Thus those tender spectres wander
Up and down, and sweet caresses
Interchange, whilst peeps the moonlight
Through the window’s arch’d recesses.
But at length the rays of morning
Scare away the fond illusion;
To the tapestry retreat they
On the wall, in shy confusion.
THE POET FERDUSI.
1.
Men of gold, and men of silver!
When a fool about a thoman
Talks, of silver he is speaking,
And he means a silver thoman.
In a prince’s mouth, however,
Or a shah’s, a thoman’s always
Golden, for a shah will only
Give and take in golden thomans.
Worthy people have this notion,
And Ferdusi thought so also,
The composer of the famous
And immortal work Schah Nameh.
This divine heroic poem
At the Shah’s command composed he,
Who for every verse a thoman
Promised to bestow upon him.
Seventeen times bloom’d the roses,
Seventeen times did they wither,
And the nightingales sang sweetly
And were silent seventeen times,—
And meanwhile the bard was sitting
At the loom of thought, composing
Day and night, and nimbly weaving
His sweet numbers’ giant-carpet,—