And Gelaleddin Ruzbehar,
"While the nightingale sings thy praises with a loud voice, I am all ear like the stalk of the rosetree."
Pliny, however, in his delightful description of this bird, says nothing, I believe, about the rose.
(7) Les Perses semblent etre les premiers hommes connus de nous qui parlerent des anges comme d'huissiers celestes, et de porteurs d'ordres.
Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations.
In composing this ode, which was done four years ago, the writer had not the most remote idea, of complimenting any one. Without the slightest pretensions to "connoiseurship" she has only described the absolute effect of the pictures alluded to, on an individual, and would only be considered in the light of an insent warming itself in the sun, and grateful for his pervasive influence.
ODE.
Thou who wert born of Psyche and of Love
And fondly nurst on Poesy's warm breast
Painting, oh, power adored!
My country's sons have poured
To thee their orisons; and thou hast blest
Their votive sighs, nor vainly have they strove.
Thou who art wont to soothe the varied pain
That ceaseless throbs at absent lover's heart,
Who first bestowed thine aid
On the young Rhodian maid [FN#19]
When doomed, from him whose love was life, to part,
From a lone bard accept an humble heartfelt strain.
[FN#19] I do not positively recollect whether the incident, here described is supposed to have transpired at Rhodes, Corinth, or some other place, and have not, at present, the means for ascertaining. Painting is called the Rhodian Art, but I know not if on account of its having been first invented there or for the eminence of the painters which Rhodes produced; which was so great that an illustrious enemy refrained from burning the city, which he had in his power, out of respect to the genius of Protogenes one of its most celebrated artists.