thee free. The ship of the moon through the air-ocean swam with- out traces ; The glimmering stars not a ray shed beyond their own faces. I looked to the sky's azure tent, where Orion already Stood watching by night, and his sword in its belt glittered steady. So I in the door of my house stood, as night round me darkened, And heard a sole traveller s foot, with such sharpness I hearkened. • 256 SPECIMENS OF It was not the lion's proud tread, his poor enemy crushing : It was not the step of the roe, the dewed grass lightlj brushing. It was not the robber's slj creep, nor a swain from sleep broken : It was the slow, faltering step, of a stranger sure token. I thrust my good sword in its sheath, waved a brand brightly burning. To show that a sheltering roof for a guest was here yearning. THE POET SAJIB. As pen sweet Sajib takes the beak of nightingale ; The fragrant page on which he writes is rose-leaf pale. For such a pen and page what fitting ink appears ? Ah ! Sajib's ink is fiery wine and blinding tears. THE THOUGHT-JEWEL. ■ The wondrous gem of thought Tschintamani is named ; Who knows it not is to be pitied, — to be blamed. ORIENTAL POETRY. 257 Who owns this stone can each conception realize, Fulfil all dreams that in his yearning bosom rise. Who bears it in his soul has wish-fulfilling power : Who lays it on his brow, his mind is cleared that hour. Through his bright, deepening eye its owner it betrays. And through the finer wit that in his talking plays. Ilast thou that gem ? Let no one snatch it from thy grnsp, And thou hast all that mightiest monarch's crown can clasp. MUSSUD S TRAISE OF THE CAMEL. With strength and jDatience all his grievous loads are borne. And from the world's rose-bed he only asks a thorn. THE TW'O RULERS. Wliile the great generations depart. And full ages and firmaments roll. Mighty love is the lord of the heart. And pure truth the bright king of the souL 258 SPECIMENS OF SUFISM DEFINED : FROM HUSSEIRI. The true Sufi is he whose lofty strife The most essential essence has obtained, And through destruction of his- mere selfs life An indestructible existence gained. The true Sufi is he alone, I say, Who what he has within his head lays down. Gives what he has within his hand away. And takes ahke time's fickle smile and frown. THE MADNESS OF PIETY. Let the Loved One but smile on this poor heart of mine, I will sell the two worlds for one drop of his wine. TRUTH OUT OF CONVULSION : FROM DEWLETSCHAH. Whene'er the sea upheaves its foaming hosts, Pearl after j^earl it tosses on the coasts. THE GREAT FLOWER-VASE. With blooming splendors God has sown creation's flower-bed. And in the flower-cup of space has hung it overhead. ORIENTAL POETRY. 259 SELF-UNIVERSALIZATION. The true journey from " me " to " God " is then com- pletely made, When " me " is free from " thee," as fire is from th© smoke's foul shade. THE TOILING HERO. The earnest aspirant is he who knows No aim besides the throne of God, and, till He reaches that, allows of no repose. And no companion has on plain or hill. THE GOAL AT THE BARRIER. I hotly strove to reach the race-course goal. When seeking God beyond myself to find. But now I see, since He was in my soul. The first impatient step left Him behind. THE hu:mble suppliant. I heard a camel-driver in the waste thus sing and groan : -" I weep, but you know not the reason why my tears are spent. 260 SPECniENS OF I weep from a depressing fear that you -will strike jour tent, And, swift departing, leave me in this desert-world alone." BEAUTY AjSTD LOVE : FROM MEWLANA DSCHAMT. Before eternity to time had shrunken, The Friend deep in his glorious self was sunken. Around his charms a firm-bound girdle hovered : No one the lonely path to him discovered. A mirror held he to each wondrous feature, But shared the vision's bliss with not a creature. In cradling Naught's abyss alone he rocked liiip, No playmate's face or gambols sportive mocked him. Then rose he up — swift vanished all resistance — And gave the boundless universe existence. Now Beauty, sun-clear, from his right side beameth ; Love, moon-like, quickly from his left side gleameth. When Beauty's flame lights up the cheek's red roses, Love fans a fire from which no heart reposes. ORTENTAT. POETRY. 2G1 Between them glows a league which forms no cinder, But from all Beauty's food creates Love's tinder. When Beauty 'midst her snaring ringlets lieth, Then Love the heart within those fair locks tieth. A nest is Beauty, Love the brooding linnet : A mine is Beauty, Love the diamond in it. From God's two sides they came, twin emanation, To chase and woo each other through creation. But in each atom's point, both, clasping, enter. And constitute all beini^'s blissful centre. THE BATTLE OF SUNRISE. The red dawning proclaims a victorious fight ; From the sword of the sun flows the blood of the night. DAT AND NIGHT. The sun and moon, which light by day and night the earlh o'er all its lands. Are but two lanterns which the Day and Xight bear, burning, in their hands. 262 SPECIMENS OF The sun and moon are weights within the clock of God's tremendous might ; One rises and the other sinks alternate with the Daj and Night. The sun and moon are tables twain, with gleaming gold and silver paved, On which, as types of praise, mysterious Day and Night are broadly graved. The sun and moon are tapers, raised in front, to lend some guiding sight To us bewildered moths, whom Day and Night drive round the endless Light. The sun and moon are doors to rooms between the eager-gazing globes. Wherein the Day and Night for ever interchange their blending robes. THE PARTING LOVERS I FROM THE CHINESE. She says, The cock crows, hark ! lie says, No, still 't is dark. She says, The dawn gro%vs bright. He says, O no, my Light ! ORIENTAL POETRY. 263 She says, Stand up, and saj, Gets not the heaven gray ? lie says, The morning star CHmbs the horizon's bar. She says, Then quick depart: Alas ! you must now start. But give the cock a blow, Who did begin our woe ! THE TAVO TEMPLES. R. There was a people once, by wisest counsels steered. Who temples twain to Virtue and to Honor reared. Excepting through the first, — they stood so, wall to wall,— No man within the second one could get at all. As forecourt unto Honor's, temple Virtue's stood. "Through merit praise is reached," — such was the moral good. An age did those two temples thus together stand, And all was noble-toned and prosperous in the land. But long ago did Virtue's solemn temple fall ; And Honor's shrme, profaned, is open now to all. 264 SPECIMENS OF INSTANTANEOUS SALVATION. If any fiend of hell, laid in a chest of molten steel, Subdues his will, and with a humble mind on God reposes. His penal chest, the hottest berth that sense-filled soul can feel. Becomes at once a most delicious bed of breathin':' THE wine-selleu : fro:,i maiimoud ferjumendi. The Loved One bears the cup, and sells annihilation : "Who buys his fire ecstatic, quaffs illumination. The giant Sun is dizzy, going and returning, So swifily, up and down, for one poor droplet burning. Even Wisdom's self in drunkenness profound is sunken : Both earth and heaven are drunk, and all the angels drunken. The wine-house is the world, and all things in it beak- ers : The Friend each goblet holds, and we arc eager seekers. Within the cup, upon the threshold, heaven lieth : The nest is there towards which the soul for ever flieth. ORIENTAL POETRY. 265 The angels, in carousal high, their tankards clinking, Pour out from heaven on the earth their lees of drink- They drank pure wine themselves, and joyously thej shouted, "When from the dregs that fell on earth fair Eden sprouted. In sin and sorrow here long time have I been roaming : A sea of tears I 've shed is wide around me foaming. And every tear 's a drop of blood. A poor wayfarer, I longingly await the lovely goblet-bearer. lie comes, — a flood of molten music round him gush- ing; — lie comes, — all veils are raised, the universe lies blush- ing. I snatch the cup, and, lipless, qualF the godhead's liquor. As into unity of bliss the self-lights flicker. A VrniTE ELEPHANT. The rare white elephant is widely worshipped in Slam, As a fit representative of the unseen I Air. 266 SPECIMENS OF THE THREE CHINESE SECTS. The Buddhist priests declare their Fo in the abyss to be. Say Lao's followers, " Paradise lies in the Eastern Sea." But great Confucius' pupils look on real things around ; Before their eyes the airs of spring, fresh-blowing, brush the ground. FOUR FRAGMENTS FROM DSCHELALEDDIN RUMI. O renowned Dschelaleddin Rumi ! thy so deep-lighted brain "Was of mysteries, lovely and wild, an unlimited main, "Whereon sailed the full fleet of all poetry's beautiful ships. A pearl-fount was thy tongue, overflowing the rim of thy lips. I. THE CREATION AND THE CREATOR. The whole material universe is but a small cupful of force. Dipped out from the unfathomable spring of God's dynamic source. ORIENTAL POETRY. 267 II. SUFISTIC THEOSOPHT. Whene'er I love a slave, cries God from being's highest peaks, I do become his eye, ear, mouth, his search and what he seeks : And thus it is through me alone that he perceives and speaks. III. THE LAW OF INSIGHT. To critic cold and sly God never yet appeared ; Ko riddle ever was by logic solved and cleared : It takes a pure and humble heart the Lord to see. And free-winged wit to soar through mystery. IV. THE HAUNT OF WISDOM. Seek truth from thought, and not from mouldy books, O fool ! Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pool. PRESCRIPTION FOR A REPULSIVE HOUSE. That your house is unfriendly, you say, my young friend ! And to change it, you think still of ways without end. Only bring you a dear friendly wife to that place. And you friendhness then in all corners shall trace. 268 SPECIMENS OF THE GREATEST GILDER. True poetry is gold ; and one who is well skilled, With little of that metal pure both worlds may gild. THE RICH MEN AND THE WISE MEN. R. A wise man bj a rich man once was with some shrewd- ness asked : " How happens it that wise men oft are seen at rich men's doors, While ne'er at wise men's doors rich men are seen, barefaced or masked ? " The wise man through the rich man's soul this piercing answer pours : " It is because the wise men know that they of wealth have need, While the rich men of wisdom's use know not. 'T is sad indeed ! " INVERSION OF TRUTH. E. What use the preacher's truth and earnest exhortation ? The hearer makes thereof inverted application. A miser listened once to a discourse most moving. The habit of unstinted charity approving. ORIENTAL POETRY. 269 ITe said : " I never was before so much affected : How beautiful is charity, when well directed ! So clear and noble is the duty of almsgiving, At OQce I '11 go and beg, as sure as I am living." THE BIRTH or VENUS. The sweet Goddess of Love leaves the sea, with be- diamonded locks : Though it not as the cradle of Form, but Deformity, rocks ; In its caverns profound, horrid monsters all proAvlingly roam, Wliile the fair Queen of Beauty is born from its glit- tering foam. CHARACTER MORE THAN INSTRUCTION. Doctrines didactic, by most wise advices backed, Can really do no good, if nature doth not act. They 're like the recipe to cure the bites of snakes, ^Yhich from a wandering quack an ignorant person takes. Of all the snakes that bite, not each is poisonous found : A little toad is quickly laid upon the wound. 