Read thou the text: “They shunned the task to undertake.”[255]
Had not “they shrunk from it,” where now would’st thou have been?
Had they not feared, would’st thou this grade have ever seen?
But yesterday an opening gleamed for better things;
Till greed for fleshly morsels stopped the way of kings.55
For sake of some such morsel Luqmān was made bail.[256]
The time’s now that for Luqmān morsel’d not avail.
The troubles we endure are all for morsel’s sake.
Be Luqmān. Thou’lt extract the thorn that makes thee ache.
A thorn or chafing hurt not Luqmān’s horny hand.