Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers

by W. A. Clouston

And the breath of morning zephyr, fraught with Tátár musk, is bland;

Whilst the world’s fair time is present, do not thou unheeding stand:

Gaily live! for soon will vanish, biding not, the days of spring!

With the fragrance of the garden, so imbued the musky air,

Every dew-drop, ere it reaches earth, is turned to attar rare;

O’er the parterre spread the incense-clouds a canopy right fair:

Gaily live! for soon will vanish, Biding not, the days of spring!

This Turkish poet’s maxim, it will be observed, was “enjoy the present day”—the carpe diem of Horace, the genial old pagan. On the same suggestive theme of Springtide a celebrated Turkish poetess, Fitnet Khánim (for the Ottoman Turks have poetesses of considerable genius as well as poets), has composed a pleasing ode, addressed to her lord, of which the following stanzas are also from Mr. Gibb’s collection:

The fresh spring-clouds across all earth their glistening pearls profuse now sow;

The flowers, too, all appearing, forth the radiance of their beauty show;