270 SPECIMENS OF Innocuous was the bite, unvenomed was the tooth : Yet if the wound be healed, it was the toad forsooth! MAN AND WOMAN. E. From mere dead earth was man created, hard and cloddj ; But woman afterwards was made from man's live body. And thus arises the distinction of the sexes, A question which so many empty heads still vexes. The man is, as a first creation, genuiner : The woman is the clearer, softer, and diviner. For he was from the inorganic dirt unfolded ; But she came forth from clay which life before had moulded. FRUITLESS remorse: FROM FIRDOUSI. "When cruel deeds are done, in vain relents The doer's heart, and mournfully repents. So when a fire has raged, the smokes that rise In useless lamentation drape the skies. ORIENTAL POETRY. 271 GOD S BOY-LOVER : OR, THE MYSTIC S SUICIDE. FROM FERIDEDDIN ATTAR. There was a sailor once, in many harbors hailed, Who full a thousand times had o'er the ocean sailed. He had a boj, majestic as the sun at noon, And lovely as at evening is the cloud-poised moon. His cheek was rosy red, and heavenly blue his eye ; So straight his shape, the cypress could not with him vie. The father was a pious man in every way. The blameless youth pure as a breath of breaking day. At last the father must another voyage make. And will from fervent love his darling Avith him take. As to the strand they come, the crew are weeping there ; For each himself from brothers, parents, friends, must tear. They go, bidding their loves adieu, from door to door : And in the resurrection-day they '11 meet once more. " Be quick," a sailor loudly cries, " and ready make, — Behold, in th' east, propitious breezes for us wake.'* Now each one's farewell business closes in a trice. And with huzzas they leap on deck as brisk as mice. The waves the vessel rock upon the cradling deep, The shrieking passengers into the corners creep. 272 SPECIMENS OF The father and his son too step aboard apace, And from the deafening cro\^'d and clamor reach their place. The sail is spread ; the ship the even billows rides, As through the unimpeding air an arrow glides. The youth says : " Father, why didst thou exchange our life Of beauteous peace, to face the wrathful ocean's strife ? No house is on the waves, no palace on the sea : Come back, and on the flood again I will not be." Then says the father : " All the world, my child, behold, Driven right and left, and near and far, by lust of gold. 'T is sweet to sail the sea, for when the danger 's o'er. Great wealth and honor is the fruit the danger bore." To him the boy : " Father, no prize this brings, me- thinks ; For fame or pleasure thus won soon to nothing sinks. Father, alas ! thy vain discourse has given me pain ; O let me leave the sea, and go on shore again ! " Replies the father : " Dearest boy, give me thy trust : Compared with thee, my gold and silver are but dust. My child, where'er I look, there is of thee some trace ; The earth, moon, sun, and sky are mirrors of thy face. 'T is but from love for thee that I the ocean plough : Shouldst thou go hence, O son ! my life would fail me now." " Dear father, thou know'st not the mystery aright : ORIENTAL rOETRT. 273 Let me reveal to thee the Absolute's o'vvn light. Know, father, in the heart I dwell of the Alone : Simurg am I, the mountain Infinite mj throne. A revelation saw I from the flood upshoot, Saw rise from th' sea an image of the Absolute." "Dear soul!" then said the father, *' cease from such discourse : Before an old man boastest thou thy wisdom's source? infixnt ! with the shell of Law be thou content : Truth absolute is not as sport to children sent." " Father," replies the youth, " my eye towards home is turned ; 1 see the way for which my heart has ever yearned. The sea 's a symbol how one must destroy self s root : Upon the inmost selfliood now exults my foot. Love waves a flaming torch, and goes as guide before. Reason begone ! who follows Love needs thee no more. I see but One, and quickly fling the rest behind ; His love's briglit eye alone I seek to find." Li rage the father cries : " Silence this instant keep, Pert babbler ! ere I throw thee in the 3-awning deep. My precious gem, in need of reason thou dost stand ; The Absolute is not for thee, but Law's firm land." " Thou understand'st me not," the love-drunk stripling cries : " Know in each soul the hidden Loved One slumbering lies. 274 SPECIMENS OF Know that I to myself seem as the Sea of Life : I see mj spirit with thee and all beings rife. Why shall I not the truth announce ? — not I am heard : I fade away, and God himself speaks through my word. "Wouldst cast me in the sea ? • Ah, father ! quickly do : There, lost to self, the wave will give me life that 's true. Father ! I am the Loved One : Godhead through me gleams : Licessant Revelation in my bosom streams. And Revelation says, ' Thy soul 's a prisoner chained In the Ship of Time and Space : whoever sinks has gained.' Says Revelation, ' Swiftly leap beneath God's waves : 'T is thus thy riddle, deathless Soul ! solution craves.' I am God, father, and my being sinks in Him, Even as a drop within the sea's stupendous rira." He shouts, and springs amidst the waves from where he stands. The crew with bitter grief lament, and wring their hands. As in the sun a pure snow-flake dissolves to tears. The beauteous youth beneath the flood so disappears. The father gazes where that plunge a gurgling makes : A piercing groan from out his anguished bosom breaks. Then, realizing all, sudden he looks around, Steps to the ship's frail edge, — is gone with silent bound. ORIENTAL POETRY. 275 Like points within a circle stand the crew all dumb : Spell-bound, each stands, like a pearl in the muscle numb. CARELESS TRUST. My mind I still will keep free from perturbing pains, Though destiny run through the night with slackened reins. THE HIGHEST TRANSMUTATION. Of all the famous alchemies, this is the chief: — Upon a hundred thousand pounds of bitter grief A single carat's weight of wine absorbing bums, And instantly to joy the heap of sorrow turns. PECULIAR SERVICE OF A FRIEND. In all uncertain straits thy way by counsel trace : Two helping judgments joined, for truth shall never lack : Man's mind a mirror is, which showeth him his face : Has he a friend ? The mirrors twain reveal his back ! THE GRAVE A GREEN TENT. A furloughed soldier, here I sleep, from battle spent. And in the resurrection I shall strike my tent. 276 SPECIMENS OF THE SINNER AND THE MONK : FROM SAADI. In Jesus' time there lived a youth so black and dis- solute, That Satan from him shrank, appalled in every at- tribute. He in a sea of pleasures foul uninterrupted swam, And gluttonized on dainty vices, sipping many a dram. Whoever met him in the highway turned as from a pest. Or, pointing lifted finger at him, cracked some horrid jest. I have been told, that Jesus once was passing by the hut "Where dwelt a monk, who asked him in, and just the feast had shut, "When suddenly that slave of sin appeared across the way. Far off he paused, fell down, and sobbingly began to pray. As blinded butterflies will from the light affrighted shrink. So from those righteous men, in awe, his timid glances sink ; And like a storm of rain the tears pour gushing from his eyes. " Alas and woe is me ! for thirty squandered years/* he cries, ORIENTAL POETRY. 277 " In drunkenness I have expended all mj life's pure coin ; And now, to make mj fit reward, Hell's worst dam- ' nations join. O would that death had snatched me when a sinless child I lay ! Then ne'er had I been forced this dreadful penalty to pay. Yet if thou let'st no sinner drown who sinks on mercy's strand, O then in pity, Lord ! reach forth and firmly seize my hand." The pride-puffed monk, self-righteous, lifts his eyebrows with a sneer, And haughtily exclaims : " Yile wretch ! in yain hast thou come here. Art thou not jjlunged in sin, and tossed in lust's devour- ing sea ? "What will thy filthy rags avail with Jesus and with me ? O God ! the granting of a single wish is all I pray ; Grant me to stand far distant from this man, in the judgment-day." From heaven's throne a revelation instantaneous broke, And God's own thunder-words thus through the mouth of Jesus spoke : " The two whom praying there I see, shall equally be heard : 278 SPECIMENS OF Thej pray diverse, — I give to each according to his v/ord. That poor one, thirty years has rolled in sin's most sHmy deeps, But now, with stricken heart and streaming tears, for pardon weeps : Upon the threshold of my gi-ace he throws him in de- spair, And, faintly hoping pity, pours his supplications there. Therefore, forgiven, and freed from all the guilt in which he lies. My mercy chooses him a citizen of paradise. This monk desires that he may not that sinner stand beside ; Therefore he goes to Hell, and so his wish is gratified." The one's heart in his bosom sank ; the other's proudly swelled : In God's pure court all egotistic claims as naught are held. "Whose robe is white, but black as night his heart be- neath it lies. Is a live key at which the gate of Hell wide open flies ! Truly nof self-conceit and legal works with God prevail ; But humbleness and tenderness weigh down Salva- tion's scale. ORIENTAL POETRY. 279 FAREWELL AXGUISH OF A HUMBLE HEART. O Friend ! thou findest friends enougli like me ; But I shall never find a Friend like thee. THE SACRAMENTAL BLUSH. Love's candles burn, through doming day and night, Upon the holj altar of her heart, And, blushing in her cheeks, their lovelj light Makes everj pulse with thrills of worship start. THE MOTH, THE LIGHT, AND THE WAX: FROM SAADT. As once, at midnight deep, I laj, with sleepless eyes. These words between the moth and light did me sur- prise. The moth kisses the flame, and says, with tender sigh : " Dear radiance ! I rejoice from love for thee to die. My love, thou diest not, yet anxious groans and strong Break loudly from thy heart, through all the darkness long ! " The bright flame says : '•' O moth ! whom love to me attracts, Know that I also burn with love for this sweet wax. Must I not groan, as more my lover melting sinks. And from his life my fatal fire still deeper drinks ? " As thus she spake, the hot tears coursed her yellow cheek, 280 SPECIMENS OF And with eacli tear crackled a separation-sbrlek. Then from her mouth these further words of pleading fall: " Poor moth ! boasting of love, saj not thou lov'st at alL Ah ! how thou moan'st when the fierce heat one wing has seared ; I stand till my whole form in flame has disappeared." And so she talked till morning shone the room about ; When lo ! a maiden came to put the candle out: It flickered up, — the wick a smoking relic lay. 