Charm'd magic-casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.'
Yes; that is surely the sweetest, the tenderest, the heavenliest of all the Persian Nightingales, come back to us in our sorest need, and singing to us amid the glory of the Resurrection of Life, in the Festival of another Spring, as he never sang in the English air before. It is a Western youthful Poet's Dream of Jeláleddín renewing the first notes of his immortal song, and chanting again the Hymn of Eternal Life, solemn yet joyous, mystic yet clear: stirring what is deepest in our heart and driving away our sorrow, till 'all the pulses of our being, reanimated, beat anew!'
'O ye hopes, that stir within me,
Health comes with you from above!
God is with me, God is in me!
I cannot die, if Life be Love.'
Thus does our own deep, mystic Singer, Coleridge, echo, in kindred strains, the deepest Faith of Jeláleddín.
W. H.
[1] Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens, mit einer Blüthenlese aus zweihundert persischen Dichtern. Von Joseph von Hammer. Wien, 1818. Pp. 163-198. The petty criticism of some of Von Hammer's details has no relevancy here, and is hardly worth referring to in connection with his gigantic achievements. There are spots on the Sun!