LX
The Close of the Book
Thank God, these pages, numbered to the full,
Are pleasant as the petals of a Rose;
Where genius is as the Nightingale,
And plucks them ardently from off the flower.
’Tis genius blent the sweets of Gulistan,
Tinting narcissus’ cheeks with fresher hue.
Each verse is like a gayly-painted rose,
And Bulbul is the guardian of the grove.
The letters like to cedars stand in line,
The lines run o’er the page like rivulets.
The words like rank and file their order take,
The sense is as the diamond in the mine.
And thus the poet has prepared for you
A feast of tenderness, a dainty feast,
A bosom book of the sublimest lore,
Which all the world will welcome with delight.
The book towers up like some tall monument,
And every verse of it is Eden’s door.
And I have put a meaning under it,
Which is the Gulistan of its fair words.
It sprang from out the well of my pure wit,
My genius is enthroned on its renown,
’Tis I who clothed the legend in these words,
The language and the meaning both are mine,
And in this legend there is naught of guile,
My taper’s light no ignis fatuus,
And he who sees the symbol will esteem,
The book from title-page to colophon.
I borrowed no man’s phrases and I trod
No path that had been trodden hitherto.
Forth from the portal of my intellect
There streamed the words of evil and of good.
And many a lovely lay have I composed
From the sad music of the Nightingale.
So that this book, so fascinating fair,
Will by the fair ever be beloved.
I hope that God the volume will protect,
And keep it safe from misadventures twain.
First from a critic ignorant and dull,
Who like a mule the poet tramples down,
A critic without intellect and sense,
Who cannot see the meaning of the words,
But twists the sense of every graceful line,
And does not hear the music in the verse.
One point he dwells on, to another blind,
And mixes up the poetry and prose.
Presumes himself to boast poetic fire,
And to set right a hundred lines of mine.
Then from the writer who, like one bewitched,
Does naught but blot each blemish in the book.
He scores the book with blots as with a cloak,
And all its beauties in concealment keeps.
He sticks his mark where is no need of it,
And blunders every time he would correct;
His criticism should be criticised,
And his misuse of language makes me smile,
Even misspelling he is guilty of.
His very letters does he scarcely know,
His very pen itself cannot run straight,
His knotted fingers scarce can hold the pen.
Now, Fasli, comes at length thy poem’s end.
Thank God for all the beauty of thy lays.
Leave poetry and turn thy mind to God,
And thank him thou hast reached the colophon.
Thy book is one of happiness and bliss,
In lovers’ bosoms it will oft be borne.
And now the numbered verses thus conclude
The story of the Rose and Nightingale.