'T is thus, O gentle hearts ! that true love dies away. THE FOUR WEAPONS. The brave man tries his sword, the coward his tongue : The old coquette her gold, her face the young. THE HIGHEST TRADE. Time and Space are outspread as the open Bazaar of God's love. And who buys nothing there must be wretched all others above, The great Merchant his wares will for ever keep back from our gold : For pure throbs of the heart, all his gems, silks, and spices are sold. ORIENTAL POETRT. 281 SWIFT OPPORTUNITY. A thousand years a poor man watched Before the gate of Paradise : But while one little nap he snatched, It oped and shut. Ah ! was he Avise ? UNSEALING- A LETTER. The firmament is God's letter of love to man, The sun the seal stamped on its envelope of air ; The confidential night tears oiF that blazing seal, And lays the solemn star-script, God's handwriting, bare. FORESIGHT AND DECREE. Prophets appear to think they make what they but say : Crowed not the cock, still just the same would dawn the day ! THE POET-CRITIC. The field a youthful bard and critic enters bold, A dauntless hero, in capacity twofold. The martyr-crown he seeks from others to deserve, And puts it on them when they from his standard 282 SPECIMENS OF THE MONKEY AND THE COCOA-NUT. The cocoa-palm for fifty feet has not a limb : It were a task to clhnb its trunk, so smooth and slim. The Western sailors come the weltering ocean o'er, And moor their spacious bark hard by the Indian shore. But how to reach those lofty nuts shall try their wits. At last a cunning thinker thus the problem hits. Each man advances near the grove, and there he stops. A host of monkeys swarm amidst the palms' high tops. Whatever done by man the mimic monkey sees, That he will imitate, perched up amongst the trees. Straightway the crew begin to shower the trees with stones : The monkeys fling back nuts to break their pelters' bones. The grinning sailors gather up a load of these. And stow them in their ship till filled are all its knees. These cocoa-nuts shall in the Western world be broke. But those outwitted monkeys will not know the joke ! ORIENTAL POETRY. 283 THE TRIAL OF FRIENDSHIP. R. Between a wise magician, whom fair Maia knew, And one of earth's poor sons, there once a friendship grew. That friend his ear with protestations phed : At length their truth the enchanter bj his magic tried. Within a meadow sits the friend in mild repose, Sees how each flower, each blade of grass, in silence grows. At once in order rise the grass-blades, and appear A host of helmed warriors, armed with pike and spear. They throng around the friend, and greet him as a king, And pearls and rubies at his feet profusely fling. His heart beats strong w^ith bliss : like a vast tent un- furled, The sky is pitched ; and he is lord of all the world. A breathless man then through the crowding courtiers pressed, And straight the king as a familiar friend addressed. The monarch, with a look surprised, to him replied, '• My friend, I know you not, " and turned away in pride. 284 SPECIMENS OF Thrice waved liis Maia-staff that grieved magician's hand, And all the incantation faded from the land. The friend, now disenchanted, bitterly repents, Till thus the conjuror comforts him for his offence : — " It is the world's low lusts that do our senses bind ; Let Maia's veil but fall, we leave those snares behind. The splendid courtiers shrink to grass-blades in the field, The pearls and rubies are but drops of dew congealed. Just now my art made shapes to you from out this mist : And yet I never would your friendship have dismissed. The worst of the illusion was that it turned friend From friend, and therefore have I brought it to an end. But doubtless, friend! had me the same proud spell possessed, You would have seen me full as badly stand the test.'* THE pariah's appeal. E. O Brahmin ! let not your poor outcast child be blamed Because he as a wretched Pariah is named. My hut is placed afar, that your house may be sure Not to become, through smoke from my hearthstone, im- pure. ORIENTAL POETRT. 285 You turn away whene'er the public road I tread, Lest on your foot should fall the shadow of mj head. I from a distance, through the open door, behold, Amidst the temple's throng, you standing cahn and bold. Knelt I before the graven god which there I see, Would it not turn, as you, its back in scorn on me ? Shining through candles, jewel-glow, and rich incense, It blesses you ; but curses doth on me dispense. Of yonder palm's dropped dates I gathered up a few ; None of its harvest, therefore, will be touched by you. Beside the fount I draw from hangs a skull for pail, That you to know who there has di-ank may nowise fail. Should one a corpse or ashes in that water place. The flowing stream would cleanse itself from every trace. And yet the pitcher of my child, or his young lip. Poisons it all, if there with yours he chance to dip. proud and cruel Brahmin ! from thy visage stern, For pity, I to condescending Krishna turn. 286 SPECIMENS OF ORIENTAL POETRY. A SIGNIFICANT PUN. Conceit, to gain instruction all too wise, Bears pedants, and not pupils, in his eyes. EVANESCENCE OF EARTHLY GREATNESS. R. A king, who by the public mouth was named the Great, Was on his station's frailty wont to meditate. Against all arrogance as a protecting gate, This phrase he .oft repeated : Only God is great. Those words he bade them on the palace wall ingrain, Whose fragment columns, crumbling, to this day remain. City and realm are sunk, but travellers relate You still may read that motto: Only God is great. THE TRUE TRINITY. That Love, the Loved One, and the Lover, All three are only One, discover ! STRAIT IS THE GATE. Rise up betimes, and be awake ! for wise men say, That unto knowledge of the Lord to find the way Is hard as barefoot o'er a razor's edge to stray ! ORIENTAL pop:try. 287 Gautama's sisters converted. Great Gautama, the sage, two sisters had, Who of their beauty were exceeding vain. Tlie image of a lovely maid he bade Appear to them ; their hearts felt envy's psiin. Then wrinldes came that maiden's beauty o'er ; Her teeth fell out, her hair grew thin and gray. No pride nor envy knew the sisters more, But for Nirwana they began to pray. DISTINCTIONS EVEN IX PANTHEISM. The sea is one ; yet who denies that weaves, foam, spray, drops, froth, Do from each other differ, makes each earnest thinker wroth. SEED AND NURTURE. The rain its bounty sheds on every field ; The sprouts will vary like the seeds that yield. A FAIR HUNTER. A hunter is yon maid ; her eyebrows bows appear ; Her glances are the arrows, and my heart the deer. 288 SPECIMENS or THE HYPOCRITICAL FRIEND. The friend who, before your face, to flatter disdains not, But soon as behind your back, from slander refrains not, Is like unto poisoned honey, luscious yet deadly, Of j)leasure and pain a perilous medley. DIVINE DISTILLATION. The dropping dew is God dispersed on all things fit ; Wilt thou not be a drop among the drops of it ? THE RAHAT's path. With pride you boast your travels far and wide. Your topographic knowledge multiplied. I know a road which all your lore exceeds, — The blessed road that to Nirwana leads. THE INFESTED HEART. Within the heart of every man are found a hundred swine ; Slay these, or the Brahmanic cord around your body twine. THE DIVINE VICTORY. He who forbears to take revenge, I know. Achieves the noblest conquest of his foe. ORIENTAL POETRY. 289 DESCRIPTIVE GENIUS. When Amruzail describes what he has seen, Such power in his language lies, That as he jiaints flocks, wastes, oases green, His hearers' ears are turned to eyes ! THE FAITH OF THEIS:iI. Deny a living God, from seraph-host to plains of calc. And the abyss of Space is but a star-decked catafalque. 0:M HANI PADMI HO 031 : BUDDHIST PRATER. The flood of time, the storm of life, are cruel ; Hail, hail to him with lotus and with jewel ! Whose faith and rites, destroying all the fuel Tiiat feeds the existence-fire, will end the duel Between the soul and limitation. Cruel The strife of being with its bounds. But sweeter Is Sakya Muni's faith to its repeater Than honey to the tongue of famished eater. No more he halts, of time and space a meter ; Of infinite Nirwana made a greeter. His ills all die with speed than lightning fleeter ! THE ONE AND THE IMANT. Of all the world's ten million pools and streams and lakes, Each one its imase of the sinde sun-orb takes. 290 SPECIMENS OF So every human soul within the nation-folds, Its separate semblance of the single Godhead holds. The sun remains, though all the waters flow away : When men are gone will solitary Brahma stay. THE GOODNESS OF SIVA. The firmamental Indra once, in ire, Chased Agni, the provoking god of fire. Agni assumed a pigeon's shape, and flew. How quick did Indra, as a hawk, pursue ! The panting fugitive to Siva fled. " Fear not, poor trembler ! " gentle Siva said. Indra approaches, and demands his prey : — " He takes my life who takes my food away." " I ne'er betray the guest who trusts my word, Although that guest be but a trembling bird. Ask any substitute, however rare, And you shall not behold me halt or spare." " I '11 have my prey, or else thy breast, I swear ! " " Be welcome ! " Siva said, and laid it bare. The hawk upon the breast took eager flight, And fed till he had cloyed his appetite. Upon the scene this miracle displays The UNIVERSE became an eye to gaze ; And from the drops of Siva's blood that fell Redeeming sages sprang, the Shasters tell. ORIENTAL POETRY. 291 EGOTISTIC CRITICS. Som3 men a fault in another will find As small as a grain of meal ; But in themselves, though not otherwise blind, Are quite unable to feel A ^ciult as large as the cocoa-nut's rind. TO A SOCIAL ASPIRANT. The struggle after honor leave Forever ; turn into thy breast That fiery will which now, in strife As sent abroad, but runs to waste, — And thou shalt lead a noble life, Nor longer vainly chafe and grieve. DSCHELLALEDDIN RUMY's MATIN-CALL. arise ! for to us is belonging all nature to-day. And the Soul of the World comes alike as our host and our guest ; 'U^hile the lutes of the stars through the morning en- tranciugly play, And with roses is drunken the nightingale soul in my breast. 292 SPECIMENS OF DSCHA3IT RECEIVING A LETTER. In the East the bright falcon of morning upflew ; From the rose-bsd of luck a soft atmosphere blew ; By the post of good fate came thy missive to me, That the prayers of th}^ soul their fulfilment might see. Tlien, as swiftly I tore the envelope apart, A sweet perfume embathing my flesh and my heart, For the pearl of the meaning therefrom to be learned, To the letter my mind as a muscle I turned. A SUBLIME HEEDLESSNESS. The real saint, absorbed in what he loves and knows, Forgets alike caresses, spurns, and gifts, and blows ; The lover of the Lord, when blessed to see His face, The dealings of His hand will never care to trace. TURNING FROM TALE-BEARERS. Withdraw your mind, however hard the task. When gossips put their friends upon the rack ; In magnanimity refrain to ask What any one has said behind your back. For only that which to your hearing comes Can vex your soul with anger, pain, and dread ; Whate'er beyond your hearing dies or hums, Is just as though it never had been said. ORIENTAL POETRY. 