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 If only one dare tell the lovely things

The nightingale unto the red rose sings!

'See! I am Yusuf's flower,' the red rose cries,

And wide and warm her sanguine bodice flings.

O ignorant world that brutishly denies

Free speech unto the exquisitely wise;

A thousand pearls—yet only one is threaded!

Alas! for noble truth that hourly dies.

Strange in a world so wonderfully planned

The thick-wit fool should always rule the land,—

Ah I well, the cup must solve that riddle too,

'Tis more than we shall ever understand.

But shall the jocund wise be sent to school

For ever to the narrow-minded fool,

The evil-smelling saint outlaw the rose,

The joyless make for joy a joyless rule?