Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 08.djvu/60



Take heart! Long in the weary tomb you'll lie,

While stars keep countless watches in the sky,

And see your ashes molded into bricks,

To build another's house and turrets high.

Glad hearts, who seek not notoriety,

Nor flaunt in gold and silken bravery,

Haunt not this ruined earth like gloomy owls,

But wing their way, Simurgh-like, to the sky.

Wine's power is known to wine-bibbers alone,

To narrow heads and hearts 'tis never shown;

I blame not them who never felt its force,

For, till they feel it, how can it be known?

Needs must the tavern-hunter bathe in wine,

For none can make a tarnished name to shine;

Go! bring me wine, for none can now restore

Its pristine sheen to this soiled veil of mine.

I wasted life in hope, yet gathered not

In all my life of happiness one jot;

Now my fear is that life may not endure,

Till I have taken vengeance on my lot!

Be very wary in the soul's domain,

And on the world's affairs your lips refrain;

Be, as it were, sans tongue, sans ear, sans eye,

While tongue, and ears, and eyes you still retain.