293 SHARP-SIGHTEDXESS OF THE ARAB HORSE. The lion and the horse one clay disputed which •Of them possessed the most discriminating sight. A hair all white in milk the lion saw by night ; The horse by night perceived a sable hair in pitch. STTIFTNESS OF THE ARAB HORSE. Mahlek Ben Essedin sings, Horses ai'e birds without wings. LIGHT-FOOTEDXESS OF THE ARAB HORSE. Haymour, the peerless chestnut steed Of Hussein, Sheik of El Medeen, Was said to be so light of foot, That on a woman's bosom he Could dance, nor leave a bruise behind. REWARD IS HUMAN : FROM LEBlD. Reward with good the good one does to thee, the least ; For it is only man rewards, and not the- beast. EVANESCENCE OF MORTAL THINGS. O imperial Babylon ! where is the pnlp of thy rind ? And the throne of great Solomon where? They are gone on the wind : 294 SPECIMENS OF In the lore of the past though a million bright deeds are enshrined, Many more, brighter far, have evanished like mist on the wind. What are glory and riches ? But firmans that Fortune hath signed, Just to glitter a moment, and pass on the breath of the wind. Hast been chained ? or by love hast been crossed ? or in sorrow hast pined ? Ah ! how glad thou shalt be when thy relics are dust on the wind. For the spirit in death all its burdens and bounds leaves behind. And will nevermore care for the things that must go on the wind. THE MAGNANIMOUS FRIEND. Even if, when in my need, for help I sought, My friend to me assistance never brought. When cries that friend for help in his sore need, Forgetting every grudge, to him I speed. A LOFTY RESERVE : FROM MOTANEBBI. Complain not to the crowd ; you will but give them joy, I say ; — As if a wounded deer complained unto the birds of prey. ORIENTAL POETRY. 295 THE PROPHETIC BEGINNING. The gray morning, I see, in the night of thy beard has just broken. He rephed, with a sigh, soon as thus I had smilingly spoken : Was there ever a dawn that did not the full noonday betoken ? LOVE SOWING AND REAPING ROSES. An Arab, by his earnest gaze, Has clothed a lovely maid with blushes ; A smile within his eyelids plays, And into words his longing gushes. The loving looks my heart out-throws Upon your cheeks have planted roses. O, let me pluck ! That he who sows Should reajD, there is no law opposes. THE DIVINE INTEGER. Not an object can be, but the same has existed before. Leaping up in the light, falHng back in the dark, of its source ; Awful space is of God but the azure and echoless floor, Where sulficingly dwells He, an absolute unit of force. 296 sPEcniENS of Thus, no matter liow varied, all things are but sports of the One, From this mystical thought in my mind, to yon bubble, the Sun ; What appears is a shimmer of spirit on matter's dim screen. As I long ago learned to perceive from great Dschella- leddin. THE LAST PERCH OF DELIGHT. For eons that no number can compute. All drunk and wild with ecstasy of bliss. The rahat in a dazzling spiral flew. And still the apex of perfection neared. But in that endless flight, the sum of joy Across his vision and his senses poured. Were nothing to the rapture which he knew The solitary instant when he stood UjDon Nirw ana's edge, and took the leap Which left poor Limitation's marks behind, And made him absolute and total All. THE PtUIXED HOUSE. When Otbah saw the home of Bani Jash Deserted by its inmates, once so gay, Now stiil, — the fallen door and broken sash, — He sighed : Alas ! no house on earthly clay ORIENTAL POETRY. 297 Is built, — lio-weTer fair and strong its walls, However love and peace its chambers fill, — But at the last a fatal message calls, A mournful wind comj^lains across its sill ! AN ARABIC RIDDLE. The first and last are just alike, upon my soul ; But — who my riddle reads ? — the middle is the whole. / uooiu ipij pire 'pp 'm9^ •uoos OS ';r p^aj j THE FRIEND IN PROOF. Name not as friends the men who by you stand In pleastmt times, when peace and welfare please you ; But him indeed call friend who grasps your hand In that dark day when want and danger seize you. THE DYED SOUL. thou in beauty's wild enchantment dressed. My soul has, like the tulip, been in blood immersed. And will, if here by thy rejecting scorn accursed, Bear to the future world the marks thou hast impressed. 298 SPECIMENS OF TRUE NOBILITY. Who nobly lives and dies I noble call, Although the most ignobly bom of all. A NEW MAN. Leave ancestry behind, Despise heraldic art ; Thy father be thy mind. Thy mother be thy heart. Dead names concern not thee, Bid foreign titles wait ; Thy deeds thy pedigree, Thy hopes thy rich estate ! EXCLUSION OF DEITY. God must in all creation be. Vile wretch, say not He is in thee ! BEAUTY THE SPRINGE OF HEAVEN. Wherever, Zuleika, ihou comest, breaks the night into day; Enslaved by thy form I have gone through the world with my lute ; ORIENTAL POETRY. 299 The charm of thy rmglets would lead even the Devil astray ; The cherubira gaze on thy face in astonishment mute. AVhen love unto full contemplation thy beauty unfurled, There stood the sweet Springe into which flew at once the whole world. THE CIRCUMSPECT TRAVELLER. And well I judge, As forward I trudge, 'T is best for each pilgrim chap To be cautious very ; For I have heard That the flying bird Has oft come into the trap For a luring berry. timour's statesmanship. Timour, the Tartar, said : An empire is a tent ; Justice should be the pole around which it is bent, Sure promptitude of equity its girding rope. And its two fastening-pins philanthropy and hope- Then it protection o'er its tenants long shall throw. However loud and fierce the blasts of trial blow. 300 SPECIMENS OF THE INFINITE DWELLER. From the pitiful form of a flea, to the person of Rama, All the bodies of beings are mystical cities of Brahma ; In what tissues organic walled up, an intuitive token Still incessantly pines for the time when these jails shall be broken. FOKBEARANCE IS POLITIC. Never rejoice at death of foe, my friend ; Your own life too is hurrying towards its end. THE PREACHING OF TOMBS. As Adi, with the youthful prince, Noman, His pupil, strolled one day where slowly ran A river past a cemetery gray, He asked, Knowest what yon silent tenants say? Thi>i is the speech their mouths of ruin hold, The gist of a thousand songs and proverbs old : " Ye toiling caravans, who travel by, Like you, we lived ; and you, like us, shall die ! What throngs have made their camels here recline Before our doors, and in their halt quaffed wine Mixed with this stream ! The morning passed away, And, lo ! they had become of time the prey, And disappeared in its mutations strange ; For Time itself is only change on change ! " ORIENTAL POETRY. 301 AN OMNIPRESENT GOAL IS PATHLESS. Whatever bears a sign, tliou, Lord, must be ; But no sign bears the way that leads to thee. THE COW-BOY OF GOPALA : PREM SAGAR. When Krishna, as a cowherd boy, Among the cowherd maidens strayed, With magic decked, full-wreathed with joy, All in Gopala's pleasant meads, — Such heavenly charms around him played, So wondrous were his countless deeds, That in him Brahma, doubting, thought An avatar of Vishnu wrought. At once the surmise he would test. The doubt confirm, or lay at rest. While Krishna on a crumpled heap Of breathing roses lies asleep, The herd of cattle Brahma steals. With every tending lass and lad, And bears tliem through the traceless sky. The youthful cowherd quick'y feels A warning sign of something bad, Starts up, and seeks the reason why. The sacred cows, his playmates too, Are gone. He calls aloud. In vain ! Where'er he looks, the grassy plain 302 SPECI3IENS OF Is all that meets his anxious view. At length he sees what has been done. And, searching for some fit relief, His ruminating mind employs ; For he foresees the boundless grief Tiiat will throughout Gopala run, Thus reft of cows, of girls and boys. Before his mind kneel all the fates ; His countenance no more is sad. By one Yolitioa he creates As many a charming lass and lad, Just such a herd of grazing kine. Exactly stamped with every sign. As those that came there in the morn ; They were identical in each Particular of form and speech, And all events since they were bora. Just like the missing cows, the new Entered their stalls with easy air. As though they had been wonted there ; The boys and girls their parents knew, And every reminiscence shared. So Brahma's mischief was repaired, And solaced those he did bereave. But when the sacred milk they quaffed, We may be sure that in his sleeve The lovely, cunning cow-boy laughed. ORIENTAL POETRY. 303 BRAHMANIC MATINS. Valmiki early in the morning rose, And, girding on his hermit garb of bark, Repaired to where the smooth Tamasa flows, As tints of dawn began the clouds to mark. His dress laid off, he bathes himself with care, Repeating softly many a Veda prayer. He scoops the wave, slow pours it on the sods. In memory of his ancestors and gods ; Then takes with pure and cheerful mind his way To enter on the duties of the day. THE PROLONGERS OF TIME. Sorrow, suspense, desire, and fear, — These four can make a day appear Long as the shadow of a spear. BIRTH OF THE SLOKA ; OR, ORIGIN OF TERSE. When all the matter of his Epic lay in sage Yalmiki's mind, But in what form of prose or verse to clothe it he had not defined, He wandered on the banks of fair Tamasa, musing deep and long, Seeking to choose the form and measure best for his immortal song. 304 SPECIMENS OF While thus emi3loyed, he saw, perched near him on a fragrant spray, A lovely pair of golden birds, who sang and wooed in guiltless play. Just then a reckless archer came beneath, took careful aim above. And murdered one exactly when he was inebriate with love. His mate beholds him fall, all drenched with blood, and swiftly round him flies. Giving a vent to her distress in rhythmical and plain- tive cries. Yalmiki, deeply moved with sympathy, impulsively ex- claims. While sorrow dews his eyes, and righteous anger through his bosom flames : " O wretch, my curse on thee ! for of these warbler.-, brighter than the sun, ^Vhile all inebriate with love, thy cruel hand hath slaughtered one." His tender voice liis pulse divided as the mourning songstress wailed, And in the rh3thmic line it formed, the wished discov- ery he hailed. That line, as born of grief, let all men by the name of SI oka know ; Thus formed, Ramayana shall live while mountains stand and rivers flow. ORIENTAL POETRY. 305 IDEAL GENEROSITY. Among generous kings was Ularka the chief That e'er sat on a throne. Once, his virtue to try, Mighty Indra came down, for a period brief, In a mendicant's form, with a pitiful cry ; In appearance as poor as a shrivelled-up leaf. At the feet of Ularka he stretched out his palms, And looked up at the king with a suppliant eye. To this silent request made the monarch rej)ly : " Ask whatever thou wilt, thou shalt have it as alms." Then at once did the beggar, exclaiming, arise : '• O Ularka, the gift that I ask is thine eyes ! " But an instant the king hesitatingly sat, Then out])lucked the bright orbs, and, with hands that dim groped, The two jewels resplendent he laid on the mat At the feet of the god ; who his Deity oped In a sunburst of smiles, and applauded the king. And a sardonyx chair, dropping down from above. Took them in, and returningly flew without wing, While both men and the gods made the universe ring With their shouts, and the air was all loaded with love ! 