Who in Bagdad doth not know the sun of the universe, the great, the celebrated Giaffar?
April, 1878.
TWO FOUR-LINE STANZAS
There existed once a city whose inhabitants were so passionately fond of poetry that if several weeks passed and no beautiful new verses had made their appearance they regarded that poetical dearth as a public calamity.
At such times they donned their worst garments, sprinkled ashes on their heads, and gathering in throngs on the public squares, they shed tears, and murmured bitterly against the Muse for having abandoned them.
On one such disastrous day the young poet Junius, presented himself on the square, filled to overflowing with the sorrowing populace.
With swift steps he ascended a specially-constructed tribune and made a sign that he wished to recite a poem.
The lictors immediately brandished their staves. "Silence! Attention!" they shouted in stentorian tones.
"Friends! Comrades!" began Junius, in a loud, but not altogether firm voice:
"Friends! Comrades! Ye lovers of verses!
Admirers of all that is graceful and fair!
Be not cast down by a moment of dark sadness!
The longed-for instant will come … and light
will disperse the gloom!"[70]