GHASELLE:

FROM THE PERSIAN OF HAFIZ.

OF Paradise, O hermit wise,

Let us renounce the thought;

Of old therein our names of sin
Allah recorded not.

Who dear to God on earthly sod

No corn-grain plants,

The same is glad that life is had, Though corn he wants.

O just fakir, with brow austere,
Forbid me not the vine;

On the first day, poor Hafiz' clay
Was kneaded up with wine.

Thy mind the mosque and cool kiosk,

Spare fast and orisons;

Mine me allows the drinking-house,

And sweet chase of the nuns.

He is no dervise, Heaven slights his service,

Who shall refuse

There in the banquet to pawn his blanket For Schiraz' juice.

Who his friend's skirt or hem of his shirt

Shall spare to pledge,

To him Eden's bliss and angel's kiss

Shall want their edge.

Up! Hafiz, grace from high God's face

Beams on thee pure;

Shy thou not hell, and trust thou well,

Heaven is secure.

XENOPHANES.

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave
One scent to hyson and to wall-flower,
One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls,
One aspect to the desert and the lake.

It was her stern necessity: all things

Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower,
Song, picture, form, space, thought, and character,
Deceive us, seeming to be many things,

And are but one. Beheld far off, they differ
As God and devil; bring them to the mind,
They dull its edge with their monotony.
To know one element, explore another,
And in the second reappears the first.

The specious panorama of a year

But multiplies the image of a day,

A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame; And universal Nature, through her vast

And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet, Repeats one note.

THE DAY'S RATION.

WHEN I was born,

From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice, Saying, 'This be thy portion, child; this chalice, Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw

From my great arteries,

nor less, nor more.'

All substances the cunning chemist Time

Melts down into that liquor of my life,

Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty, and disgust.

And whether I am angry or content,

Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt,

All he distils into sidereal wine

And brims my little cup; heedless, alas!
Of all he sheds how little it will hold,
How much runs over on the desert sands.
If a new Muse draw me with splendid ray,
And I uplift myself into its heaven,