And so onward, through many a page.
The following verse of Omar Chiam seems to belong to Hafiz:—
"Each spot where tulips prank their state
Has drunk the life-blood of the great;
The violets yon fields which stain
Are moles of beauties Time hath slain."
As might this picture of the first days of Spring, from Enweri:—
"O'er the garden water goes the wind alone
To rasp and to polish the cheek of the wave;
The fire is quenched on the dear hearth-stone,
But it burns again on the tulips brave."
Friendship is a favorite topic of the Eastern poets, and they have matched on this head the absoluteness of Montaigne.
Hafiz says,—
"Thou learnest no secret until thou knowest friendship; since to the unsound no heavenly knowledge enters."
Ibn Jemin writes thus:—
"Whilst I disdain the populace,
I find no peer in higher place.
Friend is a word of royal tone,
Friend is a poem all alone.
Wisdom is like the elephant,
Lofty and rare inhabitant:
He dwells in deserts or in courts;
With hucksters he has no resorts."