THE SAYING OF A PERSIAN POET
All this hurry to dress and go out, these journeys in taxi-cabs, or in trains with my packed bag from big railway stations—what keeps me going, I sometimes ask myself; and I remember how, in his 'Masnavi I Ma'navi' or 'Spiritual Couplets,' Jalalu 'D-Din Muhammad Rumi says that our Desires, the swarm of gaudy Thoughts we pursue and follow, are short-lived like summer insects, and must all be killed before long by the winter of age.
MONOTONY
Oh, to be becalmed on a sea of glass all day; to listen all day to rain on the roof, or wind in pine trees; to sit all day by a waterfall reading exquisite, artificial, monotonous Persian poems about an oasis-garden where it is always spring—where roses bloom and lovers sigh, and nightingales lament without ceasing, and white-robed figures sit in groups by the running water and discuss all day, and day after day, the Meaning of Life.