306 SPECIMENS OF THE SAINT CONQUERING SATAN. The World so darkly lies, The fowler, Mara, few can see. Before liis nets surprise, Be warned, poor bird, betimes by me ! As yon flamingo sails Through sunny paths serenely on Till straining eyesight fails To follow whither it has gone ; So. through the ether flies The sage, with magic strength endued, Nirwana for his prize. The World and Mara all subdued. BEWARE OF DELAY. Fair opportunities are swift to go ; But in returning they are, ah, liow slow ! THE END OF A KALPA. The earth dissolves, the stars grow dark, the sun ex- pires ; An ashy hue comes o'er the sky ; all spirits fade ; Retreat chaotic glooms and cosmogonic fires, Absorbing boundlessness claims all that has been made. ORIENTAL POETRY. 307 Tlie elements reseek their transcendental deep, — The kalpa ends, great Brahma is about to sleep. CONTENTED DISCONTENT. When sinful pleasure lapped me in her honeyed state, My spirit was uneasy and disconsolate ; But thrills of deep contentment through my bosom went As often as I felt my utter discontent. THE BLESSED ISLE. To calm and cleanse, and make thy heart thine own, By prayer and lofty musing strain its blood From restless self-desires. Whoe'er does this, Not led and fed by hopes of heaven alone. Amidst the rage of Time's destroying flood Uprears himself a stable isle of^ bliss. NO TEDIU3I IN ETERNITY. To the watcher the night seemeth long. To the pilgrim each parasang long ; But, O, longer by far seeraeth time To him who hath nothing but time ! 808 SPECIMENS OP ABOU EL MAHR AND HIS HORSE. It is Abou el Mahr, the gallant Sheik of Al Azeed ; How fondly he is stroking Lahla, his unrivalled steed ! Among the hills of Schem the tents of Al Azeed are pitched, And close by every warrior's door the favorite horse is hitched. For valor none can stand the men of Al Azeed beside ; And Houri only with their maids comparison can bide. This tribe the unchallenged banner too throughout ^ Arabia T^ears, For the wondrous strength and beauty of their stallions and their mares. But first among their warriors stands the Sheik, Abou el Mahr, And conscious Lahla shines among their steeds, the peerless star. When clasps Abou proud Labia's neck to kiss his veined cheek. The courser looks his love as plainly as if he could ORIENTAL POETRY. 309 He waves his mane, he paws, he curls his nostrils and his lips ; He makes half-vocal sounds, uprears or droops his neck and hijDS ; His deep and pensive eyes light up with lambent flame, then seem As if they swam in the desires of some mysterious dream. and muscles wrought, Of paleness, flush, and gesture — has a language for each thought. Abou caresses him before the people gathered there, Who gaze with wonder at his loving and his haughty air. And Leila, Selim, Zar — the wife and children of the Sheik — Will pat and kiss him, and his hoof within their bosoms take. And twenty chiefs press near, their servants ranged in ordered bands, The privilege to claim that he shall eat from out their hands. For Labia is of Al Azeed the crowning joy and pride ; The envy and despair of all the Arab tribes beside. 310 SPECIMENS OF Another horse so celebrated never spurned the earth ; Through white Koureen, the mare of Solomon, he draws his birth ; And traces back, in straight, untainted rill, his royal blood To thrice illustrious Hufala, great Abraham's sable stud. Hang o'er his spotless forehead, which is white as whitest milk, Soft tufts of handsome hair as glossy as the finest silk. Those tufts compose a veil which every breeze in open- work hems, And underneath it glimpse his rapid eyes, two burning gems. His neck and chest the graces of a swan's in nothing lack ; A gorgeous mantle, woven of silk and gold, beclothes his back. His pedigree, two hundred high descents, his bosom bears In bag of musk, wherewith two precious amulets he wears. His limbs and sockets so elastic, all his motions are So swift and smooth, the rider scarcely feels a start or jar. Abou el Mahr would on his back, in rapid gallop still, A brimming cup of sherbet quaff, and not a droplet spill. Indeed, a bard so mounted might receive the fancy bold. His courser was a bird whose wings an unseen move- ment hold. ORIENTAL POETRY. 311 No price or bribe could cause the Sheik, nor any des- perate need, To iDart witli his redoubtable and idolized steed. It is Abou el Mahr, with twelve choice men of Al Azeed; And they to seize the hostile Bagdad caravan proceed. Soon through the Synor pass into the 023en plain they w^ind, And shake their spears, and shout, their blue caftans stream wide behind. Abou, his Labia's sinews strung with fire, is far before. As on the undefended, scattering caravan they pour. To guard their goods two merchants of Damascus bravely stand. But in an instant both are stretched in death upon the sand. The Sheik and his good men of Al Azeed pile all the spoil Upon the camels, and their homeward way begin to toil. At noon they halt to rest awhile beside a desert spring ; Ah ! who can tell what utter ruin one thoughtless hour may bring ? Their foe, the fierce Pacha of Acre, leads his horsemen there, Cries, '"Strike! and I command you, save Abou, not one to spare ! " . 312 SPECIMENS OF So all are slain. The Sheik, in his right arm a fearful wound, His darling Lahla led before, is on a camel bound. They journey on until they reach the mountains of Saphad, Just as the sun drops out of sight, and night falls dark and sad. The old Pacha commands each soldier there to pitch his tent, And take good care the escape of horse or camel to prevent. The keeper of the Sheik has fed him fast both hand and foot, And fallen asleep, and dreams of fighting, routing, and pursuit. But the poor captive, restless with his torturing wound, still wakes, And Labia's low, disconsolate neigh his anguish sharper makes. Bound as he is, he rolls and crawls one last caress to give The steed from whom he had not, thought to part while he should live. " O Lahla ! " sighs Abou, " no more shall I rejoice with thee To skim the waste, the wild Simoom not prouder or more free ; ORIENTAL POETRY. 313 " No more with thee the Jordan swim, whose spurned water drips From off thy sides, as white and pure as foam from off thy lips. " A bitter fate consigns me to my unrelenting foe ; But thou, bright gem of Al Azeed, in liberty shait go. " What wouldst thou do, poor friend, shut in the close and wretched khan Of some Turk huckster not deserving to be called a man ? " No, whether fortune dooms me for a slave or here to die. Thou shalt, O jewel of a thousand hearts, in freedom fly. " Go to the tents thou knowest so well, amid the hills of Schem, And say, Abou el Mahr will nevermore return to them. " Thy head put through the door where my dear wife and children are. And lick the hands of Leila, Selim, and sweet little Zar. " Lahla, Lahla ! must I now from thee forever part ! Farewell, farewell, beloved comrade of my life and heart ! " So saying, with his teeth laboriously he gnawed apart The tethering cord that went around the stake, and bade him start I 314 SPECIMENS OF But the sagacious soul bounds not away. The bonds he smells That bind his master's limbs. Each fact to him its secret tells. With tenderness he licks the blood upon the shattered arm, Gives forth a low and jDainful whine, but raises no alarm. His teeth the girdle seize ; he lifts Abou, so spare and tall ; Now foolish guards, now old Pacha, defiance to you all ! Great Lahla proves himself a steed of living steel and fire ; To reach him vain are all the struggles of their mad desire. For the hills of Schem he aims his way through the open, lustrous night, Straight as an arrow goes, swift as the lightning in its flight. The stars one after one go down behind the desert's rim, But the pale and eager moon rushes in even pace with him. The palm-clumps on oases lift their heads of yellow green Above the downs of endless sand, and vanish soon as seen. ORIENTAL POETRY. 315 The lagging sun comes up ; twelve weary, mighty leagues are passed ; The lovely haunts and tents of Al Azeed apj3ear at last. The anxious tribe, whose thirteen best are out, is all astir ; The mother deems it time her sons should have returned to her. Ha ! what upon the far horizon moves ? A single steed ? Is this what we looked for with such intensity of greed ? Nearer ! can it be Lahla ? In his mouth a bundle ? 'No, The matchless Lahla never from adventure came so slow. The godlike steed, with staggering steps, faint pantings, almost spent. The girdle bites, reels up, and lays Abou before his tent. One instant stands he, looking round, as if reward to reap From those wlio, thrilled with grateful love and won- der, gaze and weep. Then, while the congregated tribe break forth in pier- cing cries, The noble creature, gasping, falls, all blood and foam, and dies. Thabit Ben Ah, poet of the tribe, leaps through the crowd, "With soul on fire, and sings the feat in panegyric proud. 316 SPECIMENS OF ORIENTAL POETRY. To thrilling tones of love and pride he smites his burn- ing lyre ; With raining eyes and heaving bosoms all as one respire- " No man,^' he says, " not e^^en Hatim Tai, could have done A nobler deed, a more impassioned gratitude have won. " Long as the Horse shall be the friend and servant of our race, The glorious fame of Lahla shall resound through time and space." Full many a day has passed since Ali sang his touching song, And from the vale the tents of Al Azeed have van- ished long ; But in the niglit of Arab lore still shineth, like a star, The SLory of the peerless Lahla and Abou el Mahr. POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTxVL, DEBEXT ET PRODESSE ET DELECTARE POETiE. It is the poet's happj duty, Whose breast his singing eases, In joint behoof of truth and beauty, To profit while he pleases. THE RIDE OF LIFE. Each day you have is but a steed, Caparisoned or well or ill ; Tlie weeks, the fresh relays you need ; Your soul, the mystic^ rider still. The spurs and stirrups are of deed, The sightless bridle is of will ; While faring forth you smile or bleed. Take care, with heed the saddle fill ! 