I quote again from Omar, Fitzgerald’s translation:
“And this reviving Herb, whose Tender Green
Fledges the River-Lip, on which we lean—
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen.”
In justice to both the Persian and the Arab poet, however, I give the 43d quatrain of Heron-Allen’s, which I think contains two lines of that of Fitzgerald, together with Abu’l-Ala’s own poetic-fancy.
“Everywhere that there has been a rose or tulip bed
There has been spilled the crimson blood of a king;
Every violet shoot that grows from the earth
Is a mole that was once upon the cheek of beauty.”