English or Persian, while the mouth is fair,

What can it matter how it says good-night?

Whether the legend in the Book of Youth

Runs left or right, it reads a prayer for ruth;

The music of the bird upon the bough

Meant, and still means, no more nor less than truth.

The wisdom of the wisest of the wise

Is but the pinch of powder in the eyes

Thrown by the fingers of the fiend, that we

True things from false may fail to recognise.