Unstable as water, to myself untrue,
God's mercy makes an everlasting wonder,
Stronger than life or death, my love of you.
I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Humphreys, Mr. John Murray, and the Editor of the Spectator for kind permission to reproduce a few of the shorter poems in this tale of Persian mystics. I have included them, firstly, because I wished otherwise new work, being a memorial, to include such fragments of the past as might be worth preserving; secondly, because decreasing leisure inspires a diffidence in the future that may justify me in asking a reader or a friend to judge or remember me only by "Foolery" and "The Singing Caravan."
R. V.