“A poor song on a great subject composed by one of those poets who always entreat us to take the will for the deed. Do you wish to hear another?”
He sung again.
“Sure some madness it must be,
Thus the present hour to slight,
And to take thy sole delight
In the tales of memory.
Why shouldst thou thy time despise?
Why the past thus fondly prize?
Seek’st thou only what is gone?
Nay, what is’t thou wouldst recall?
Dreamy pleasures—that is all;
Fit for puling babes alone.
“Nay, suppose this honor’d Past
Should return to thee at last,
Friend, thou soon wouldst say: ‘The star
Shines more brightly when afar.’
When the Future’s sunbeams glow,
Fancy paints a glittering bow;
O’er the cloudy Past ’tis spread,
Venture near, and it has fled.
In the centre thou shouldst be,
If thou wouldst the magic see.”
From this time Ali, as usual, went frequently to Izaser’s temple, attended by Lockman.
“Why do you always go this way?” he once asked Ali. “Are not the other suburbs also beautiful?”
“I do not know them as well as these,” replied Ali. “This neighbourhood has been familiar to me from childhood; every step recalls to my memory some moment of my past life, and cannot, therefore, but be most dear to me.”
When they were on the point of going out on the following day, Lockman had put off the handsome dress which Ali had given to him, and appeared again in his former tattered slave’s coat.
“What is that?” asked Ali. “Why have you again put on those rags? Have I not given you a good, decent suit?”
“Forgive me, master,” said he, “I am not so familiar with my new suit as with this: this has been familiar to me in my early life, every hole and every rent recalls to my memory some past moment, and therefore cannot but be extremely dear to me.”