"The air is perfumed with musk, and the waters of the brooks, are they not the essence of roses? This jasmine bending under the weight of its flowers, this thicket of roses shedding its perfume, seem like the divinities of the garden. Wherever Menisched, the daughter of Afrariab, appears, we find men happy. It is she who makes the garden as brilliant as the sun; the daughter of an august monarch, is she not a new star? She is the brilliant star that rises over the rose and jasmine. Peerless beauty! her features are veiled, but the elegance of her figure rivals the cypress. Her breath spreads the perfume of amber around her; upon her cheek reposes the rose. How languishing are her eyes! Her lips have stolen their color from the wine, but their odor is like the essence of roses."—Translated from Sismonde de Sismondi.
Nor is it only love which levies this tribute on flowers. We subjoin an extract from Mesihi, another poet whose fame is world-wide: Mesihi the irresistible!—who paints in many a lyric, with graphic touch, the fascinations of beauty, and in the concluding verse of one of them (with happy self-complacency) thus soliloquizes:
"Thou art a nightingale with a sweet voice,
O Mesihi! when thou walkest with the damsels
Whose cheeks are like roses!"
In the following subject, flowers would be expected, but in the long poem of which this is only a part they are truly—the whole:
ODE TO SPRING.
Thou hearest the song of the nightingale, that the vernal season approaches. The spring has spread a bower of joy in every grove; where the almond-tree sheds its silver blossoms.
Be cheerful; be full of mirth;
For the spring soon passes away, it will not last.The groves and hills are again adorned with all sorts of flowers. A pavilion of roses as a seat of pleasure is raised in the garden; who knows which of us will live when the fair season ends?
Be cheerful; etc., etc.
Again the dew glitters on the leaves of the lily like the water of a bright scymitar. The dew-drops fall through the air on the garden of roses; listen to me if thou wouldst be delighted.
Be cheerful; etc., etc.
The time is past when the plants were sick, and the rosebud hung its head on its bosom. The season comes in which mountains and steeps are covered with tulips.
Be cheerful; etc., etc.
Each morning the clouds shed gems over the rose gardens. The breath of the gale is Tartarian musk. Be not neglectful of duty through too great love of the world.
Be cheerful; etc., etc.
Mesihi, trans. by Sir W. Jones.
Flowers are beautiful—but such a profusion of them in print is not congenial to our northern tastes, despite other testimony in the enthusiasm of some oriental scholars. Of course, for those who are so happy as to read the originals there is a charm which is lost in translation—but there is good reason why we fail to sympathize. Hemmed in by cold and snow half the year, thought, passion, and deep feelings seek expression through channels not made of things visible; and their tides are not the less deep and strong because less demonstrative. The passionate and imaginative literature of the East is the outpourings of the soul under circumstances widely different from those under which similar effusions here (and some of the most impassioned and eloquent, too) have been penned. Each calls forth different tropes and figures—and if it is difficult for the one side to stir up imagination to untiring flights through rose-gardens, equally would the poet of Negaristan find it impossible to picture the charms of his mistress, and die of love or despair, before a coal-fire in the lamp-light.
Who can hear of roses without calling up an image of the nightingale, or, in Eastern phrase, the Bulbul? The mutual loves of the two (for roses can love there) have made the theme of tales and songs without number. Whether the story is fact or fiction—whether the bird really pours forth its most thrilling notes in the atmosphere of that perfume, may be a disputed point with "outside barbarians," but with native writers the belief is fully accepted. Here, again, the repetition is wearisome; and here, again, it is pleasant to blame—not our lack of imagination, but our peculiar surroundings; for, alas! our vault empyrean is colorless or cloudy; the melodious Bulbul a thing to dream of; and the song, generally, only a prosaic translation!
The southwestern part of Asia is the land of spices, frankincense, and myrrh. It is also the land of sweet flowers, although few modern travellers say much about them. One reason, perhaps, is that the extreme heat obliges the stranger to rest most of the day, and night is for stars, not flowers.