Guess me its name and nature! 'T was, in brief,
White, hard, round, hollow, of such length, in chief,
-And this is what especially enhanced
My wonder that it seemed, as I advanced,
Never to end. Bind up within thy sheaf
Of marvels, this-Posterity! I walked

From end to end, four hours walked I, who go
A goodly pace, and found I have not balked
Thine expectation, Stranger? Ay or No? -
'T was but Og's thighbone, all the while, I stalked
Alongside of respect to Moses, though!

NEVER the time and the place

And the loved one all together! This path-how soft to pace!

This May-what magic weather! Where is the loved one's face?

In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, But the house is narrow, the place is bleak Where, outside, rain and wind combine

With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, With a malice that marks each word, each sign! O enemy sly and serpentine,

Uncoil thee from the waking man!

Do I hold the Past

Thus firm and fast

"Verse First: I said I will look to my ways

That I with my tongue offend not.

How now? Why stare? Art struck in amaze? Stop, stay! The smooth line hath an end knot!

"He's gone! - disgusted my text should prove Too easy to need explaining?

Had he waited, the blockhead might find I move To matter that pays remaining!"

Long years went by, when-"Ha, who's this?
Do I come on the restive scholar

I had driven to Wisdom's goal, I wis,
But that he slipped the collar?

smiled,

"Who toil and moil to eke out life, when, lo, Providence cares for every hungry mouth !" To profit by which lesson, home went he, And certain days sat musing, - neither meat Nor drink would purchase by his handiwork. Then- for his head swam and his limbs grew faint

Sleep overtook the unwise one, whom in dream God thus admonished: "Hast thou marked my deed?

Which part assigned by providence dost judge Was meant for man's example? Should he play

The helpless weakling, or the helpful strength That captures prey and saves the perishing? Sluggard, arise: work, eat, then feed who lack!"

Waking, "I have arisen, work I will,

Eat, and so following. Which lacks food the

Rich-pavilioned, rather, still the world without, Inside gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about! Queen it thou on purple,-I, at watch, and ward Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard!

So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me! Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we! Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face! God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have place.

II. THE MELON-SELLER

--

GOING his rounds one day in Ispahan, — Halfway on Dervishhood, not wholly there, Ferishtah, as he crossed a certain bridge, Came startled on a well-remembered face. "Can it be? What, turned melon-seller thou?

Clad in such sordid garb, thy seat yon step Where dogs brush by thee and express contempt?

Methinks, thy head-gear is some scooped-out gourd!

Nay, sunk to slicing up, for readier sale,

One fruit whereof the whole scarce feeds a

Only to prove this day 's the direr lot?"
Whereon the beggar raised a brow, once more
Luminous and imperial, from the rags.
"Fool, does thy folly think my foolishness
Dwells rather on the fact that God appoints
A day of woe to the unworthy one,

Than that the unworthy one, by God's award,
Tasted joy twelve years long? Or buy a slice,
Or go to school! "
To school Ferishtah went;
And, schooling ended, passed from Ispahan
To Nishapur, that Elburz looks above
- Where they dig turquoise: there kept school
himself,

The melon-seller's speech, his stock in trade.
Some say a certain Jew adduced the word
Out of their book, it sounds so much the same.

את הטוב נקבל מאת האלהים ,In Persian phrase ואת הרע לא נקבל:

"Shall we receive good at the hand of God And evil not receive? ""

But great wits jump.

ANYHOW, once full Dervish, youngsters came To gather up his own words, 'neath a rock Or else a palm, by pleasant Nishapur.

Said some one, as Ferishtah paused abrupt, Reading a certain passage from the roll Wherein is treated of Lord Ali's life :

Master, explain this incongruity! When I dared question It is beautiful, But is it true? thy answer was 'In truth Lives beauty.' I persisting Beauty - yes, In thy mind and in my mind, every mind That apprehends: but outside- - so to speakDid beauty live in deed as well as word, Was this life lived, was this death died - not dreamed?'

