Excerpta from Persian Poetry,

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.-HAFIZ.

HEAVEN AN ECHO OF EARTH.

'Tis but a shadow of the earth's familiar bliss,

Bright mirrored on the sky's ethereal fonts,
That fills our breasts with longings nothing can dismiss,
In tremulous and glimmering response.

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 'mid the flames of hell.

FORTUNE AND WORTH.

That haughty rich man see, a merely gilded clod;

This poor man see, pure gold with common dust besmeared. Start not: in needy garb was Moses girt and shod,

When waved and shone before him Pharaoh's golden beard!

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.

TO A GENEROUS MAN.

To cloud of rain refreshing all the land,

It is not fit to liken thy free hand;

For as that gives it weeps meanwhile,

But thou still givest with a smile.

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 eye-lashes of peerless kings,

PROUD HUMILITY.

In proud humility a pious man went through the field;
The ears 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.”

FOLLY FOR ONE'S SELF.

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 IMPOSSIBILITY.

When I shall see, though clad in gold or silk,
In peace and joy a wicked man or maid,
I then shall drink a bowl of pigeon's milk,
And eat the yellow eggs the ox has laid.

THE SOBER DRUNKENNESS.
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.

A WINE-DRINKER'S METAPHORS.
As the nightingale oft from a rose's dew 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.

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 cliff's edges drips,
So the red-tinted wine breaks in foam on my lips.

FROM MIRTSA SCHAFFY.

Better stars without shine,

Than the shine without stars.

Better wine without jars,

Than the jars without wine.

Better honey without bees,
Than the bees without honey.
Better please without money,
Than have money but not please.

THE DOUBLE PLOT.

Three hungry travellers found a bag of gold;
One ran into the town where bread was sold.
He thought, I will poison the bread I buy,
And seize the treasure when my comrades die.

But they too thought, When back his feet have hied,
We will destroy him and the gold divide.

They killed him; and, partaking of the bread,
In a few moments all were lying dead.

O world! behold what ill thy goods have done;
Thy gold thus poisoned two, and murdered one.

THE WORLD'S UNAPPRECIATION.

The lyrical poems of the East called Ghazels, of which the following, from Trench, is a brief specimen, have this peculiarity, that the first two lines rhyme, and for this rhyme recurs a new one in the second line of each succeeding couplet, the alternate lines being free :

For matters cannot well be worse

Than when the thief says, 'Guard your purse.

I cannot trust your counsel, friend:

It surely hides some wicked end."

Said Satan, "Near the throne of God,
In ages past, we devils trod;

Angels of light, to us 'twas given

To guide each wandering foot to Heaven;

Not wholly lost is that first love,

Nor those pure tastes we knew above.

Roaming across a continent,

The Tartar moves his shifting tent,

But never quite forgets the day
When in his father's arms he lay;

So we, once bathed in love divine,
Recall the taste of that rich wine.
God's finger rested on my brow,—
That magic touch, I feel it now!

I fell, 'tis true,-Oh, ask not why!
For still to God I turn my eye;
It was a chance by which I fell:
Another takes me back to hell.
'Twas but my envy of mankind,
The envy of a loving mind.

Jealous of men, I could not bear
God's love with this new race to share.

But yet God's tables open stand,

His guests flock in from every land.

Some kind act toward the race of men

May toss us into heaven again.

A game of chess is all we see,

And God the player, pieces we.

White, black,-queen, pawn,-'tis all the same;

For on both sides he plays the game.

Moved to and fro, from good to ill,
We rise and fall as suits his will."

The Caliph said, "If this be so
I know not; but thy guile I know;
For how can I thy words believe,
When even GoD thou didst deceive?

A sea of lies art thou,-our sin,
Only a drop that sea within."

"Not so," said Satan: "I serve God,
His angel now, and now his rod.

In tempting, I both bless and curse,
Make good men better, bad men worse.
Good coin is mixed with bad, my brother,
I but distinguish one from th' other."
"Granted," the Caliph said; "but still
You never tempt to good, but ill.

Tell, then, the truth; for well I know
You come as my most deadly foe."
Loud laughed the fiend. "You know me well;
Therefore my purpose will I tell:

If you had missed your prayer, I knew

A swift repentance would ensue;

And such repentance would have been

A good, outweighing far the sin.

I chose this humbleness divine,

Born out of fault, should not be thine;
Preferring prayers elate with pride,
To sin with penitence allied."

Epigrams.

MARTIAL'S EPIGRAM ON EPIGRAMS.

Omnis epigramma, sit instar apis; sit aculeus illi,
Sint sua molla, sit et corporis exigui.
[Three things must epigrams, like bees, have all,-
A sting, and honey, and a body small.]

MIDAS AND MODERN STATESMEN.

Midas, they say, possessed the art, of old,
Of turning whatsoe'er he touched to gold..

This, modern statesmen can reverse with ease;

Touch them with gold, they'll turn to what you please.