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“Then you worship the sun?”

“The sun itself is cold, and produces warmth only when combined with the atmosphere of our earth. The fire has beautiful yellow locks and sparkling eyes, it vivifies every thing with its love, and burns most beautifully at night.”

“Still I must call you by a name,” said Ali.

“I am as diminutive, deformed, and ugly, as the renowned Lockman,” said the slave, “and he was as shrewd and knew as much as I do. It was the same with AEsop. Many are of opinion that they are one and the same person; if this may be said of two it may also be applied to three. Call me Lockman, and believe in the metempsychosis. It is the cheapest belief, as it costs the creator least.”

Ali knew not whether to smile or be angry at this frivolous joke. Indeed, he did not know whether he was joking; for every thing that Lockman (as we shall call the slave,) said, was mixed with a certain serious grimace which again frequently changed into sarcastic ridicule.

On the same evening Ali read aloud the following passage from Zoroaster’s “Wisdom:”

“The power hath work’d from all eternity:
Two angels are its subjects–Virtue, Vice,
Of light and darkness mingled;–aye at war.
When Virtue conquers, doubled is the light;
When Vice prevails the black abyss is glad.
To the last day the struggle shall endure.
Then Virtue shall have joy, and Vice have pain,
And never more these enemies shall meet.”

When Ali had read thus far, Lockman, who was still in the room, had so violent a bleeding at the nose that he was obliged to leave it, and Ali saw him no more that evening.

Early in the morning he was awakened by a singing which ascended from the garden. He opened the window and heard a hoarse, though well practised voice, sing the following words:

“Lovely spring returns again,
And his merry glance is warm,
And he sings a lively strain,
But the youth he cannot charm.

“Rosebuds all their fragrance shed,
But his heart they cannot move,
Seeking joys for ever fled,
Through the ruins he must rove.

“Does he dwell amid the flowers,
By some kindly beauty blest?
No; amid the ruin’d towers,
Where the screech owl builds her nest.

“No fair arms around him cling,
Ne’er he tastes a honied kiss;
Songs that ancient dreamers sing,
Those alone afford him bliss.

“Wake him from this sullen sleep,
Lovely spring thy pow’r display,
Or the youth too late will weep,
For the joys he flings away.”[1]

Ali went into the garden, and found Lockman sitting under a tree with a guitar in his hand.

“Do you sing too?” asked Ali.

“If the screeching of an owl can be called singing,” replied he, “I sing like the feathered songster of the grove.”

“Your guitar has a pleasant sound.”

“That it learned from a sheep when a wolf struck its claws into its entrails.”

“What were you singing?”

“A poor song on a great subject composed by one of those poets who always entreat us to take the will for the deed. Do you wish to hear another?”

He sung again.

“Sure some madness it must be,
Thus the present hour to slight,
And to take thy sole delight
In the tales of memory.
Why shouldst thou thy time despise?
Why the past thus fondly prize?
Seek’st thou only what is gone?
Nay, what is’t thou wouldst recall?
Dreamy pleasures–that is all;
Fit for puling babes alone.

“Nay, suppose this honor’d Past
Should return to thee at last,
Friend, thou soon wouldst say: ‘The star
Shines more brightly when afar.’
When the Future’s sunbeams glow,
Fancy paints a glittering bow;
O’er the cloudy Past ’tis spread,
Venture near, and it has fled.
In the centre thou shouldst be,
If thou wouldst the magic see.”