X

Well, let it take them! What have we to do With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru?

Let Rustum cry "To Battle!" as he likes, Or Hatim Tai "To Supper"--heed not you.

XI

With me along the Strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot-- And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne?

XII

Here with a little Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUATRAIN LXXII p. 76

[_First Edition of the Translation_]

Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!

That Youth's sweet-scented Ma.n.u.script should close!

The Nightingale that in the Branches sang, Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!]

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUATRAIN XI p. 86

[_Second Edition of the Translation_]

With me along the Strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot-- And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne?]

XIII

Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; Ah, take the Cash, and let the promise go, Nor heed the music of a distant Drum!

XIV

Were it not Folly, Spider-like to spin The Thread of present Life away to win-- What? for ourselves, who know not if we shall Breathe out the very Breath we now breathe in!

XV

Look to the blowing Rose about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the world I blow: At once the silken ta.s.sel of my Purse Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."

XVI

For those who husbanded the Golden grain, And those who flung it to the winds like Rain, Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

XVII

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little hour or two--was gone.

XVIII

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.

XIX

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamshd gloried and drank deep: And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild a.s.s Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

XX

The Palace that to Heav'n his pillars threw, And Kings the forehead on his threshold drew-- I saw the solitary Ringdove there, And "Coo, coo, coo," she cried; and "Coo, coo, coo."

XXI

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears TO-DAY of past Regret and Future Fears: _To-morrow!_--Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

XXII

For some we loved, the loveliest and the best That from his Vintage rolling Time has prest, Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, And one by one crept silently to rest.

XXIII

And we, that now make merry in the Room They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom, Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?

XXIV

I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

XXV

And this delightful Herb whose living Green Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean-- Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XXVI