For yet but a little the dust on thy head ✿ They shall strew, and thy life shall go down to the dead.
The Emir and his companions wept; then, drawing near unto the pavilion, they saw that it had eight doors of sandal-wood, studded with nails of gold and stars of silver and inlaid with all manner precious stones. On the first door were written these verses:—
What I left, I left it not for nobility of soul, ✿ But through sentence and decree that to every man are dight.
What while I lived happy, with a temper haught and high, ✿ My hoarding-place defending like a lion in the fight,
I took no rest, and greed of gain forbad me give a grain ✿ Of mustard-seed to save from the fires of Hell my sprite,
Until stricken on a day, as with arrow, by decree ✿ Of the Maker, the Fashioner, the Lord of Might and Right.
When my death was appointed, my life I could not keep ✿ By the many of my stratagems, my cunning and my sleight:
My troops I had collected availed me not, and none ✿ Of my friends and of my neighbours had power to mend my plight:
Through my life I was wearied in journeying to death ✿ In stress or in solace, in joyance or despight:
So when money-bags are bloated, and dinar unto dinar ✿ Thou addest, all may leave thee with fleeting of the night: