'In Sublimity proper, the best objects and the most splendid forms are used only as a mere ornament of God, and they serve to proclaim the magnificence and glory of the One, being brought before our eyes only to glorify Him as the Lord of all creatures. But in Pantheism, on the contrary, the Immanence of the Divine in the objects, raises the mundane, natural, and human existence itself, to a more substantial glory of its own. The actual Life of the Spiritual in the phenomena of Nature and in human relationships, animates and spiritualises them in themselves, and establishes in turn a special relation of the subjective feeling and soul of the Poet to the objects of which he sings. His soul, filled with this living glory, is in itself calm, independent, free, self-sufficient, spacious, large; and in this affirmative identity with itself, it expands its life in imagination till it attains to the same calm unity in the Soul of things. And so it coalesces with the objects of Nature and their magnificence, becomes one with the loved one, with the cup-bearer, etc.;—in a word, with all that is worthy of praise and of love, and this in the most blissful and joyous intimacy. The Occidental Romantic inwardness of Soul shews, indeed, a similar consciousness of Life in itself; but on the whole—especially in the North—it is more unhappy, is not free, is given to yearning; or it remains more subjectively shut up in itself, and thereby becomes selfish and sensitive. Such oppressed, disturbed inner states of mind are especially expressed in the National Songs of barbarous peoples. The state of free, joyous inwardness is, on the contrary, characteristic of the Orientals, especially of the Mohammedan Persians, who openly and gladly give up their whole Self to God, as well as to all that is praiseworthy, yet in this very surrender preserve their essential free being, which they can maintain even in relation to the surrounding world. Thus we see in their glow of passion the most expansive blissfulness and outpouring of feeling; and with their inexhaustible wealth of brilliant and magnificent images, through it all there sound the constant tones of happiness, of beauty, and of joy. When the Oriental suffers and is unhappy, he accepts it as the immutable decree of Fate, and in presence of it still remains certain in himself, without becoming depressed, or feeling sensitive, or despondent, or distressed. In the poems of Hafiz we find complaining and repining enough about the loved one, the wine-bringer, etc.; but even in his Pain he remains as free from care as in his Joy. Thus he sings:
'"Because the Presence of thy Friend
Is bright, not sad;
Burn, like the Taper, out in Woe,
Burn, like the Taper, out in Woe,
'The taper teaches man to laugh and weep; it laughs in bright glances through the flame, although it is melting at the same time in hot tears; even in burning itself out, it sheds a bright glance around. This is the general character of the whole of this Poetry.
'To cite some of their more special images: the Persian Poets speak much of Flowers and Precious Stones, and especially of the Rose and the Nightingale. It is very common for them to represent the Nightingale as the "Bridegroom" of the Rose. This attributing of a Soul to the Rose and of Love to the Nightingale, occurs frequently in Hafiz. "O Rose," he says, "while grateful for being the Sultana of Beauty, vouchsafe not to be proud to the Love of the Nightingale." He speaks himself of the Nightingale of his own Heart. But when we speak in our Poetry of Roses, Nightingales, and Wine, it is done in a quite other and more prosaic sense: the Rose is regarded as for ornament; we are "crowned with Roses"; or we hear the Nightingale and sympathise with it; we drink Wine, and call it the Dispeller of Care. With the Persian Poets, however, the Rose is not an image, or a symbol, or a mere ornament; but it actually appears to the Poet as animated with a Soul, as a loving Bride; and he penetrates with his spirit deep into the Soul of the Rose.'
C.
VON HAMMER'S ACCOUNT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.
Von Hammer's Account of Omar Khayyám is at once so just, so discriminating, and so well-informed that it may prove interesting to our Readers, especially as the work in which it is contained has become rare; and it may help generally to dispel some of the hallucination still prevalent about the 'Astronomer-Poet of Persia':
'Omar Chiam'—as Von Hammer transliterates the name—'is one of the most remarkable Persian Poets; he is unique as regards the irreligious subject-matter of his Poems, so that, so far as we know, there is no other found like him in the whole History of Persian Poetry. He is the Poet of the Freethinkers and of the Jesters at Religion, and in this respect he may be appropriately called the Voltaire of Persian Poetry. It is remarkable too, that in Persia, as elsewhere, Freethinking was the precursor of Mysticism, and that the Age of the deepest Unbelief passed over into that of the greatest Superstition.