Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 08.djvu/38



To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow,

Counting on morrows breedeth naught but sorrow;

Oh! squander not this breath that heaven hath lent thee,

Nor make too sure another breath to borrow!

'Tis labor lost thus to all doors to crawl,

Take thy good fortune, and thy bad withal;

Know for a surety each must play his game,

As from heaven's dice-box fate's dice chance to fall.

This jug did once, like me, love's sorrows taste,

And bonds of beauty's tresses once embraced,

This handle, which you see upon its side,

Has many a time twined round a slender waist!

Days changed to nights, ere you were born, or I,

And on its business ever rolled the sky;

See you tread gently on this dust-perchance

'Twas once the apple of some beauty's eye.

Pagodas, just as mosques, are homes of prayer,

'Tis prayer that church-bells chime unto the air,

Yea, Church and Kaaba, Rosary and Cross

Are all but divers tongues of world-wide prayer.

'Twas writ at first, whatever was to be,

By pen, unheeding bliss or misery,

Yea, writ upon the tablet once for all,

To murmur or resist is vanity.