Declaration of the Hidden Meaning Which for the Mystic Lies in This True History and Mournful Narrative
Thou who hast on these pages fixed thine eyes,
If there is any knowledge in thy mind,
Look not on these events as idle tales,
For in the words a meaning there abides.
And what from idle tales can come of good,
Unless some meaning there be hid in them?
Some doctrine from a fable often comes,
So idle tales are often profitless.
And hence the hidden sense of history
Declares the sequel both to me and thee.
For now when to an end the story comes,
Thou needs must learn the lesson of the tale.
The Shah, the radiant monarch of the Spring,
Is intellect that bides for evermore.
The Rose, which is the daughter of the Shah,
Is genius, offspring of the intellect.
The city which is named the rose garden
Is life when spent on beds of luxury.
The Nightingale upon the rose parterre
The human heart, which after genius longs.
The heart by genius is perfected,
And therefore is of genius amorous.
The East Wind is the breath of suffering,
Which ever blows between the heart and soul,
And the clear vision which in life abides
Is the narcissus in the rose parterre.
The tulip, in a circle bends its cup,—
’Tis friendship with its tender-heartedness.
The cypress, I would fain expound to you,
Is the free symbol of integrity.
The rivulet is purity of soul,
Wherein the well-beloved is mirrored clear.
And in the dew which serves the flowers for wine
Is seen the shining tenderness of God.
What is the lily else but bravery?
The violet is loveliness of heart,
The hyacinth is bitter jealousy,
The thorn is anger which estranges all.
And that which Summer I and Winter call,
Must also have a double sense to thee.
For one brings many blessings to thy life,
The other desolates this world of ours;
And on the character of each of these
All of the year’s vicissitudes depend.
The one is strong as anger in its day,
And with it carries off the strength of man;
For man when fiery ardor rules the sky
Finds all his life with flames of heat consumed.
And this is August burning like a brand,
Which desolates the city of the soul.
Thus will be clear to thee how any fire
Destroys the happiness of monarch Spring.
So soon as suffering seizes on the life
It overcomes the soul and intellect.
For intellect its office fails to fill,
So anger has with all things laid it waste.
The other source of strength is love of kind,
Which always brings a blessing in its train.
Its action is to deepen graciousness,
And give new color to the sense of life.
And so I name it Autumn: well is known
Its character as separate and distinct—
Since rage and passion then are satisfied,
And life into a mellow twilight comes.
While all the time nature in calm decay
Is like the chill of man’s declining day.
And thus the king of winter seems at last
The human life and spirit to usurp.
The king who does the rose garden restore
Is but the light and health that clears man’s soul.
Anger and passion both give way to him,
And God’s own light at last pours blessing down.
This king brings help to heart and intellect,
And takes possession of the whole domain.
He frees the spirit from the charge of sense,
And widens out the prospect of the soul;
Then heart and spirit in a kiss unite,
The bridal of the Rose and Nightingale.
LX
The Close of the Book
Thank God, these pages, numbered to the full,
Are pleasant as the petals of a Rose;
Where genius is as the Nightingale,
And plucks them ardently from off the flower.
’Tis genius blent the sweets of Gulistan,
Tinting narcissus’ cheeks with fresher hue.
Each verse is like a gayly-painted rose,
And Bulbul is the guardian of the grove.
The letters like to cedars stand in line,
The lines run o’er the page like rivulets.
The words like rank and file their order take,
The sense is as the diamond in the mine.
And thus the poet has prepared for you
A feast of tenderness, a dainty feast,
A bosom book of the sublimest lore,
Which all the world will welcome with delight.
The book towers up like some tall monument,
And every verse of it is Eden’s door.
And I have put a meaning under it,
Which is the Gulistan of its fair words.
It sprang from out the well of my pure wit,
My genius is enthroned on its renown,
’Tis I who clothed the legend in these words,
The language and the meaning both are mine,
And in this legend there is naught of guile,
My taper’s light no ignis fatuus,
And he who sees the symbol will esteem,
The book from title-page to colophon.
I borrowed no man’s phrases and I trod
No path that had been trodden hitherto.
Forth from the portal of my intellect
There streamed the words of evil and of good.
And many a lovely lay have I composed
From the sad music of the Nightingale.
So that this book, so fascinating fair,
Will by the fair ever be beloved.
I hope that God the volume will protect,
And keep it safe from misadventures twain.
First from a critic ignorant and dull,
Who like a mule the poet tramples down,
A critic without intellect and sense,
Who cannot see the meaning of the words,
But twists the sense of every graceful line,
And does not hear the music in the verse.
One point he dwells on, to another blind,
And mixes up the poetry and prose.
Presumes himself to boast poetic fire,
And to set right a hundred lines of mine.
Then from the writer who, like one bewitched,
Does naught but blot each blemish in the book.
He scores the book with blots as with a cloak,
And all its beauties in concealment keeps.
He sticks his mark where is no need of it,
And blunders every time he would correct;
His criticism should be criticised,
And his misuse of language makes me smile,
Even misspelling he is guilty of.
His very letters does he scarcely know,
His very pen itself cannot run straight,
His knotted fingers scarce can hold the pen.
Now, Fasli, comes at length thy poem’s end.
Thank God for all the beauty of thy lays.
Leave poetry and turn thy mind to God,
And thank him thou hast reached the colophon.
Thy book is one of happiness and bliss,
In lovers’ bosoms it will oft be borne.
And now the numbered verses thus conclude
The story of the Rose and Nightingale.