Part 6 (1/2)

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