FROM THE FRENCH Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From evils which never arrived!

With beams December planets dart His cold eye truth and conduct scanned, July was in his sunny heart, October in his liberal hand.

Boon Nature yields each day a brag which we now first behold, And trains us on to slight the new, as if it were the old: But blest is he, who, playing deep, yet haply asks not why, Too busied with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.

Ere he was born, the stars of fate Plotted to make him rich and great: When from the womb the babe was loosed, The gate of gifts behind him closed.

I am not wiser for my age, Nor skilful by my grief; Life loiters at the book’s first page,– Ah! could we turn the leaf.

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen, To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between: Future or Past no richer secret folds, O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.

Night-dreams trace on Memory’s wall Shadows of the thoughts of day, And thy fortunes, as they fall, The bias of the will betray.

Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply,– ”T is man’s perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.’

Well and wisely said the Greek, Be thou faithful, but not fond; To the altar’s foot thy fellow seek,– The Furies wait beyond.

Test of the poet is knowledge of love, For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove; Never was poet, of late or of yore, Who was not tremulous with love-lore.

I see all human wits Are measured but a few; Unmeasured still my Shakespeare sits, Lone as the blessed Jew.

Her passions the shy violet From Hafiz never hides; Love-longings of the raptured bird The bird to him confides.

As sings the pine-tree in the wind, So sings in the wind a sprig of the pine; Her strength and soul has laughing France Shed in each drop of wine. [Greek: ADAKRYN NEMONTAI AIONA] ‘A New commandment,’ said the smiling Muse, ‘I give my darling son, Thou shalt not preach’;– Luther, Fox, Behmen, Swedenborg, grew […]

FROM THE PERSIAN OF KERMANI In Farsistan the violet spreads Its leaves to the rival sky; I ask how far is the Tigris flood, And the vine that grows thereby? Except the amber morning wind, Not one salutes me here; There is no lover in all Bagdat To offer the exile cheer. I know that […]

(Translation) Never did sculptor’s dream unfold A form which marble doth not hold In its white block; yet it therein shall find Only the hand secure and bold Which still obeys the mind. So hide in thee, thou heavenly dame, The ill I shun, the good I claim; I alas! not well alive, Miss the […]

I said to heaven that glowed above, O hide yon sun-filled zone, Hide all the stars you boast; For, in the world of love And estimation true, The heaped-up harvest of the moon Is worth one barley-corn at most, The Pleiads’ sheaf but two. If my darling should depart, And search the skies for prouder […]

Thou foolish Hafiz! Say, do churls Know the worth of Oman’s pearls? Give the gem which dims the moon To the noblest, or to none. Dearest, where thy shadow falls, Beauty sits and Music calls; Where thy form and favor come, All good creatures have their home. On prince or bride no diamond stone Half […]

Each spot where tulips prank their state Has drunk the life-blood of the great; The violets yon field which stain Are moles of beauties Time hath slain. Unbar the door, since thou the Opener art, Show me the forward way, since thou art guide, I put no faith in pilot or in chart, Since they […]

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere. On two days it steads not to run from thy grave, The appointed, and the unappointed day; On the first, neither balm nor physician can save, Nor thee, on the second, the Universe […]

Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou love a mind serene;– A woman to thy wife, though she were a crowned queen; And the second, borrowed money,–though the smiling lender say That he will not demand the debt until the Judgment Day.