318 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. THE SCHOOL OF LIFE. While through the halls in the school of life we flit, With hearts still turned where thou, O God ! dost lead them, Be all thy ceaseless benefits deep writ Where every day we turn the leaves to read them. THE FOOL OF FOOLS. Soon as himself man knows, He knows himself a fool ; Yet, ah ! how mad he grows If one but call him fool ! O the burden of the dreams that have long been dead, And the brightness of the hopes to my soul that clung ! the sadness of the tears that never were shed. And the sweetness of the songs that never were sung ! There is nothing a man knows, in grief or in sin. Half so bitter as to think. What I might have been! THE DOUBLE HARVEST. A dying girl, in autumn time. Lay fading at the close of day, — Stole o'er the fields the reapers' chime, While fast around the brown ranks lay. POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 319 " Open the casement wide," she said, " And raise me up, that I may look, Ere yet my heart and eyes are dead, Once more upon the field and broolv ! " " The harvest is the Lord's," loud sang The reapers in the distant field ; With piled-up sheaves, with sickles' clang. To him they all the glory yield. Abroad the dying maiden gazed, Then all around grew sudden black ; The sun in setting dimly blazed, — Her head upon the couch fell back. " Farewell ! " she sighed, "ye scenes so dear." " The harvest is the Lord's," replied. Unconsciously, the reapers clear ; And ere the distant echo died, An angel-reaper darted there, Too swift for mortal sight to spy, And bore the flower that drooped so fair To God's great garner in the sky. YOCAL PHANTOMS AND REAL EXPERIENCE. Amidst a parlor-fiill of strangers He sits within his easy-chair, 320 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. Without a thought of lurking clangers, And asks his auditors to share The secrets which themselves but dare To face in solitude and prayer. To themes so shy and private listen, With prim propriety, the crowd ; No eyes with softening radiance glisten, No quickening hearts beat time aloud ; Depressed sit those with love endowed, Complacent stare the cold and proud. Ah ! thou who so remotely talkest Of friendship's sentimental stake, With words at one remove thou balkest The wants with which our bosoms ache. Set forth the facts, — this throng would wake, Their eyes would gush, their hearts would break ! AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. My way in opening dawn I took. Between the hills, beside a brook. The peaks one sun was climbing o'er, The dew-drops showed ten millions more. The mountain valley is a vase Which God has brimmed with rarest grace ; POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 321 And kneeling in the taintless air, I drink celestial blessings there. Behold that guiltless bird ! "What brings Him here ? He comes to M'ash his wings. Let me too wash my wings with prayer, And cleanse them from foul dust and care. To one long time in city pent The lesson seems from heaven sent. For pinions clean yon bird takes care ; Of soul defiled do thou beware ! FUNERAL HYMN. The worlds that shine above us nightly. Then hide beyond our clew, Do surely shine all day as brightly Behind their veil of blue. When friends with natural misgiving We lay in earth's cold bed, We know that thus they still are living Where comes no sigh nor dread. O while our saddest tears are stealing, When fate's worst dart has sped, 'T is light, not darkness, is concealing Our well-beloved dead. 322 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. Whene'er a funeral bell is tolling, Some weary one doth rest ; And loudly through the skies are rolling The anthems of the blest. Then wherefore should we sink in sorrow To part from those we love ? Since God will join us all to-morrow, In the endless home above. EPITAPH ON TIMON, THE MISANTHROPE : CALLIMACHUS. Timon, hat'st thou the world or Hades worse ? Speak clear. " Hades, fool ! because there are more of us here ! " THE PATHOS OF LIFE : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. The race of man is like a summer breeze that transient blows, — A stranger to himself, in all his life he nothing knows. THE POOR man's COMFORT : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. Thou scorn'st not me, but poverty in me as realized ; And God himself, if on the earth, and poor, would be despised. P0E3IS OTHEK THAN ORIENTAL. 323 THE miser's misery : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. Hermon, the miser, dreamed he was in debt, and poor ; AVaking, he quickly hung himself above the door ! cause and effect : greek ANTHOLOGY. Thy mind is lame as is thy foot ; for nature still doth make What is without from that which is within its being take. DISSIPATION AND ITS PROGENY: GREEK ANTHOLOGY. Limb-loosing Bacchus and limb-loosing Yenus, without doubt, A horrid daughter sometimes get, — the fierce, limb- loosing Gout. YULCAN COMPENSATED : GREEK ANTHOLOGY. Fair Eros for thy son, sweet Aphrodite for thy wife ; Brass- worker, it is just thou take thy lameness without strife. CYNIC AND PLATONIST. Diogenes once cried, "■ See how I tread on Plato's pride ! " " Yes, with far greater pride ! " The wise ^philosopher replied. 324 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. THE RETORT RETORTED. Pyrrho was wont to say, " There 's no distinction bred Between who lives to-day And who to-day is dead." " Why hast thou not then died ? " Asked one, to show his sense. " Because," Pyrrho replied, " There is no difference ! " EIXDRUCK UND AUSDRUCK : RIJCKERT. Let something make the right impression on your mind, And for it soon the right expression you will find ; So, too, let something but the right expression take, And it will very soon the right impression make. FROM THE GERMAN OF FEUERBACH, THE SATIRIST. I. USE OF SATIKE. Enlarging, but not altering. Satire lays all bare ; Aye, like a microscope, it shows things as they are. II. FIXAL CAUSE or THE rORBIDDEX FRUIT. Dost know the reason why the apple Adam bit ? To do a favor to Theology was it. i'OEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 325 III. THE WISE ASCETIC. Flowers are for heaven ; and though they bloom on earth, 't is true, Let us not look, but still for heaven reserve the view. IV. THE NOBLE ECONOMIST. What good are tulips and roses profuse ? Potatoes let us raise ; they are of use ! V. THE IIOLT EMBARGO. The priests will have no precious product landed, Unless the crucifix is on it branded. VI. INSPIRATION NOT LOCALLY LIMITED. Appears but to a bigoted and foolish elf The Palestinian Flora as Botania's self. VII. SIGH OF A LAYMAN. The Holy Ghost but Greek and Hebrew knew ; Alas for us, illiterate laic crew ! VIII. SIGH OF A THEOLOGIAN. Alas ! the Holy Ghost but drizzles drop by drop, When a great stream should burst the pen our thirst to stop. 326 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. IX. THE TWO SHADOWS. Behind the thing the shadow doth in nature stretch ; Before the thing the shadow dotli in history reach. X. THE WORLD EMPIRICALLY TREATED. All sickness is specific, Science doth assure, And only special means its ails can really cure. To lack of Bibles do the Bible-Unions tax The world's diseases all. Get out, you arrant quacks ! XI. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF MYSTICISM. Unnatural warmth the heart's rich chamber filled, But cold as Greenland stood the empty head ; Through reason's coldness feeling's mist distilled, And dimmed the windows which to nature led. The vapor, gathered thus, in ice-flowers froze ; — And from that vision mysticism rose. INCLUSION ABOVE NEGATION. The wise critic his power in help displays. And not in hurt ; as when great Goethe says, " Divide and conquer ! is a maxim fit ; " Unite and lead ! is a much finer wit." TO A „LAZY GLUTTON : LESSING. In eating you are swift ; in going, slow ; — Eat with your feet, and take your jaws to go ! POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 327 THE PATHETIC CONTRADICTION : ANASTASIUS GRTJN. "WHien on her bashful mouth I hung, And wildly drew her fragrant breath, My dreams, why only, only clung They still to parting and to death ? And now, as sadly on the grave I stand, where she lies cold and dead, Why do I taste the kiss she gave, And see her modest cheeks so red ? THE minstrel's BREVITY : HOLDERLIN. Why art thou all so brief? Lov'st thou no more the song ? When once thy lay was heard in days of youth and Spring, It seemed as if the strain could never be too long ; But now the close is nigh whenever thou wilt sing. My song is as my life. Wouldst bathe thyself in light ? Behold, The darkness settling round with mournful omen stirs ; The sunset faded out, the earth is growing cold, And close in front the bii'd of night uneasy whirrs. 328 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. FROM THE RUSSIAN POET, LERMONTOFF. Rememberest thou the day when we — Late was the hour — were forced to part ? The night-gun boomed athwart the sea ; In painful silence beat each heart ; The lovely day found cloudy close ; A heavy mist the landscape palled ; And seemed it, when that shot arose, An echo from the ocean called. Alone I w^ander by the flood ; And w^hen a gun booms in its might, I think with pain how we once stood Together on that parting night. And as the mournful echoes roll, Muffled, along the fluid walls, From out the caverns of my soul Death answeringly calls and calls. POEMS FROM THE GERMAN OF NICOLAUS LENAU. I. MOTTO TO LENAU'S LIFE. A fading gleam, a dying crash, Is human life, perceived and gone. Whence comes the noise ? Where goes the flash ? The stars are dumb ; the waves roar on. POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 329 II. PRAYER TO LETHE. O Lethe ! break the fetters of thy shore, And from the shadow-world upon me pour, And let my restless spirit, wounded sore, Thy wave of heaUng drink ! Spring comes, with fragrance, song, and love awake, And greets me as of old ; a heavy ache Lets not my heart respond. O Lethe, make Thy wave within me sink ! III. THE PAST. The evening star, a pallid spark, Sadly shines and winks afar ; Again a Day has changed to dark. And found the rest that naught can mar. Upon the moonlight, soft and clear, Yon airy cloudlets float away, And out of roses pale appear To weave a crown for the dead Day. Dim tomb of precious times gone by, Inexorably holding Past ! In thee, asleep, my heart's pains lie ; Alas ! its raptures too thou hast ! 330 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. IV. TRUTH AND HYPOCEIST. Grief smote her by surprise Amidst tlie giddy play ; Tears, raining from her eyes, Washed all the rouge away. O Grief ! thou art most true ; Thou mak'st disguises known ; False paint is trickled through, The faded cheeks are shown I T. VANITY IS WPlETCHED. A heart that humble love and toil surround, Is happy ; but a heart on haughty ways, That with great wishes goes, with woe is crowned, And languishes beneath its envied bays. VI. SHE CAME AND WENT. Whene'er she came, her form before me stood As lovely as the first green in the wood. And what she said sank in my heart as sweet As Spring's first song heard in the grove's retreat. And when she waved me with her hand farewell, My latest dream of youth in fragments fell. POEMS OTHER T3.A2f ORIENTAL. 331 VII. MY HEART. A sleepless night ; the rain pours fast ; My Avakefal heart, between the flurries, Now harks where silent goes the past, Now where the threatening future hurries. O heart, thy listening must be bad ; . Seek w^hat enduring Will resembles ; Behind are heard complainings sad, And forward many a question trembles. Whate'er the danger, never shrink ; The storm itself thy trust discloses ; The boat wdth Christ no storm could sink ; So in thy bosom God reposes. VIII. THE WINTER CRUCIFIX. Stripped of its Christ, a naked cross I see Upon the chfF; as though the winter storm Which, roaring, tears the leaves from every tree, Had also torn from that the God-man's form. Shall I therefore the horror, W' idely strown, Collect, and to a single image mix ? Shall I dead Nature, clad in snow alone, Nail there on yonder empty crucifix ? 