The musky air to joy invites,
And drowns the senses in delights.
Deep 'mid the waving cypress boughs,
Turtles exchange their amorous vows;
While, from his rose's fragrant lips,
The bird of eve love's nectar sips.
Where'er I throw my eyes around,
All seems to me enchanted ground;
And night, while Cynthia's silvery gleam
Sleeps on the lawn, the grove, the stream,
Heart-soothing night, for nothing longs
But one of my melodious songs,
To lap the world in bliss, and show
A perfect paradise below!
When youth's warm blood shall cease to flow,
And beauty's cheek no longer glow;
When these soft graceful limbs, grown old,
Shall feel Time's fingers, icy cold;
Close in his chilling arms embraced,
What pleasures can I hope to taste?
What sweet delight in Age's train?
Spring will return, but ah! in vain."
The Stag, half pitying, half amazed,
Upon his old associate gazed;
'What! hast thou lost thy wits?' he cried, 'Or art thou dreaming, open eyed?
Sing, quotha! was there ever, bred
In any mortal ass's head
So strange a thought! But, no offence-
What if we first remove from hence,
And talk, as erst, of straw and oats;
Of scurvy fare, and mangy coats;
Of heavy loads, or, worse than those,
Of cruel drivers, and hard blows?
For recollect, my gentle friend,
We're thieves, and plunder is our end.
See! through what parsley we've been toiling,
And what fine spinage we are spoiling!
"He most of all doth outrage reason
Who fondly singeth out of season."
A proverb that, for sense surpasses
The brains combined of stags and asses:
Yet, for I must thy perils trace,
Sweet bulbul* of the long-ear'd race!
Soft soul of harmony! yet hear;
If thou wilt rashly charm our ear,
And with thy warblings, loud and deep,
Unseal the leaden eye of sleep;
Roused by thy song, and arm'd with staves,
The gardener, and a host of slaves,
To mourning will convert thy strains,
And make their pastime of thy pains.'
His nose in scorn the songster rears,
Pricks up his twinkling length of ears,
And proudly thus he shot his bolt-
Thou soulless, senseless, tasteless dolt!
If, when in vulgar prose I try
My voice, the soul in ecstasy
Will to the pale lip trembling flee,
And pant and struggle to be free,
Must not my song-
'O, past pretence !
The ear must be deprived of sense,'
Rejoin'd the stag,- form'd of dull clay,
The heart that melts not at thy lay!
But hold, my ardent prayer attend,
Not yet with songs the welkin rend;
* The Persian name of the nightingale.
Still the sweet murmur of thy throat,
Prelusive of the thrilling note!
Nor shrink not up thy nostrils, friend,
Nor thy fair ample jaws extend;
Lest thou repent thee, when too late,
And moan thy pains and well earn'd fate.'
Impatience stung the warbler's soul,
Greatly he spurn'd the mean control,
And from the verdant turf uprear'd,
He on his friend contemptuous leer'd;
Stretch'd his lean neck, and wildly stared,
His dulcet pitchpipe then prepared,
His flaky ears prick'd up withal,
And stood in posture musical.
"Ah!' thought the stag, 'I greatly fear,
Since he his throat begins to clear,
And strains and stares, he will not long
Deprive us of his promised song,
Friendship to safety well may yield,"
He said, and nimbly fled the field.
Alone, at length, the warbler Ass
Would every former strain surpass;
So right he aim'd, so loud he bray'd,
The forest shook, night seem'd afraid;
And, starting at the well known sound,
The gardeners from their pallets bound;
The scared musician this pursues,
That stops him with insidious noose :-
Now to a tree behold him tied,
While both prepare to take his hide;
But first his cudgel either rears,
And plies his ribs, his nose, his ears;
His head converted to a jelly,
His back confounded with his belly;
All bruised without, all broke within,
To leaves they now convert his skin:
Whereon, in characters of gold,
For all good asses, young and old,
This short instructive tale is told.
I SEE inscribed the stern decree of Fate;
The poison burns in every vein: 'tis done;
Imports not now thy kindness or thy hate;
My lot is certain, and my race is run.
No; never can I break the circling snare,
Or flee my fix'd, inevitable doom:
Say thou art cold-I perish in despair;
Say that thou lovest-my transport is my tomb.
ON THE OMNIPRESENCE OF THE DEITY.
FROM THE PERSIAN OF ACHMED ARDEBEILI.
WHY was this spirit, ardent still to rise,
Chain'd in a dungeon of compacted clay?
Why were those thoughts, aspiring to the skies,
In heavy fetters doom'd to pine away?
Strange mystic union of discordant things,
Beyond the powers of reason to descry:
Like the wild ostrich of the waste, whose wings,
Though strongly nerved, yet are not form'd to fly.
O sluggish clay, that bend'st thine inmate down Low to the parent dust that gave thee birth! I fain would spurn thee, all thy ties disown,
And roam a pilgrim from the realms of earth.
Roam where? What unknown worlds wouldst thou explore?
Where rest in boundless space thy weary flight? Float o'er etherial oceans without shore,
Mount to the stars, or sink in endless night? What is thine aim? What mighty object, say, To rise above this sublunary sphere?
Even Him, who reigns o'er all the realms of day, Say, dost thou seek? Vain man! then seek him
For his almighty Wisdom, Power, and Love Are neither circumscribed by time nor space, But perfect here, as in the realms above,
Sustain the myriads of the human race.
Here shall the faithful heart with transport own, God's awful presence fills not heaven alone.
FROM THE PERSIAN OF KHAKANI.
THAT Cheek which boasts the ruby's hue,
That breast, a lily bathed in dew,
That form whose graceful beauty gleams
Like cypress bending o'er the streams,
Thou marble heart! destroyer! say,
What tyrant steals my soul away?
That airy form, that amorous sigh,
The flower bud of that liquid eye,
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