Many attested it for fact,' saidst thou. 'Many!' but mark, Sir! Half as long ago As such things were, supposing that they

were,

And dost thou credit one cup-bearer's tale,
False, very like, and futile certainly,
Yet hesitate to trust what many tongues
Combine to testify was beautiful

In deed as well as word? No fool's report,
Of lion, stag and spider, but immense
With meaning for mankind, thy race, thyself?"

Whereto the Dervish: "First amend, my son,
Thy faulty nomenclature, call belief
Belief indeed, nor grace with such a name
The easy acquiescence of mankind

In matters nowise worth dispute, since life
Lasts merely the allotted moment. Lo
That lion-stag-and-spider tale leaves fixed
The fact for us that somewhen Abbas reigned,
Died, somehow slain, a useful registry, -
Which therefore we -'believe'? Stand for-
ward, thou,

My Yakub, son of Yusuf, son of Zal!

I advertise thee that our liege, the Shah
Happily regnant, hath become assured,
By opportune discovery, that thy sires,
Son by the father upwards, track their line
Το whom but that same bearer of the cup
Whose inadvertency was chargeable

With what therefrom ensued, disgust and death

To Abbas Shah, the over-nice of soul?
Whence he appoints thee, such his clem-

"There we agree, Sir: neither of us knows, Neither accepts that tale on evidence Worthy to warrant the large word- belief. Now I get near thee! Why didst pause abrupt,

Disabled by emotion at a tale

Might match-be frank! -for credibility
The figment of the spider and the cup?

To wit, thy roll's concerning Ali's life,
Unevidenced-thine own word! Little boots
Our sympathy with fiction! When I read
The annals and consider of Tahmasp
And that sweet sun-surpassing star his love,
I weep like a cut vine-twig, though aware
Zurah's sad fate is fiction, since the snake
He saw devour her, how could such exist,
Having nine heads? No snake boasts more
than three!

I weep, then laugh - both actions right alike.
But thou, Ferishtah, sapiency confessed,
When at the Day of Judgment God shall ask
'Didst thou believe? - what wilt thou plead?
Thy tears?

(Nay, they fell fast and stain the parchment still.)

What if thy tears meant love?

ground

Love lacking

- Belief, - avails thee as it would avail My own pretence to favor since, forsooth, I loved the lady - I who needs must laugh To hear a snake boasts nine heads: they have three!"

why?

for

The twenty soldiers lied, he saw him stout,
Cured of all wounds at once by smear of salve,
A Mubid's manufacture: such the tale.
Now, when his pair of sons were thus apprised
Effect was twofold on them. Hail! crowed
This :

'Dearer the news than dayspring after night!
The cure-reporting youngster warrants me
Our father shall make glad our eyes once more,
For whom, had outpoured life of mine sufficed
To bring him back, free broached were every
vein!'

'Avaunt, delusive tale-concocter, news
Cruel as meteor simulating dawn!'
Whimpered the other: Who believes this boy,
Must disbelieve his twenty seniors: no,
Return our father shall not ! Might my death
Purchase his life, how promptly would the dole
Be paid as due!' Well, ten years pass,

--

aha, Ishak is marching homeward, - doubts, not he, Are dead and done with! So, our townsfolk

straight

What is man bound to but-assent, say I?
Rather to rapture of thanksgiving; since
That which seems worst to man to God is best,
So, because God ordains it, best to man.
Yet man
the foolish, weak, and wicked-

แ

prays!

Urges My best were better, didst Thou know '!"

"List to a tale. A worthy householder Of Shiraz had three sons, beside a spouse Whom, cutting gourds, a serpent bit, whereon The offended limb swelled black from foot to fork.

The husband called in aid a leech renowned World-wide, confessed the lord of surgery, And bade him dictate who forthwith de clared

'Sole remedy is amputation.' Straight
The husband sighed Thou knowest: be it so!"
His three sons heard their mother sentenced:
'Pause!'

Outbroke the elder: Be precipitate
Nowise, I pray thee! Take some gentler way.
Thou sage of much resource! I will not doubt
But science still may save foot, leg, and thigh!'
The next in age snapped petulant: Too rash!
No reason for this maiming! What, Sir
Leech,

Our parent limps henceforward while we leap? Shame on thee! Save the limb thou must and