332 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. IX. DEPARTURE OF ILLUSION. Above each joy of life I see A threatening vulture, sight of dread ! What I have loved, or sought to be, It all is either lost or dead. In Nature's gloomy council dares The human heart no voice to bring ; Soon Death, remorseless vulture, tears The joys that o'er our pathway Aving. I will not longer, fool-like, seize The foam that bright on darkness lies, But with such bitter tears as these Wash the last dream from out mine eyes. X. TO AN AUTOGRAPH COLLECTOR. The watchful hunter, skilled in tracks. Can tell, from traces on the snow, As if they were portrayed in wax. The feet of stag or wolf or roe. To him each foot-script thus displayed Upon the ground, before his eyes. Doth, through the shape its movement made. Betray the writer's age and size. So, from the print its track has formed. To his perception it is clear POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 333 Whether across the meadow stormed A fawn, or sixteen-antlered deer. The tracks of my shy soul dost think, Lover of autographs, O say. To follow through this lineal ink, As creeps the hunter to his prey ? XI. THE DILEMMA. Before thee a Dilemma he proposes ; With such a logic-fork will he transfix me ? Between its arms, he says, the truth it closes. Dost doubt ? Then flee, ere on its points he sticks thee. Suggests the two-prong of his technic sermons, The journey of an ancient king recited. In peasant's cart he fared among his Germans, And as the way was long, he got benighted. The wagon, used to loads of hay, moves slowly ; The peasant lets the oxen trudge at leisure. The night is fair ; and through the soul, made holy. Glides many a picture of idyllic pleasure. Behold, the moon's high horn serenely beaming ! The sluggish team between their horns have cau.ght it. So he shall find the truth in mid-space gleaming, Who vainly on the pronged Dilemma sought it ! 334 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. XII. REFUGE. Hapless deer upon the forest floor, Has the hunter given thee a wound ? Flee, then, swift within the wood's dim core, "Where the hidden lakelet spreads around, That the gentle freshness of its wave May thy throbbing wound with coolness lave. But man, when thy wounded bosom swells, Flee within thy household's inmost shrine, "Where the purest fount of comfort wells, And upon thy mother's heart recline. But the mother, ere a long time, dies. Has thine own already fallen asleep ? Flee, then, w^here the forest silent lies, "With the hunted, w' ounded deer, and w^eep ! XIII. SPRIXG-GREETING. After long frost how breathes the air so mild ! Spring violets brings to me a beggar child. Sad, that the earliest greeting of the Spring A child of misery to me must bring. And yet the pledge of earth's sweet loveliness Is dearer from the hand of wretchedness. So bears to future men our grief or crime The vernal greeting of a better time. POEMS OTHEll THAN ORIENTAL. 335 XIV. TO DEATH. "When once my heart begins to moulder, When poesy's audacious flame And fires of love already smoulder, Then, Death ! in pieces break this frame. Not slowly di^, but quickly break it, And let thy singer soar away. Enrich his life-field not, nor rake it With feeling's ashes, Death, I pray ! XV. THE CRUCIFIX. When man towards heaven holds his trust: n a face, His lifted arms in love outstretching steady To draw the world unto his heart's embrace, He makes himself for crucifixion ready. Such love as this upon the earth is rare ; And that the world might lose its image never, Mankind, Jesus ! bound, with hasty care. Thy loving posture to the cross forever. XVI. o MY mother! Within my heart I bear a hidden wound, And silently shall bear it till I die ; I feel it gnawing, gnawing there piofound, While heavily the hours of life go by. 336 POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. There is but one to whom I mifrht confide Without distrust, and freel}' tell her all, Could I my face upon her bosom hide ; But she, alas ! is sleeping in her pall. mother, come ! If still thy love survives, Cannot my tears prevail to draw thee back To help thy child, who here in anguish strives, "With doubt and fear and grief upon the rack ? 1 long to leave this world of undelight, Strip from my soul this fleshly wretchedness. O mother, come ! as thou wert wont at night, Thy weary child from his sad life undress ! PARTINGS AND MEETINGS ON THE JOURNEY OF LIFE. Full oft, when starting in life's morning road, With fond associates of our youth, Gazing on lawns of green with flowers strowed, Not on the flints and thorns of truth, "We take our early playmates by the hand. Just where our paths grow strange amain. And with more faith than we do understand, Utter a cheerful. Meet again ! Full oft, when journeying o'er life's noonday roadj We pine for some companion dear POEMS OTHER THAN ORIENTAL. 337 Whose voice of love ^ould ease our toilsome load, And banish each intruding fear ; And when with such we 've travelled through the day, We see our paths diverge with pain, And clasping hands, beneatli the sunset ray, We breathe a saddened, Meet again ! Full oft, when pausing on life's evening road, While shades of night are gathering round. All nameless agonies our hearts forebode, As sinks in faintness to the ground Some fellow-pilgrim, bound to us through years By love and trust without a stain ; We led his hands, and prayed to heaven That those hard hearts might be forgiven. O'erhead the trees their dry limbs creaked, And wildly by the tempest shrieked. O pride and hate ! the beggar sighed. Then feebly closed his eyes, and died. And why was he thus driven to die ? Did he the laws of heaven defy ? Of dreadful crimes was he a doer ? Oh, no, — the hapless wretch was poor ! Of Christ himself was it not said. He had not where to lay his head ? The ills of earth will find their cure When Christ is seen in all the Poor. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 355 NOW IS THE TIME. Some unknown one has said, He doubles His troubles Who borrows To-morrow's. And I venture to add, That he offsets To-morrow's debts Who pays To-day's. BY-GONE TIMES. Full oft in the hours of vanishing night I think of the years sped swiftly away, And call to my mind, in memory's light, The fi'iends that I knew in life's sunny May. Oh, then to my heart too dear are the hours That went like the leaves borne by on a stream, "Wlien first with my Love I roved in these bowers Where life, youth, and hope are one in a dream. That dream ! — oh, away, ye memories dear That gather about the happiest days This heart ever knew. Will never appear The truth of that dream in life's busy maze ! 356 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. The ashes are pale which thrice-holy fires Of love and romance once kindled so bright : In darkness and grief my heart still aspires The dreams of that time to clasp till death's night. > THE SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY. We meet to give you cordial greeting, brother Ross ! Fast in your honor shall our steaming tea-cups flow ; And, hoarding all your by-gone days without a loss, We di'ink the memory of sixty years ago ! An honest man and genial are you, brother Ross ; And, while we hope that to the end your joys may grow, We praise the cheerfulness with which you've borne each cross, Since first you entered life, now sixty years ago. We recognize your faithful friendship, brother Ross : It 's worth a thousand fickle contrasts make us know. You have not been a rolling stone that gains no moss. But ever firm and true, since sixty years ago. Though in your mind experience has its treasures rained, And on your head has fallen many a winter's snow. Your soul with guile or meanness is as little stained, Your heart as young to-night, as sixty years ago. MISCELLANEOUS POEJIS. 357 "We envy you your even temper, brother Ross : Its steady radiance keeps your face and house in glow, It makes us think no mortal ever saw you cross ; Still shine it as it has since sixty years ago. And when you pass the great ordeal, brother Ross, — Far off may that time be, and be its motion slow, — May the Divine Refiner say, He 's free from dross As when he first was born, a hundred years ago ! THE LIFE OF MAN. FROM THE GERlIA^s OF AliOTS SCHREIBER. In the world, an outcast utter. Stands the man, forsaken there : Winds are raging, tempests mutter, — Nothing touches his despair. Loving call to him the star-host, And exhort him, too, the flowers : " Gaze not sadly at the far-most : Know, O Man, that thou art ours." While with sighings deep he presses Earth and heaven to his heart, With her gentle tear-caresses Love assuaojes sorrow's smart. 358 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. From the cold no field is living, — Each young floweret has its grave ; In the earth, without misgiving, Thrusts he down his pilgrim stave. And with hope, in glad surrender, Towards the starry choir he turns ; Straightway then a blossom tender Forth from out the dry wood burns. His companions all desert him, And to danger him expose ; No one halves the ills that hurt him, Weigh upon him age's snows. Anxious seeks he for the dwelling Where his cradle once did stand : It is changed beyond his telling, — No one gives a greeting hand. Yet with faith liis bosom yearneth ; Looks he towards the heaven's blue source : Ah, my youth no more returneth. And completed is my course ! Much becomes of Time the booty ; Yet not all can fade away : One whom still to trust is duty Is there, — Him the stars survey. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 359 Love on can I, trusting, hoping : This a light in darkness makes, And I see the heaven oping, When my heart in dying breaks. A CANTATA OF THE SWISS CHILDREN IN SPRING. I. Old Winter, wrapped in icy blasts, hath fled ; The budding charms of youthful Spring appear ; Heaven holds its bluest banner overhead ; The fields their mats of green fling far and near. IL And now the Switzer girls and boys All gathered on the village slope, With song and dance and gladsome noise Keep time and tune with love and hope. III. The avalanches raise their voices dread ; The chainless torrents rush, and sing aloud ; The lammergeyer, his wings with lightning red, Outlines himself against the thunder-cloud. IV. With sprigs and flowers among their curls, With heart to heart, and hand in hand, The merry Switzer boys and girls, A crown of beautv, deck the land. 360 - MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. V. The Alps uprear in heaven their snowy domes, The precipices gleam, the dark pine waves ; The sons of liberty here build their homes ; A scene like this was never meant for slaves. VI. With bounding sport, with laughing shrieks, The children shake their wreaths in glee ; While hunters shout from distant peaks, " Halloo ! halloo ! we 're free ! we 're free ! " vn. But threatening clouds across the heavens crawl ; A sudden hush on vale and summit broods. It breaks : how thick the big black raindrops fall I forsal^ VIII. Before the frown on Nature's brow, Still leajDing, shouting in their bliss, The children scamper homeward now. And greet their mothers with a kiss. IX. And, lo ! above those homes, without a scar The sky looks forth again ; the tempest dies ; The Alpine horns their echoes blow afar ; The smile of God on all the landscape lies. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 361 And when full soon the summer's bloom Has riped in turn these boys and girls, They too shall think, o'er spade and broom. Good children are their country's pearls. MEANNESS AND NOBILITY. 'Tis the motto of meanness and pride, If this man doth belong to our set He is welcome to all we enjoy. Be he one of the medley outside. We will every measure employ That among us he never be met. But the nobly descended in soul Opens wide all he has to the whole. THE BEST SACRIFICE. The vying worshippers of God One time then- various offerings brought : A thousand altars decked the sod. Each worshipper acceptance sought To crown his gift above the rest. And mark his sacrifice the best. Among the thousand kneeling there, "With love or pride or fear in prayer, A saint obscure and nameless stood, Silent amid the noisy brood. 362 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. And, wliile the rest iii show essayed To have their altars best arrayed With deeds or words or forms of art, , This man drew from his aching heart The dearest sacrifice of all, TVliich on the loving God can call. And while the other altars still Are cold and dark with omens ill. This one the sacred lightnings fold, And wrap it in a blaze of gold. What magic sacrifice is this. That brings its offerer such a bliss ? Of all religious mysteries The deepest one is here displayed. The other shrines bear boasts : on his His inmost egotism is laid. Man's purest offering is still The sacrifice of his self-will : Of this be thou but dispossessed, And God will clasp thee to his breast. RETRIBUTION. And still it is the transcendental creed Of all who feel the spirit through the letter, That God rewards us best for a good deed By giving us the power to do a better. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 363 INSPIRATION. Heaven dropped a star upon my path one night: I picked it up, nor since have lacked for light. Still the gifts of God our hopes outrun : Searching with a lamp, I found the sun. CHRISTMAS HYMN. 1845. Jesus has lived ! and we would bring The world's glad thanks to-day, And at his feet, while anthems ring, The grateful offering lay. Jesus has lived ! and his pure life, So perfect and sublime. Shall conquer man's dark sin and strife Through every rank and clime. Jesus has died ! and o'er the stars Gone home to God on high ; He burst the gravels cold prison-bars, And said, Man cannot die. Jesus yet lives ! and from the sky, Where victory he wrote. Before the good, man's closing eye Visions of glorv float. 364 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Jesus yet lives ! and oh, may we, While in this valley dim, So feel our immortality That we may be like him ! HYMN AT DIVINITY SCHOOL. 1847. "Within the shadow of his cross we stand, "Wliose words are wisdom to our youth. And pray that he will bless our humble band. And consecrate us to the truth. Oh, be his deathless love of God and man, And faith in truth, the living power Whose fruit shall crown our Christian toils, and span With heavenly hopes the dying hour. Come down, his holy Spirit from above, Direct each mind, and warm each heart, And ere we go, to speak the truth in love Each one anoint and set apart. We are but twelve, and all the fields are white With harvests wide of worth untold : Lord, give us tongues of fire and souls of might, And make us like thy Twelve of old. INSTALLATION OF THOMAS STARR KING. Before thee, Lord, a servant bows. To set himself apart in youth And breathe his consecrating vows To preach salvation through the truth. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 365 He does not trust in human lore, Or pride, for strength to walk aright, But in thy Word, which from of yore Has guided men through faith to sight. "With holy love his heart inspire, His mind with heavenly wisdom fill, And touch his faltering lips with fire To teach the lessons of thy will. Within these courts prolong his years Of labor for a faithful flock ; And, if assailed by foes and fears, Be thou his friend and wall of rock. ELISHA KENT KANE. BOSTON, 1857. Why breathes the slow and solemn dirge ? What means this hushed and sad array ? This badge-decked crowd what motives urge To leave, to-night, the world's vain play? A saintly hero from us gone Before the noontide of his years, His fame and genius in their dawn, Demands our tribute-thrills and tears. A band of brothers, we have met To weigh the story of his life. And o'er his holy traits forget The hardening cares of daily strife. 366 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Though nations join in mourning him, We, mystic brothers, mourn the most ; For with lamenting hearts we hymn The noblest one of all our host. As thus we pause to contemplate Thy deeds, it shall not be in vain That we are charged to emulate Thy virtues rare, immortal Kane. FROM CONCORD TO BOSTON. MAY 6, 1857. The dew is on the grass, The sun is in the sky ; The swollen brooklets pass, The cars in thunder fly. The engine pauses now ; The lifted window through Fresh morning laves my brow From out the cloudless blue. The glens are gloomy here, The tree-tops glitter there, And bii'ds with carols clear BesjDrinkle all the air. From hamlet-roofs up -curl The early smokes in peace ; Beneath I hear the swirl Of rills, the gabbling geese. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 367 The hill-side slopes outspread, The vales in sun-mist glow ; All heaven is overhead, Spring everywhere below. My heart to Nature's smile Leaps out in boyish glee ; From slavish toil and guile I once again am free. Behold yon farmer-boy Amidst the sparkling fields. Half conscious of the joy Untainted being yields. What visions wander back From childhood's careless years, Beheld o'er memory's track Through gilding smiles and tears ! The Babel ways of men Are quite forgotten now : Once more I feel as when I hid me in the mow. My steps fond fancy takes Where still the well -sweep hangs ; And every heart-string aches With mingled bliss and pangs. 368 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. We reach the jangling town, Alas ! its dust and roar The winsome landscape drown, And my snatched dream is o'er. Yet here in turmoils vain, Through days of sin and noise, This glimpse I shall retain Of rural peace and joys. FOURTH OF JULY. BOSTON, 1857. Now bend we low, and ask our fathers' God To smile on all o'er which our banner waves, — The busy mart, the deck, the prairie sod, Old Plymouth roofs, new San Francisco graves. Commending unto Him, the only Good, This country as one undivided fold. Our patriot hearts o'er all its borders brood. From Eastern pines to Western strand of gold. And thus to heaven our pleading accents call : May wrong and strife among us disappear ; And soon their sacred rights be given to all. While truth and love lead in a Golden Year ! A HIGHER DEVOTION. Away, O Fame ! Thy star has set, To charm me never more : • Thine airy visions I'll forget ; Thy Iming dreams are o'er. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 369 God's love, a flaming sun, appears, To fix my wandering eyes ; It hides each feebler orb that steers Along the lighted skies. Rule now, Lord, in this poor heart That driveth Fame away : That thy true reign may not depart, My God, I deeply pray. A. BIRTHDAY. 1872. While in this world, though deep delusions mask it, Forth underneath the sun of truth to bask get ; And, freshly still to have your mental flask wet, Seek nectared meanings in each outward casket. In sport unbent, or closely at your task yet, Whenever comes an interruption, ask it, " Art thou a secret sign divinely sent me ? Then show me clear the clew of guidance lent thee, While I conspire, whatever Fate's intent be. To say with all, ' This, this forever meant we ! ' " Live thus ; for you, when taxing years shall spent flee. Possess an endless lease of being, rent free. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE UNIVERSAL. The conscious life of thought and deed has ebbs and flows ; The deeper automatic life no ceasing knows. Our personality in that asserts its will ; But this the laws of universal being fill. 370 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. Then, when men sleep, God wakes, and in them rules, To equalize knaves, saints, philosophers and fools ? Ah, no ; for, while they sleep they dream, and in their dreams The quality of what they are still w^orks and gleams, And base from noble, good from ill, distinguished seems. So both our waking and our sleeping may conceal Or private whims or public truths ; and what we feel. Or do not feel, betray ourselves or God reveal. The mystic scorns his thoughts and wishes as malign, But blindly holds his intuitions for divine : The true believer, scientific and devout, Tries all by tests of criticism and of doubt. THE SELF-DEFEATING JOURNEY. The same tide pulses in the abyss and in the shoal, From end to end the central undulations roll. And every part contains the spirit of the whole. In vain man seeks a way to God outside his soul: No path can lead unto an omnipresent goal. . • I. THE PAIN OF SOCIETY. Alas, fair Friendship, heavenly Fawn on earthly ground, Thy scent I cannot shun, thy lair I have not found. n. THE GLORY OF SOLITUDE. Phcenix sola facta solum Deum sequar. With no companionship except my own. That I alone may soar to God alone. SnSCELLANEOUS POEMS. 371 ni. THE RECONCILIATION. Ah, vainly thus our yearning hearts may ache and reach : The answer to our longing never will be found Till all shall recognize that God is hid in each, And, hunting not for him the universe around, In each kind face perceive what Fate through Time would teach. IV. THE RESULT. I hold the laws of truth, so far as understood, To be the will of God, and perfect in their good : And all the awful mysteries of things unknown I also hold decreed from his unbounded throne. Since known and unknown rest alike on him alone, No room is left for me to question or rebel While ranging through the blended spheres of heaven and hell. Happen what may, above or underneath the sua, I only say, Thy will, O God, n^^riiiine, be doftsJ)gi*I^^V Kj.i^^' Cambridge : Press of John Wilson & Son. War Department Library Washington, D. C. :no. IMS^Z Losses or injuries must be promptly ad- justed. No books issued , during the month of August. Time Limits : Old books, two ' weeks subject to ' renewal at the op- ^tionof the Librarian. New books, one "^week only. ACME LIBRARY CARD POCKET Ma(*e by LIBRARY BUREAU, Boston KEEP YOUR CARD IN THIS POCKET